Ep. 20 - Backyard Poultry

In this episode Tyler and Anna are preparing for the 4-H Poultry Chain. They discuss raising backyard poultry.  Tips for raising chickens,  biosecurity procedures, dealing with aggressive roosters. It's all about backyard poultry.

Transcript

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Here we are again. Stone County Extension saves the world. And it's a special poultry episode. We got to pick up poultry chain chicks tomorrow to deliver them. Got to drive. It's said two hours, but it's like 2 1/2, I think, is what it'll take us to get there really. To go all the way to Lone Oak.

And this is the first time we've had to take two vehicles because we have so many kids involved this year.

So what the poultry chain is, it run through the 4-H, our 4-Hers, we have them pay half. Some counties do it different where they pay all up front and some counties may do it where you don't have to pay nothing. But a set of poultry chain chicks costs, what, this year, $27.50.

Yes.

And so we charge half that, $13.50. We did $13.15. $13.50 is what we charged. And then we use it as like a fundraiser, but it's also like an introduction project. But it don't have to be your introduction. Some kids, they've been in 4-H for a while and they do it every year.

And each kid gets a set of hens and it's approximately 15 to 20. It just depends on the hatch.

Yeah, we get these egg laying pullets and they raise them up and then it's supposed to bring them to our county fair and then we auction them off.

And pins of three. They just bring three and they get to keep the rest of them.

And they keep the rest of them. But we're getting those tomorrow. But we thought it'd be a, that's what we could talk about today is poultry and raising poultry. You've had more recent experience raising backyard poultry than me. I don't think I ever will have chickens. I've been, I've had my feel of them.

I mean, we both grew up with broiler houses, but laying hens are a lot more enjoyable than broilers.

If you say so.

I like chickens. I mean, if you think about a chicken, it's probably the most efficient animal that there is, because they can eat bugs and all kinds of junk. And of course, you want to feed them protein, and then they can lay an egg that you can eat, which is great, and make more chickens, or you can eat them. I mean, how many things do you have is going to produce something for you that you can eat a protein source?

A cow. But I mean, chickens are on a little smaller cell, but cow, you could get milk, then they could have a calf and you could eat that calf.

Yes, but that's like 2.

Maybe a goat?

You missed the point. The point was that they're efficient.

They're efficient. You can have them.

And it's very easy on a small scale.

And you can, most cities, you can then have them in your, yeah, they'll allow you to raise, like a backyard poultry flower.

Yeah, instead of throwing all your scraps in your trash, you can, you know, take it out there to your chickens.

But yeah, I guess. Yeah, you mentioned we've raised up, or we grew up, and we both had, our families had broilers.

My dad's goal was for us not to be chicken farmers.

I don't think that was my dad's goal.

His goal was for you to be a chicken farmer.

I think he offered it up to me that like when they had an up, they wanted them to upgrade or shut down. It's like, well, I was getting close to graduating high school. And he's like, he's like, I'll fix them up and you can take them over. And I was like, no, thanks.

My nephew helps grow for my mom and he's fifth generation chicken farmer. And I was just thinking, you know, chickens really changed, you know, the communities around here.

Yeah. If I was going to, say, wanted to get into farming, like the route that I would take, that's how I would go about it.

You wouldn't get a poultry house.

Well, if like, That's how I would say start. Get into it. you can do it on relatively small acres. It's going to be a lot of investment, probably. What's a house run now? We've said we were going to talk poultry. I guess we can get it to commercial.

It's surely around 1/4.

At least quarter of a million, if not more, to build up one house.

With all the equipment.

And has all the equipment. But then, you know, you're The one thing I worry about is the contract with the chicken company, the growing company. But if everything worked out there, you could theoretically, if you worked at it, you could make money, you have access to litter. And say you purchase property, you know, you're going to have to have somewhere to put that litter or sell that litter. But you say you buy some more property, some fields, you move into cattle a little bit. You got a fertilizer source because that's coming from your chicken houses.

And that's how people were able to really start doing cattle in this area truly is putting litter in. You've talked about some of the soil tests from places that spread litter.

