How to Start a Poultry Breeding Program: What Every New Breeder Needs to Know

How do you actually start a poultry breeding program? Carey and Jennifer break down the realities of building a breeding program from the ground up — from picking the right breed and finding a reputable source, to understanding culls, genetics, and the five-year timeline most beginners don’t expect.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to evaluate breed traits, why visiting a poultry show beats scrolling Facebook, the difference between standard-bred, utility, and English-style birds, and how phenotype and genotype actually work. We share the resources that helped us most — including the APA Standard of Perfection, Kenny Troiano’s Breeders Academy, Brian Reeder’s color genetics work, and Sigrid Van Dort’s books — plus practical advice on housing, hatching numbers, mentorship etiquette, and keeping your own records.
Whether you raise chickens, turkeys, ducks, quail, or gamefowl, this episode gives you the framework to build a real breeding program without making the costly mistakes most beginners make.

Companion blog: poultrynerdspodcast.com/blog

Join Carey of Show Pro Farm Supply and Jennifer of Bryant's Roost as we delve into chickens and quail (mostly)  to help you enjoy your birds more and worry less. Backyard chicken keeping shouldnt be stressfull, let's get back to the simple days

Valley Hatchery is a proud sponsor of Poultry Nerds, find more at ValleyHatchery.com

Transcript

Carey (2) 0:38

So today on the Poultry Nerds Podcast, we are gonna talk about how to start a breeding program. And to me that is something that being a lifelong poultry enthusiast, you would think would be one of the simplest things. And you know it is until you actually realize what breeding is and what a breeding program looks like. It is. And when you start off with some birds, you're starting with, you're really starting with somebody's culls because if they were keepers, they probably wouldn't sell'em. And see that, that for me is why it's a hard thing to figure out. We talked about on a previous episode where to start, with started birds and a mature trio or something like that, or with hatching eggs and it's like a catch 22 because. If you have started birds or a trio, unless it's somebody doing you a solid because they met you and they really like you and the gumption that you have towards breed, which does happen, and they'll gift you birds. But I think Jennifer said when you buy a trio or. Pulls or young birds, juveniles, you're getting somebody's calls. They didn't want'em in their program and that doesn't necessarily make them bad. That just means they were simply cold out of the person's program. They could be perfectly beautiful birds, but they have either one better. They have one that's slightly. Different that they want to mate with somebody else. Yep. So there's various reasons We're not using the word coal in a bad connotation here. Yeah. Everybody thinks when somebody says coal, they're talking about whack their head off. Yeah. No, that's not it. Put into that's, for us calling is. Simply removing from the breeding pen. Yeah, so it could be something as simple as I have for, this is an example. So this year I've decided to not hatch more than 50 oring pens. I'm doing very precise matings to get a certain answer. I'm looking for certain characteristics. So the first 50. Are mine and 51 and above are culls, just because I have decided I'm only keeping 50. So the 51st murder might be the international best orpington of the universe, but because it was 51 instead of 50. I, you're gonna move it over into 50 and pick 48 and stick it on the other side. I was using that as an example, but I'm calling everything so what you're saying is you're only feeding out 50 50 birds. Correct. Everything over that, that hatches is going to a new home. Exactly. Makes sense. So those are culls because they, it's more than I want to handle this year, and so that makes it a coal or he looked at me wrong. That makes it a cult. For whatever reason, a bird can be a cult. There's more reasons to be, I've had him that. I didn't like their personality. There's more reasons to be a Cole than there is a keeper. Yeah, and you can there's a slogan is it slogan or just a saying that you can coal yourself right out of bs. And if you're picky enough, you can, right? So when I first started, I was told that it takes five years to put a breeding program together. And I was like, what? But yes, I would fully get on board with that as a true statement. Now, when I was, I just wanna preface this show here. When I was putting this slideshow together, this is not for. Show people only. This is for somebody starting out with birds of any species and inequality. Any purpose doesn't matter. It's, but when you put two birds together, you're breeding them for whatever your purpose is. So your purpose could be meat, could be for eggs, could