Yeah, you can tell where their phosphorus level is still at the above optimum. And it's like, I bet they spread chicken litter on this for years and years.

Well, and used to, you did a full clean out pretty much every go. Whereas now you're just keeping that litter dry and and reusing it. So there was a lot more available to fertilize or to feed your cattle with back in the day.

But yeah, I remember though some stories if you're listening to the podcast. we like to tell funny stories. So here's an experience one time. So when chickens would go out, sometimes did they like you have a few that didn't?

It would happen. They'd get three or four.

Yeah, three or four get left behind for something. Yeah. Well, one time we had like three or four and one of them was a rooster that got missed. So we just kept them at the house. And That rooster, his name became Homer. He was Homer the Rooster. And I hated him.

And let me guess, did Homer hate you also?

He hated me too. I'd found this little puppy, I remember, and I was playing with that puppy one day, and Homer come up to me and just flogged me for out.

So rude, out of nowhere.

I'm a little boy and scared me to death. I thought I was gonna die. And I remember picking up a rock and get away from me, throwing it at him. And he kind of left me alone. I didn't hit him. But then one night we'd come home and I want to say I was like 10 or so. And mom, I'd left my backpack out in the car. And mom was like, go out there and get it. Well, I went out there and I guess his mom was like, Tyler's been gone for like 30 minutes. That dadgum rooster had trapped me in the van. Like I seen him coming. Like I walk out to get and here he comes chasing me. And I ran and humped in the van and like got trapped in there. And like I'd try to go out another door and he'd run around to the other side. And then I'd try to go to this side and he'd run around to that side. And so I was trapped in there till My mom came and saved me.

And saved you.

Yeah.

Never been trapped by a chicken, but I've been trapped on a trampoline by a turkey. The one that chased that trick-or-treater I told in one of the episodes. A lot of people have a traumatic rooster story.

Yeah.

Seems like the white, like, leggorn-type roosters seem to be rather mean.

Yeah, he was mean.

I have a mean rooster treatment that I do. I try to embarrass him. So I'll cut off all of their wing feathers and then I'll cut off their spurs. And then I hang them upside down a little bit or carry them around. And it seems like it just embarrasses them to death. But I usually don't have a lot of trouble with me and Rooster because I'm not really that scared of them.

Does it hurt them to trim their spurs?

No, I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to go down to the quick.

Yeah.

You know, you wouldn't want to get into the pink part. You just want to trim off the white.

Yeah, it's like cutting your fingernail.

Yeah, and you could use a flashlight to know. But somehow that always just embarrassed them really bad that I did that. But I think they sense who's scared of them. I don't know if that's research-based information, but it sure seems like it. I have to be.

Because I was terrified of old Homer and he, like, yeah, I just walked outside and here he comes, trapped me in there. What was he gonna do?

Spur you.

Yeah. Why? was he going to do it? What do you think he was thinking?

He was thinking that you were trying to dominate over his hens or something, I guess. He's big dog on the block. I had a rooster one time. He was beating up my other little rooster. So I took him over to Brandon's Granny's where all the feed spills were. Yeah. Well, I guess he bulked up and one morning I was feeding the chickens and here he comes running down the road. And he whoops that old rooster that used to beat up on him. He had built, bulked up.

He's like, I wonder what type of workouts a chicken would do, a rooster would do.

He was like doing arm lifts, kicking, I don't know, practicing his jumps with his spurring. Oh man, he whooped that rooster. I kind of, it was kind of funny, but.

Whatever happened to that one rooster you got given?

The one that I lost.

Yeah.

Well.

I'll tell about how I lost.

I'll tell it.

Nearly lost one.

I'll tell it. So I have my dad, he worked in, he was a broiler serviceman and worked in the poultry industry his whole adulthood. And he got me these nice, this nice plastic carrier that I still use. And it opens from the top and then you click it and I put them in it and I was going to get the other chickens to go take them to the fair to get bled. And when I arrived at my other destination, a very short distance down the road, they weren't in there. Never to be seen again. I don't know.

He jumped out, escaped. But the funny thing is where you, what the purpose, the whole purpose of that chicken was to go to the fair.

It was, someone gave that to my child for a 4-H to take to the county fair.

And when you all were bringing it to the county fair, he escaped.

He's such a pretty rooster too. He's like a Americana and real dusky color. I'm glad she didn't come back and ask because.

There's almost been a couple of wild roosters at the Mountain View City Park. That's where they bleed the chickens for the fair.

And that's why Martha says she doesn't get them out of the cage.

Well, then that's why I'm there is to help and grab the chickens.

I was there as a scribe.

So you have to bleed your chickens before they go into the fair, make sure you're not spreading any diseases, and we'll help out the lady that does it. And she like pokes their wing and gets a little bit of blood and then tests it with the solution. Well, I went to help this one family that showed up.

4-H, yeah.

And they had a bunch of like ducks and chickens. Well, I went to grab this one little fella and he jumped out of my hands and we spent how long?

20 minutes at least.

At least 20 minutes chasing that guy around.

I mean, we were running all over that city park trying to block his path, trying to this and that. Good thing he had a bad attitude because he wanted to come fight these other chickens. And that's the only reason he wasn't.

The kid finally like dog piled and like wrestled him and.

I was so glad they had a good attitude about it because it felt terrible. I think I'd about gave up hope. But he nabbed him.

He nabbed him. But so we're talking poultry today. And again, Anna has a little bit more experience racing some backyard layers.

Yeah, at one time I wanted to have like every breed there was there for a minute.

So speaking of, so let's say you're wanting to get into it or you're into raising poultry. There's different breeds. We'll have like breeds that are kind of what they call multi-purpose, which dual purpose that are going to be, they'll lay some eggs, but you could also say raise them to eat them. Whereas your hens that are typically just, they've been bred for egg production, which is the highline browns that we get for the poultry chain this year. They're a hybrid that have been bred for egg production. They're a cross between like a Rhode Island red and I think they have some white leggern genetics in there. But they're like a brown reddish chicken and.

Really sweet.

Yeah, they're very, like the white leggerns. They're.

Flighty.

Flighty, I guess.

They're good efficiently. And they're going to lay the quickest out of anything, pretty much, that you have.

Yeah. But so if you're getting into wanting to select for, you know, you look, what would be like a dual purpose breed? I've got it.

Yeah, why don't you pull up what you have? I usually would, My preference was less dual purpose and more just a hardy laying breed. Because if you're going to do a dual purpose, it's not going to be as easy as a broiler if you're going to be cutting it up.

This is information off our, I think we have like a breed selection for backyard poultry. Common dual purpose breeds, Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Dominique's, Delaware's.

Domineckers is what we commonly say.

Domineckers, Wyandots.

I do like a Wyandot.

Orpingtons.

You know, it's kind of personal preference, everybody. Once you've had chickens for a while, you kind of get a breed, a few breed preferences, depending on what you're trying to do.

Yeah. Some common breeds for like egg production, you got your leggerns, Ostralorps, sex links, Marans, Hamburgs, Americunas.

Americanas.

Americanas, yeah.

I like to have a variety of egg color. So I always would go for some Marans and some Americanas. I loved Orpingtons, Wyandots. And 2, I always like to have a few hens that would get broody. And so Orpingtons usually would, but Bannies seem to be about as broody as anything.

Yeah, in that fact sheet, it kind of has like their egg production, egg size, egg color, disposition. They say, I've looked this up that you can tell like the color of the chicken's eggs, what it's going to be by the color of their earlobes.

I've heard that, but.

I've heard that too.

Is that true?

I don't know. Do chickens have ears? You wouldn't think so, but that little hole, that little ear hole is what they're talking about. And typically, I think it's pretty good. Like if it's kind of a reddish color, then they're going to have like a brown egg.

I was going to say, I've seen red. So what is that?

And if it's more, I guess, a whiter, lighter color, it'd be white. I don't know what color, like a. I've seen kind of bluish. Blue earlobes or blue eggs?

Bluish earlobes.

Some maybe?

Generally reliable, albeit not perfect, according to Texas A&M Extension.