be for yard candy, bug control selling at the feed store. Or taking'em to a show. Whatever your purpose is, it doesn't matter. It's your purpose. But you still have to breed them. So this is the slideshow I put together was to give you a platform to jump off of basically. Yep. All right. I like it. Good. I'm glad that you like it. This is this part right here is extremely important. You need to look at all the birds you can, all the turkeys, all the chickens, large foul, small foul, regular foul, even look at the little moderns and you've gotta figure out which one you love. And once you fall in love with a bird, I personally, I would recommend if you're. If you wanting to get some chickens for chicken for eggs, then that's your goal. Fine, do that. But if you're wanting to get something other than. Just for an egg, I would suggest you go to a show, and even if you're not, if you could care less about showing birds, you're gonna get a large, hopefully, representation of all the birds that are in your area, birds that live and can function in your climate. And you can see. What's there? And you can look and see if it's a orpington and you want a 10 to 15 pound chicken, or, do you want something that eats a little less on your feed bill? Yeah, I think that's a good thing to do is be familiar with them and pick something that you absolutely love. Once you find that bird or that species that you love, then it is time to look at goals. I think let me interject two things here. One is size. 100% of the people that come here to pick up birds are shocked at the size of my orpingtons. And so make sure that if you do want. Utility birds, meaning eggs and bug eaters, that you get utility sized birds, right? You don't need a bird the size that I have. When they're as big as the goats, you've gotta put that into perspective. And then the second thing is personality. You don't, if you have toddlers running around, you don't want what they call man eaters. You want something that, that you can trust. The 2-year-old to go in there and get eggs be so personalities have to match. Yeah. So yeah, that's important. So I send my grandson in to get eggs for me, and. He'll go right in the Turkey coop. I won't let him mess with broody. But anything else? Nobody bothers him in any of my coops because I, they won't be here tomorrow if they do. Yeah. So personality is important and some birds are more flighty than others. But I should have met put that header as breed slash species because I think I know, I'm not gonna say, I think I know that since I have started telling people that I don't have a fly problem, I don't have a mosquito problem because the ducks free range I think more people are actually looking to ducks. And, they give you a big egg. So if you want some eggs, you'll have to look for'em. It'll be like Easter every time you go look for eggs. True. But they're short. They don't fly much and they forage so. You really don't have to feed a lot. I was gonna say, yeah, you have to feed'em, but they're not gonna eat a lot so I have, just for perspective, of course, mine free range and they have a pond, but I have, what do you think about sixties, 70 ducks out there and easy. I throw them two scoops of feed out in the morning and that's it. And there's still some left. Yep. So don't think you have to stick with chickens, look at your, I actually got my welsh's from a lady who lived in town and had a three foot picket fence. So that, that makes a sense. But I will say once ducks are like chickens and other poultry in the sense that once they get used to you and they're comfortable and happy being around you they don't know what personal space is. Oh yeah. The ducks have no idea what personal space is, yeah they'll get all opinion business. Let's see what is on the next slide. This is right. Learn the details. So you do need a basic understanding of the breed traits to speak to breeders. Don't go talk to a breeder if you don't know about the chicken once you pick out or duck or whatever. Once you pick out what you want, learn about it. Do your homework. Because, like me personally, if somebody approaches me about my reds and they don't really know a whole lot about reds I'm thinking I got a flipper here. And I'm not gonna sell'em one of my birds. That's a thing. People call it gatekeeping, call it whatever you want, but there's been over 90 years worth of effort put into my line of reds, and I don't take that lightly. The person that I got'em from knew that I wouldn't take it lightly, and they knew that I would continue'em on and be true with'em. And if that is your intent. You want a specific breed or type, you need to do your homework and learn about it first before you go looking for a breeder, someone to source some birds for, because I can guarantee you it's not gonna be the person five, 10 minutes up the road. And if you approach somebody and offer them$5 for a bird, that's an insult. We spend a