So we're going to get into, say, raising some chickens. What do we need to have? Well, you need to have space for these chickens to, you know, we don't want to pack them in so tight that they don't have any room.

Yeah, and that's going to be where your disease is going to come in. And the wet litter, you're overcrowding, you got wet litter, and that's where there's more opportunity for disease. And we talked about the only time we know of someone having worms is they were overcrowding and wet. And ventilation, you know, growing up in the broiler industry, that was such a big deal. But that's true for all chickens is they need good ventilation, not drafts, but.

Yeah.

And if you've ever smelled that ammonia smell that builds up from your litter, that's not great on the respiratory system. So you want to avoid that. And you want to avoid cedar shavings along that line.

I forgot to mention that last night.

It was on. No, it was on there last night on the slide.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, cedar can be toxic. So pine shavings would be better.

Yeah, straw. You want to avoid straw. hay, because it's going to get more caked up. You need more loose litter.

And then you can, you can compost that litter. A lot of uses for it. So what, let's see.

I think probably the biggest thing facing you starting out with chickens is critters. Trying to eat them.

That, yeah.

That's something that I've The most frustrations I've had with chickens is all related to critters.

Yeah, everything tastes like chicken and everything loves to eat chicken.

Yeah, Brandon said everything loves chicken. And he's not wrong.

I mean, yeah, that's what I told the kids last night. You're battling predators that'll get them during the day. Like a lot of hawks. Then At night, coyotes, raccoons, possums.

I didn't say this last night, but I was thinking about it. One time I had bought some expensive chickens. They were expensive to me. And if I'm paying $6 for a baby chick a piece, I feel like that's expensive. And this was like 15 years ago. And I had a nice little chicken tractor in it. was with chicken wire. And I had a snake get in there and they were too big for him to eat. So he killed them all, but he couldn't, even if he was able to eat them, he couldn't have got back out. But it just got in there and killed all of them.

Jerks.

I know. So chicken wire is not small enough to keep snakes out. So if you're starting a new coop, I would go with that smaller squared wire. That's been one thing that if I built again, that's what I'm gonna do.

Yeah, keeping, and like, it seems like raccoons will like reach in there, like through chicken wire and try to pull them through the chicken wire.

Yeah, and they will just kill them.

Yeah. So.

Cats, when we had chicken broiler houses, I remember dad had a cat that would stick its paw through and pull them. One of our 4-Hers had a mink killing his.

So everything will try to get in there and kill your chicken. So we want to make sure our coop's secure.

And you want enough bracing for your wire that a dog can't tear it open. And I've seen dogs get very interested in that, like neighbor's dogs. And so that's something to keep in mind.

What was I going to say? Oh, sanitization. Like just We don't want mice coming in there. Like if you keep your feed, if they're wasting a lot of feed, doing a lot of scratching and you're getting a lot of mice and stuff, that's gonna attract snakes.

I had a vole infestation under my coop one year because I had, well, I fed them right by the coop. My feed was secure from any vermin and I had a live trap, them bad boys, 12 of them.

What do they look like?

They look like a rat and a mouse kind of, but I had, and I had to get one of those tiny little live traps. And I forgot what I baited it with, but I caught them real easy. I thought y'all aren't the smartest because it was easy to catch them.

Yeah.

But every day I'd set my little live trap and catch those voles.

Yeah. Do you have any interesting things happen with your chickens when you had them? You're about to...

Yes, we're getting back into it. We've been out of it for a couple of years, building the house and being thinking about all the snakes.

Yeah.

They're for, well, I used to just take them somewhere else and then one of them kept coming back and kind of into the line there. Yeah, old Nubtail. And I thought, gosh, if he came 1/2 a mile back to my chicken coop, you have to take them a little further away, if you know what I'm saying. So I don't know if I should leave that in there. Oh gosh, I just like, I've been in the yard before and a hawk come down and try to grab one of my ducks. I mean, I was just 8 feet away and they came down. One thing I always kept a rooster for because they seem to die first. you don't need them for them to lay eggs.

Yeah, you don't need a rooster for them to lay eggs, but isn't that like you have them there for kind of the protectors?