lot in feed. We spend a lot of time sourcing, selecting, working with, pairing up, moving around, maintaining pens. And all that stuff that, I wouldn't give you a chick out of the Hatcher for$5. And even if it's just an egg layer, but you know that you want an orpington or you know that this is a breast in the picture, and I put him up there for a reason, but because he's a good looking boy he is, but breasts have a very distinctive feature. To off the top of my head, I think they're the only ones with that feature. Blue legs. Does anybody else have blue legs? There's some game foul that have the slate colored blue legs. Okay. There's some other large foul that have them, but number one, it's not common. That is correct. Number two, if somebody tells you they have an American breast and it has anything other than the. Gray or blue eggs, legs, not eggs. They're creamy colored. But if it's got anything other than the darker colored legs, that is not a clean line of American breasts. So you can have, if you came to buy breasts from me, I would tell you that I do have a little bit of color leakage in the shoulders and. A good breeder, in my opinion, will know that the faults in their lines, and then they'll be honest about them. So I will tell you that, but I'm not breeding them to take to a show floor. I'm breeding them for meat for the freezer. And you don't eat discolored feathers on the shoulders. It doesn't matter to me. Now, ultimately, down the road. I would select a way for it, but type is always gonna be first. But if you were going to say invest and breast is an investment because it should be one of those things where you purchased one time and you have meat forever, essentially. You wanna make sure that you are buying. Breast spurts with that investment money. And you need a basic understanding when you go to the breeder to pick them up. And if they don't have blue legs, except for young ones, now they're not born, they're not hatched with blue legs. But they get'em around between two and three weeks. If you go though, and their breeders don't have blue legs, then you're not buying breast chickens. And just turn around and walk away. It's okay to say no thank you and walk away, and it's okay to not buy breast chicks straight outta the hatcher. That's a true statement. You wanna, if that's what you want and you wanna roll the dice figure out a way to delay going in a couple weeks. Yeah. And you'll see the, you'll see the legs start to go, but in doing that, they may run out. I've hatched out as many as a hundred before at one time. Or more, and I didn't have any within a week. And that's because one, one person wanted a large amount, but due to the distance that he had to travel, he had to wait till the weekend. And it is what it is, but you do what you wanna do for. For what you want to get your goals. Yeah. But all breeds have characteristics that are a given. So my orpingtons have pinkish white skin white, but the males can have pink, their hormones cause their legs to turn pink. And then the coachings had yellow legs, yellow skin. And so when all, we're not saying you need to be an expert on the breed, but just, write down say five. Physical characteristics of what that bird should look like on a sticky note and take it with you. And if it's not what you want, then say, no thank you, and walk away. If it doesn't matter to you, that's fine. It's your gonna be your yard. But if you want this particular thing, then write down at least five physical characteristics of that bird. So you wouldn't wanna go buy a braa, say with a single comb or a, an orpington with a pea comb. You know those, it's not gonna be right. So just be familiar enough with general characteristics when you go shopping. And look seriously. If egg layers is all you care about, then just find a chicken person and say, Hey, I'm looking for some good egg layers. What you got? And if that's all you want, then you know, they'll be like, okay, let me pick out the hens that I have. That are the furthest that I should have already gotten off my feed bill and let me hook this person up. Now you will get a deal like that. But yeah, so finding a breeder. That's the hard part probably is finding one. It is, it's the very hardest part because like you have up here at the top line, patience is key. And me, for example, I'm not a patient person. That's not my strong point. Also be prepared to transport. Either do it personally or pay somebody for transport. Now of course now we're talking about higher end stuff here. You may not wanna pay for transport of backyard mixes, but go to Tractor Supply and get those. I got my coachings in from up way far up north and I got my Orpingtons in Alabama actually. And but I don't travel anymore here, like for birds and stuff and people come to me for birds and it's always interesting be people's perception of transportation. So some people will think 30 minutes is too far. To drive and