Yeah, they're the protectors. They'll alert. One thing I like about watching a rooster is you can feed the chickens or they'll find feed and a lot of times they'll pick up the feed and drop it and just alert, you know, the group that there's food there. But like I said, I've not had a lot of trouble with a mean rooster. I tried not to keep one because I didn't want them to chase my friends and stuff in the yard.

I don't know. Kick off, football kick off.

No, there's some breeds, like there's one breed I won't keep because that rooster was untrainable. If I tried to embarrass him, it didn't. It did not matter. And I just thought, well, I just won't have that breed of rooster anymore.

Let's talk through, like, say we're going to buy baby chicks, what people need to kind of be ready for, what they need to have.

Well, what are you going to put them in and where are you going to put them?

Yeah, first thing, those chicks, they're going to need like a brooding facility that they stay in that you can control the temperature because we want to keep that least starting out 95 degrees. good rule of thumb is within their brooder around 95 degrees at the start and then every week lowering the temperature about every 5 degrees. Within that brooding facility you want to have shavings like we already mentioned, not cedar, but some sort of bedding material. And then our water and our feed and enough feeders and waterers there that We don't want to draft.

We don't want air breezing through, affecting their temperature.

And it's, you know, I told the kids last night, it's like, watch your chickens, see how they react. They'll, if they're too cold, they'll usually all huddle up underneath the heat lamp and or heat source.

Yeah, I've never really had, they really, like you said, they really give you the cues. So I've not had much trouble trying to figure out temperature because you just gradually back it away essentially, but be very careful with heat lamps. I've had some friends who've had some, major issues happen. So make sure that they're secure however they're hanging and the location that you have them, really be considerate of that and make sure and check your smoke alarms and have one nearby. And just if you have it in the house, be super safe with those heat lamps. And make sure they have enough space, because that's another thing that I think we've had 4-H'ers issues with is they need to have enough space to get away from the heat, but also they're not overcrowded and you're keeping that litter dry. And when you have that overcrowding, it's just going to cause that. And so I think that's been one thing is ventilation and not enough space.

Yeah. Water. Make sure that, you're providing clean, fresh water every day.

What is it? What did they say that that's like the most underrated nutrient?

Yeah, the overlooked, most under overlooked because you think, okay, I've I gave them some water and say we water them in the morning. Well, by the, you know, midday, they might be out of water. And yeah, Some one thing I'd read said that, during the hot summer months or when they're laying, like water, they'll consume like a majority of their water, like the last two hours of the day.

That's interesting.

You might not heard that. Before they go to roost. Yeah.

Which if you watch them before they roost, they do all gather around and then go in.

It wasn't the majority. It was 25%.

And I told them last night, chickens have kind of their hierarchy. So it's really good to have multiple sources as they're baby chicks, not so much, but as they're growing and depending on the number you have, it's good to have more than one option for food and water for them.

And with the food, it's good to kind of limit their access somewhat to where they can't, get in there and scratch it everywhere because that's where your feed waste comes in.

Oh, and they will too. And they'll poop in it. And you don't want them peck it. Yeah, you don't want them eating the poop. And those good little grid feeders are great. And one thing I had read, I've always heard to add sugar in the water, but I thought, well, is that an actual... research-based bit of information. And it is, but it's way more than I thought. So if you're bringing them home and you're just kind of wanting to give them a boost because they've not had water yet, it's 10 ounces of sugar to a gallon. So that's significantly more than, you know, what a basic Google search will give you.

Yeah, that'll give them a little bit of sucrose, give them a little bit of energy and kind of help them back up and make sure you dip, dip the beaks in water because they're going to be hatched and haven't drank for a little bit of time until you, can get them water. So as soon as you can, don't want it to be very cold water because we don't want to lower their body temperature a whole lot. Because I mean, if you got kids that are helping you with your project, they're thinking, okay, they've heard an adult say clean water. You know, if you wouldn't drink it, you don't want to about it and then they provide them a nice thing of ice water.

Well, fresh out of the faucet outside might be a little too cold for these chicks.