pick something up. And then I've had people make whole weekends out of it to come pick birds up and I'll sell them birds from several states away. I had somebody here just the other day that drove over four hours just to pick up eight quail hens. So I'll say this. I have a. Pair of birds that I do need to go pick up. It is the first time I brought anything onto my property in quite a while. And I've got it pulling up on my maps here, but last I can remember. It was about 13 hours. One way. Yeah. But to get what you want that's what you do. I'm going like San Antonio area. From central Alabama, like Birmingham's 877 miles one way. Do some bird transport, make some money back. I have multiple purposes for needing to go out there. That's not just one thing that I'm going for. I'm going to see if I can't cook up a distribution point out that way. So it's a multi business expense. Yeah, that's right. Yep. All right. And so if you are wanting to get like a very specific breed, then start with the best genetics you can find. But when I say best genetics, that means. The best for how you want to breed. So I, and I know that I pick on Orpingtons, but that's what I'm most familiar with. So you can have standard bred Orpingtons, utility Orpingtons, or even English style Orpingtons. So make sure that you know the difference between those three and. Get the genetics that you're after. If you're, if you wanna show, then you have to go to standard. If you just want orage in your yard, you probably just want English or utility. And if you want that big, fluffy, fun co, fluff out in the yard and we call it yard candy here. That would be English orpington. So do the English, orpingtons, cluck and crow with a British accent? Yes. They, what makes them English? They cock their head slightly to the, to look down at you. Do they? Do they put their right. Toe out. They hold their pinky up in the air when they drink tea, though. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. If I were to ever get rid of my standards, which I really don't see that happening, but should I ever, I have had Lemon Coco, English Orpingtons in the past and absolutely loved them, and every time I see Sheila's. Come up on my Facebook feed. I'm just like, oh, I just need some. So we actually, that's how I feel when I see a emu. But I still don't have an emu, so we had a, we have to control ourselves. Oh, I don't want to, they're so pretty. Lemon coco. I, the one I had before, it was a male and we named him Fabio because his. Butt feathers curled. Oh, wow. And he looked like big curls, and yeah. And he's, he was huge. Like he is every bit of as big as this boy. I got out here. Yeah. Fabio, so Fabio is his name. All right. All right. What's next? Start. Start with the best thing you can find and afford. Yep. I will say that when you start with. Birds like a proven trio or a proven pear. It is not gonna be cheap. Like we talked about five, 10 minutes ago when we were talking about timeframes in five years. If you pick out and get that good pair or that good trio you're advancing two to four years in your program. So it's cheaper. That kind of comes with a trade off. Yeah. Yep. And then you gotta multiply. Yes, it's all about the numbers. If you start with a pair I would say hatch every egg you get, yes. You're gonna hatch probably a couple hundred. Yes. And that gets in the fee bill a little bit. They, the first ones you hatch, you're, and it's probably gonna take a couple years to do that, but you're gonna be hatching out everything you can that first year. And then once they mature, you're gonna say, okay, do I like you better? Or your parents. And if the answer is the parents, then you set that one over to the side and you go through all of them with that comparative thing and the ones that you like that are almost like the parents or almost as good as, then you use those to weed out the others. And then you start selecting for traits and okay, let me put these together. And you may, if you hatch out a hundred, 200, you might wind up with 20 birds, maybe 30. That, that are good. You may get lucky. And hatch out a hundred that are great, but that don't happen every day. So I don't want anybody to be upset. But you do need to get numbers on the ground. Yep. Just birds wanna die. Birds wanna be sick. Birds you bring in are gonna be stressed. Yep. You've gotta make sure your investment is covered. And that's. That insurance is chicks. Yep. You gotta get all of them. You can. And especially that first year, you're gonna want to grow'em out. Because you're gonna, you need to see them at least six, eight months old before you compare'em to their parents. And make your selection for what you're gonna put together for next year. And then that second year, you'll be able to hatch out a whole lot more and you'll be able to fine tune your selection a little bit more too. But that's why, we say five years and it really depends on what you start with. Because if you start out with that, I'm not gonna say perfect pair, but dang near it. Then at that point you are two to four years ahead of the game and you just need size. You just need a lot of chickens to be able to fine tune your program and really make your selection for the best. And don't forget to keep'em in a couple locations in your yard. Never keep'em all in the same place just in case you have a predator issue a storm issue just for sickness, it doesn't matter. Make sure you've got'em in a cup, at least two different places to secure your investment. Yeah. And in those two locations I guess we probably should have talked about this when we're talking about picking something out. If you're limited in space and you're not very creative with grow out pens and building stuff and putting things together, then I would probably select a smaller bird. I wouldn't say let's get some. Bourbon reds and start working with those because you need to pin this 10 by 10 for two of them, three tops. So you need a lot of space for those, if it may be. If you don't have a lot of space, you may need. Spams to work with. So you can get those numbers, so you can get to the results that you wanna have. But like she said, you need to have at least two different pens. I like to have at least three'cause I like to have a lot of males by themself on one side of the yard, females on the other side of the yard, and then some mixed in the middle. That way, if somebody gets all your roosters, they didn't get all your hands, and then you go to the pen that's got both and get a rooster out, put'em with the hands and you can make more or whatever, always have a backup plan because like we said earlier, if you spend that money and you drive 877 miles one way to go get'em, then it's gonna hurt you. In the heart, in the wallet, and everywhere else. If they wipe out all your, one of your pens and, storms, like she said earlier, that's another thing because we've had friends that have had tornadoes come and just literally tear up everything. Hurricanes. And hurricanes, I know one guy that had he not had. Literally let eggs in his incubator, he would've lost all his genetics. When a tornado came through. Keep him out there. Yeah. He had gotten to a point where he was happy with his birds, but he said that he always kept some in his cooler to keep'em about 63, 65 degrees and he always kept some in his incubator. He said if I didn't need them, who don't want chicks, right? So they're easy to get rid of, but if anything happened, because he did not have a lot of space, if anything happened, he was prepared. So yeah. Multipli your investment. The a PA standard of perfection. That's gonna be, if you're wanting a bird and you don't know everything about it. That would be a good thing, a good place to start.'cause you can find out what a standard bread one's supposed to be, it's supposed to look like. Also, if you haven't been a chicken person in the past, check out the first 33 pages of standard perfection and there you'll find out what a pea comb is. What a rose comb is. What a split wing is. Yes, all kinds of weird terms. You can learn more in the first 33 pages of that book than 33 days on Facebook in. Any of the chicken groups. Yes. All of them combined. Now you'll get a lot of information out of some of the chicken groups, and some of them you'll get more accurate information than others, but. Breed specific terms, actual definitions that you're looking for, you're gonna get'em outta that first 33 pages to where you, you can learn exactly what it is when people use those terms and what they're talking about. So to me, that's a valuable tool.'cause once you figure out what you wanna do and what you wanna work with, and. All that stuff. Go down the rabbit hole and learn about chickens. You're here, so you obviously like poultry or at least curious. So continue down the rabbit hole. Breed clubs are the next. Definitely check out your breed clubs. Yeah. And I'll say this, if you find out that there's more than one breed club for a particular breed, and it's not like a northern region and eastern region, a southern region, but it's like multiple of the same breed clubs, then you want to go in and be on the lookout. Yeah, check out the group. Check out the people and see who they are, what they have, and all that good stuff. Do your homework. Because we would love to think that they're absolutely amazing people. In the chicken world and there is, but unfortunately in the chicken world even there's some people that are other people's culls. And they, there's people that have ill intent. Yep. So we want you to do your homework. Don't ask somebody else until you get to a point where you can trust that person. Do your own research until you reach that point where you built that relationship and be smart. And I am not trying to scare anybody away, but I had somebody tell me a long time ago, you better watch out