Yeah, so we want it to be lukewarm, room temperature, so we're not lowering that body temperature too much. I said body condition score last night.

Yeah, that tickled me. I was like, well, he's been talking about cows too much is what I told Heather. Yeah. Yeah, that made me laugh.

But so we're going to brood them, providing feed water, keeping it the right temperature until their feathers develop and they're able to kind of take care of themselves and maintain their body temperature.

Be careful with that transition too. I feel like that's really like an important time. That seems to be when problems can happen or if you're moving in from indoors to outdoors and you want to make sure they're fully feathered too not in that kind of in-between.

Stage and what the thinking back to broilers it seemed like it like what 4 weeks 3 four or five weeks truly get fully feathered in the that's kind of when they stopped looking like that chick and they look more like they're real feathers. Like 4 or so weeks. So probably...

Well, that's going to go along with feeding and what your temperature's been. And there's a lot of factors because that's one cool thing about the project is with the poultry chain is you'll see who gave optimal care.

Yeah.

And in some years, they'll, everybody did an excellent job or everything worked out well. And others, you may have some that are half the size or not near as mature. And so there's a lot that goes into being successful with chickens.

And so feeding, how did y'all feed or what did you provide?

I tried to do game bird. I don't like the price of it, but it does seem to get them off to a really good start, that higher protein percentage. But a lot of people, I think, don't feed starter long enough. So what was it?

Six weeks? Yeah, the first six weeks of their life providing some chick starter.

And that's, I think people, a lot of times will feed them the one bag and then move on to something else. And so you're needing to do that. Six weeks, that's an important for their growth. And I think about their legs and all those nutrients.

That chick starter is going to be a little bit higher protein than say your average like grower feed or a layer feed. That game bird that Anna talked about is like a higher protein, like what you'd normally feed to like turkeys and quail or pheasants or it's going to have like a 30% protein or a higher protein than just your normal chicken feed. A little bit more expensive.

I feel like they get further down the road.

It helps them grow a little bit better, essentially.

Yeah, and I'm getting closer to my egg production, basically, feeding them that.

But if you don't want to invest in that and you're just raising them at home, first six weeks of their life, that starter, chick starter is 18 to 20% protein. And once, you've got six weeks, you can switch to like a grower formula, a little bit lower protein, unless you're sticking with that high, the game bird feed. And we're gonna feed them that grower feed for, you know, from six weeks to 20 weeks. And then, once they start laying it around that 20 week, that's where we can switch to like a. layer feed that'll have a little bit less protein, maybe, but it'll have a little bit more calcium for that eggshell development. And that may be something that you even have to supplement.

I've always supplemented some calcium or gave it free choice. Brandon built me a nice little pipe that has free choice.

What do you like? Like what?

I like oyster shell and I've honestly had to mix it in. I didn't like there was another thing that was all that was available and they just wouldn't eat it as well. But I like oyster shell free choice next to a water source. Like I said, I've mixed it in before. One thing I've ran into with these more high production laying breeds is you can over push protein once they're laying and they'll start doing double yolkers and then they'll start prolapsing. So there is a limit on what you can do with these high production breeds as far as protein. So just keep that in mind, once they start laying eggs that you really don't want them laying those giant eggs. It's not good for them.

Yeah.

And then you don't want to lose your hens there. So something to think about.

So We've mentioned space requirements. You said purchase last night, you mentioned when we got to purchase, you'd mentioned something.

I feel like you need to have plenty of perch space.

Yeah.

And it's funny because, you know, like I talk about that little hierarchy, you know, they all kind of have their order that they, get on the perch, but that's really important to have enough space there.

Yeah, rule of thumb is like 6 to 10 inches of linear perch space per chicken that's housed.

And that's going to be a place where your litter's obviously going to build up. So if you can have some kind of setup to help, like whenever you're designing or working on it, some way to help keep that from just clumping up big time. Keeping that deep dry litter bed is your goal.