in this world. And I'm not gonna say which particular world it was, but look, I got teenagers. I thought I could handle messiness. Kyle, let me tell you. Ain't nothing worse than an angry chicken person. No that's messiness waiting to happen. So check out apa, how angry, how about angry mini chicken people? Oh, that's even worse. But right here we got the American Bantam Association. That, Hey, Banham folks take their birds serious. Dynamite does come in a small package, and I had one tell me the good thing about'em is I don't have to feed'em as much. That's true. So I can have more. And I was like, Ooh, that is a good idea. Bannons have their standard look into it. If you choose some type of game file, they have a standard. I think turkeys most of those can be found in the a PA standard. Yeah. Ceras have their own, I think Ceras have their own, which that's just'cause they they're different. They're very different. They're interesting. Yep. Let's see. Please, folks, I'm gonna tell y'all this. Learn what the birds should look like and learn the building blocks of how to get it there. But if you don't wanna be a, if you're no interest in being a breeder, you don't care what your birds look like, you just want eggs. Please do not try to get and commit to memory the difference between phenotype and genotype. You'll find yourself with a migraine that's more confusing than the color pattern of DNA string in front of you. So the easy way to tell the difference between the two is phenotype starts with P. So it's pretty, that's how it looks physical, however you want to remember it in genotype is the genes. And so just remember it that way. But phenotype is if you went to a show, it's judged on, it's how it looks. Okay? Genotype though, that's how you get there. And I don't know that anybody can 100% mate a bird every single time and get the expected answer. There's too many gene combinations now can. As the line gets tighter, yes, you can gauge closer, like in the turkeys. My line is getting very tight in the turkeys and I'm almost where I wanna be. So I can see. Like Exactly. I can see pretty close to exact how it's gonna come out. But the other, the rest of it is just layers on layers and you have to understand it and study it and. I have down a rabbit hole. Yes. And so I put together some resources here for you to, if you wanna delve into genetics. And how to put'em together. These people Kenny Nu can tell you how to physically put'em together. He's got a breeders Academy where he's put together all kinds of resources. Breaks it down. You're gonna have to do some reading, but he breaks it down how to do it, what to put together. Brian Reader, he has a podcast. Yeah, he's got a podcast too. Brian has some good resources out there. Now this other person. All right, wait. Brian wrote a book and has a YouTube now. Okay. Yeah, he does. Colors, right? Yep. Color genetics. Okay. Singrid is color Genetics. She has written some books. I have them. They're a great. Resource that must have been in your English Orpington days. No, she does them all, but she, I don't have it, I don't think I have her book laying here on my desk right here, but there's other books. It's on the shelf right behind you. Yeah. They're not, they're pricey. See if you can find them on eBay. She also has a Facebook group. She's pretty active in there and she can help you. It's called chicken colors and genetics. And then, yeah, that is a good group. And then you have your mentors. So when we say mentors, like Gina is a common face on poultry nerds. So she would be somebody who could mentor if. You were interested in the same breeds that she has. The thing with mentors and I have some you, they're only as good as they feel like they're not wasting their time. Yep. The one that helps me with my buff genetics, I'm the only one he helps because he said I'm the only one that pays attention. So if you're going to ask somebody questions, which takes up their time and their knowledge, then be polite and listen. Yes. If you decide halfway through the explanation that this isn't for you, then be polite about it and either stop them so they don't waste their time, or just politely listen until the end of the sentence and then say thank you. But yeah.'cause a lot of folks do that because they love the birds and they're passionate about it. But if you waste their time they'll be through with you pretty fast. Yeah. Yep. And to get solid information is. Is priceless, really. So this is just an example. So I spent a lot of time learning about incubation. I had to study, I had to go to these classes, I had to do all these things and I do help people all the time in our incubation masterclass Facebook group. But. I only have so much time in the day for me and only and people message me and email me all day long and literally with the coupon, they can get the information for$8. So there's a point where I have to say to myself, for me, myself, if it's not worth$8 to you. What's the value of these questions that you're asking me? I took the time and we put all of this stuff together for you that you could get solid information with the, you did more than I did.'cause you actually took a college course. Yeah. And. Spent hours upon hours doing research and stuff like that for the course. And, that's a lot. So when you ask folks questions be nice to'em. And one thing that really bothers people is, and I'll say this, when you ask them questions or ask for help and then argue with'em. Yeah. I've gotten really good about just deleting the conversation. I just, people who come here and they like, spend any kind of time with me here, at the end of the day, they'll be like, how in the world do you do all of that? And I'm like you have to have boundaries. And I, people who argue with me, you love what you do. And, for me it was really hard to establish boundaries because I wanted everybody to like me. Yeah. But I realized finally, my wife convinced me that I'm not the most likable person. I can be pretty blunt sometimes. I know it's a shocker. But she convinced me of that. And, I tell people straight up, I say, look. I'll tell, I'm gonna tell you about my personality and I'm gonna work with you as long as you're working and with me. But when it gets to a point where I care more than you care, there's a problem and I'll be done. And, they understand that. So those are these, we got it a little bit digressed, but essentially what we're talking about is mentoring. Because we do help a lot of people and, and it, it does take time. So just be respectful of people's time when you ask them for help. And hey, I'll say this, I love all of our listeners. I do. But keep in mind that we love you individually, but there are a lot of you. Yes. So when you send us an email or when you send us a message on Facebook or something like that. If we don't respond within five minutes, don't be upset. There's times that I don't even respond to my wife that fast. So like earlier today, at one point I had to stop and look for my phone'cause I didn't know where it was. That's how long it had been gone, and I hadn't heard it. So well, so last Saturday I was sorting buttons, breeders and my phone wouldn't stop, so I had to put it on do not disturb. So hey, you're shorting birds, especially them little cute little suckers that make the crazy little noise. It's a delicate task. It is. And I wanted to enjoy what I was doing. And that's why we do it. So did you have the opera music playing too? Actually I had some eighties hairband music going. Nice. Even better. Yeah. Some poison and Guns N roses. Okay. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, so lastly, don't forget that there are a lot of research papers out there, and just to add to the incubation masterclass, I added as many research paper links and PDFs into that. As I used, I kept all of those links and put them in there. So you wouldn't have to go searching for them. Yeah. Ross Cobb, Vantress, those are all the big meat bird producers. A lot of their stuff is public information. I wanna digress for one second here. Actually this. Subject for this podcast was another listener request. We're getting pretty good at those. And she wanted to develop a breed her own chickens that were smaller but laid larger eggs because she wanted to feed'em less, take up less space, but she still wanted that large egg. And she was asking me like, how could she do that and where could she go for those resources? In her particular situation where it didn't matter what the color was, the skin color was the, all of those things, we were gonna not look to the A PA or the a BA, we're gonna be looking into production. And that would be where this research would come in. And the Ross and Cobb would come in and Avon in Europe is really big on that too. Ava Avogen. So I sent her down those rabbit holes there. But genetics of the chicken, that's a, an oldie but great book. I actually own that. It's right here. And Poultry Breeding and Genetics by Crawford is right here also. So I would recommend those. But there's lots of good books. You don't have to get. Today information on a lot of that stuff 40 years ago. They've been doing That would be fine. Yeah. They've been doing that a long time. The stuff that you want up to date about would be more incubation because the machinery is always changing. Definitely. And then the meat bird stuff. And then also keep in mind that the more money drives stuff, so the more money to be made in a subject, the more research there is about it. So if you want to know what the egg size of a modern game bird should be, you're probably not gonna find any money behind that research. But you wanna know what the ideal egg size of a. Ross 500 broiler is going to be, then there's probably a billion dollars of research behind that, and it's a little different than a Ross 5 0 9 and what it would be, but