Yeah, and then in your coop, think about like space per bird. Like for Banny style chickens, they don't need as much space. I think it's like a one square foot per bird inside the coop. Like your average size laying heads need about a 1 1/2 square foot per bird inside the coop. Just thinking about that space, again, overcrowding is where we get to that disease, and that's going to be like a big focus. And, you hear about that avian influenza.

And there's a lot of cute little coop setups that don't meet that space.

Yeah.

So you're really going to have to figure that one out. and make sure you give them enough.

Yeah. And then...

And they'll get aggressive. That's another thing that we didn't mention is aggression with lack of space.

Yeah, when they don't have space, you know, the top dog, chicken, he's gonna, he'll pick on all the others for sure.

And whenever you do have that happen, you want to remove the aggressive one. Because they're a flock. They like to be together. So if you take one out on its own, it's not going to like it. And then you can reintroduce it later and it won't be top dog anymore. But one thing to have on hand, and we've already ran into this with some of our other hens, is you need some sort of blue spray. If you have chickens, At some point, somebody's going to get an injury or bleed, whether it's from another chicken or not. And if you can have a blue spray, I'm assuming they just can't see it like they can red. And they're just curious. They'll try anything. Chickens will try to eat anything. And if they see that red, they go for it. So having a blue spray on hand before problems happen, because it may not be here local, you know, in the rural areas. So get a hold of some of that. if anything, get some blue food coloring and some ointment and mix it. But, you got to cover that red or they're going to go after it.

And a big thing that we push as extension for like any type of poultry operation and any type of farming operation is having some sort of biosecurity. Did y'all, what was your plan?

For my house.

Yep.

So everything gets bleached. And my mom, she probably prefers us to not, if we've got chickens, we're kind of not, we're not supposed to really go on her place to spread amongst others. I worry about getting chickens from neighbors and stuff because I just don't want to spread any diseases. So try to keep everything clean. Shoes seem to be one of the big deals. I usually quit feeding wild birds. I had to quit feeding wild birds at my last residence because I was worried about that influence. So yeah, sanitizing, sanitizing your shoes, just trying to keep everything clean.

So we've, I don't know if it, who come up with it, but they're, I remember the old poultry specialist talking about it, but there are like 6 easy biosecurity procedures that just help people. And so first one is being able to recognize, signs of illness or disease. Their chickens are acting funny, or maybe ones, you know, Anna mentioned their flock. They like to group together in the flock and hang out together. If you have one that's kind of staying off by itself or just acting real lethargic or it may be sneezing or have diarrhea.

Or all just kind of humped up.

Yeah, humped up. You'll be able to tell, being able to recognize, okay, something's wrong. And then you isolate or quarantine that chicken and then...

For 30 days.

Yeah, try to figure out what to do. Clean and disinfect. take it to the vet, check on it, see what you may need to do. Mention in the quarantine, if you buy new chickens, like it's a good idea to not introduce new chickens right to your flock in case there is something running through your chickens or the chickens you're bringing in have a disease, you don't want to introduce that right away to your flock. So having a place to keep birds quarantined for at least 30 days is what's recommended to let all that play through and then introducing them to your your flock. We don't want to bring diseases home with us. Think about where you would go with that wild birds could be. Diseases, well, diseases that are going to affect your chickens also runs through any of these wild birds, wild, you know, ducks, geese.

And they're migrating back north right now. And we're in a flyway, so.

When you go out and you're around.

You're going, like you said last night, you're going fishing in a pond.

Yeah, going fishing. You're going to be, you might have walked through some geese crap or something. And so.

The old goose poop.

That goose poop got on your shoe and then you bring that home and go see your chickens. You could spread that disease. So we want to be sanitary, make sure we're changing clothes before we go see our chickens. As we're going through feeding our chickens, we're feeding the last, the quarantine chickens last. So we're not bringing, if they do have a disease, we're not bringing it into our...

Always worried about being the one if I got that avian influenza. you would not be the locked neighbor when all the chickens within a certain radius are gonna die. And I didn't want to, I never wanted to be that neighbor.

And that's how serious it is. So we've talked how broilers, people, that's their livelihood. And you hear these horror stories about how they find, say, this avian influenza, and then within a so many mile radius, all the birds within that, they'll terminate them.