right. They spend millions upon millions researching down to, they, they have those birds as breeders. And there's a specific way that they have found to maintain those breeders. Temperature lighting, humidity, feed, how much feed, how much water, pH of the water, all of that stuff to give the optimum time for everything to have the best hatch rate because that's their money. Do you wanna know some little tidbit of information I learned in my class that I just filed away that you made me remember? In the layer, houses have to go to the eggs have to be moved to the hatchery. And then from the hatchery, they have to be moved to the poultry houses. They actually analyze the roads for potholes. Yeah. So they can check for vibration of the eggs and they know exactly how those trucks should be calibrated and how the roads should be fixed and how long they'll be in the trailer. And there's so much science and money, the amount of money spent on. Meat birds is unfathomable. Really? Yes. So it's a lot, but every drumstick you get from KFC or every pack of whatever you get from the grocery store, that's money. Exactly. And they need profit margin. And they gotta feed that sucker for six, seven weeks. And they gotta make their money back as fast as possible with profit to pay everybody. All right, so the last leg in research is your own note keeping. Nothing will compare to what is grown on your farm and your environment with your care, with your feed. It won't, that's at the end of the day, that's the most important data. Yeah, because. You can find stuff and learn from your mentor and all of that, but if you're not feeding the same thing that your mentor feeds, if you don't spend time with'em and care for them the exact same way, you're still gonna see different results. So make notes. I did learn that, making those notes, taking a ridiculous amount of pictures. Now with your phone, you can take your phone and take a picture and then go back and edit it and add text and put the wing band or whatever of the bird on it and the date so you know exactly when you took that picture. And to make it even. More of a rabbit hole. You can go to your pictures on your phone and when you start scrolling, you can see the search at the bottom. And if you type in a wing band number and that's in a picture, it will find it for you and it'll let you see the progression. If you put the number in the picture like that, you wanna know something, you're gonna be so proud of me. What so little backstory for all of our listeners. When we first started this podcast, I did not have Google Drive or anything. I had no freaking clue how to do any of that. Guess what I figured out the other day? What? You can download the Google Drive app and you can take pictures right into file folders right in there, and then label the pictures with the tag number. And that it doesn't gum up your phone. I'm proud of you. That would be jennifer@poultrynerdspodcast.com who refuses to buy a new phone. Yes. She does not have a 256 or 512 gig phone. She still has a iPhone, not even a 10. It has a dead spot on it too, where your thumb goes, and I can't scroll or click on anything when it's right there. Wow. But yeah. She went from being, we'll say, technologically challenged to a really great web person. Yeah. If you, I'm quite proud of myself. If you look at the poultry nerds podcast.com, that's 99% her. So she has come a long way in these few years. Yeah. Make sure you take notes, folks. All right. Anything else you have? I don't have anything like, I think we've covered all of it. There's one thing that I would like to add. Okay. When you think about housing and you know where you're gonna keep your birds and how many birds you're gonna have. If you wanna be like Jennifer and only have 50 birds, it's great. You still need to have enough space for about 70 or 80. If you are getting a chicken pen for the first time, or a coop for the first time because you want to have, six or eight birds, that's great. Get you a couple of eggs. It needs to be big enough for 15 because chicken math will turn into trigonometry before you know it, and you'll either have a ridiculous amount of pens that look way different. Drive your OCD up the wall, or you'll do it right the first time. Okay. I'm gonna add something to you. Did you know that I was doing companion blogs for all of our podcasts now? So not the same information, but additional information. Yeah. And that's at poultry nerds podcast.com/blog. So it's kinda like back in the days when you wrote notes. Yes. And then you got the PS at the bottom. Yes. So there's PSS for our blogs for, there you go. Our podcast. Yep. So y'all check it out. We've got a lot of resources over there on that website. Check it out. And you can also link to the li the video that we shoot here. See it from our website, or you can find our YouTube channel either way. That's right. We will see you guys in the comment section.