Yeah.

And so people don't get paid for that. You don't want to be that person that causes it.

If you can help it, you know, you're doing all you can to be bio-secure.

Then #3 was don't just allow anybody to come in. Restrict visitor access to your poultry. Anna already mentioned #4, cleaning, disinfecting. Every time you're using equipment, it's a good idea to sanitize it. make sure we're changing our shoes if we've been out somewhere and not walking directly to our chicken coop. Controlling.

You can do some stepping into some bleach solutions or disinfectant solutions too as an option with your shoes.

Controlling vermin and pests is #5.

And you're gonna, you just better expect them. So you better be ready to.

Yeah, again, everything lunch, chickens.

And feed.

And feed.

And I don't offer feed all day. Like I have a time, which I've, for multiple reasons, I've done that. But if you have free choice feed all the time, that would kind of make it easier for vermin to be there.

And #6 is just knowing who to call. Who are you gonna call? Who are you gonna call for assistance? Here in Arkansas, you know, we've got the Cooperative Extension Service and then we have lines to our Dr. Dustin Clark. He's A poultry veterinarian. Call him on the phone and ask him questions or we can.

Put you in touch. And we've communicated with him before trying to figure out some issues.

Just knowing where to go to get assistance if you need it.

And if needed, if you were having some death in your flock, you could send it off and have that tested with a necropsy.

Yeah, having a necropsy test through the Arkansas Animal Health Division of the Arkansas Department of Agriculture, they have a state lab and they can do necropsy, see kind of what's wrong. that's like a worst case scenario is you're having a few die and you don't have any clue.

Yeah.

That's gonna, that'd be like the first thing I'd tell you is like, you're gonna have to pay and do a necropsy. I can't remember, I'm not sure how much they cost. Do you know?

I have no idea. I didn't know they cost.

I bet I could pull it up. Entertain us while I look that up.

Oh man. I've seen a chicken eat a snake before.

Seen a chicken eat a snake?

I had a, it was a white leghorn and it was my, they were my Christmas present. I got to order so many chickens for my Christmas present. And they were full grown and I was out feeding one morning and here comes a chicken with like an 8 inch long black snake hanging out its beak. And she had to kind of cough it back up and then she pecked on its head which I thought was very intelligent for a chicken. I think they don't have intelligence, they have instinct. And then it gobbled that thing down and her crawl, there's no telling how long it took to digest that, but she ate him. I think that's the most interesting thing I've seen a chicken eat. I've heard of them eating tarantulas and things like that, but.

Tori, she's into chickens.

I got some eggs from her the other day. She's got quite a few.

Yeah, I don't think she stayed out there and she didn't, she wasn't in the chicken house as much as I was. But I can't find it. Well, also I'm rushing. You can look it up online. I think there is a cost to it, but I can't remember. But doing a necropsy would be something if you're having death and you can't figure it out.

Well, and you know, you worry about what may be present on your property. So it's not a bad idea. Like he said, you can't pinpoint what's going on.

All right, we're moving into our last segment. We've done this one in segments. But we kind of got our marbles sorted.

I feel like my marbles are usually scattered about.

I was able to find a, the price on the necropsy test for a, they've got several options. Like it's different. Like you'd do it, say if you're a commercial broiler, you'd, it'd be like you'd send in several. And it's, but for like a backyard, it's like $60 per bird.

Okay.

But so, do your biosecurity practices or have, each farm's going to be different. Your mine might not look like Anna's. But having the, those six basic steps, we're not, we're able to identify when something's wrong. We're keeping stuffs clean. We're restricting access to visitors. We're, you know, keeping pests and vermin out. And then we know who to call. I think that was only five, but you get the idea.

We're calling, oh yeah, we're calling you, not Ghostbusters.

Who are you going to call?

Steve Sutton.

Yeah.

Oh, shout out, Steve.

But So you've raised your chickens and you're starting to get eggs. Again, that's around 20 weeks is when they'll start laying.

And some people are getting overwhelmed with eggs right now. And I was thinking about preserving eggs. And what's some of your favorite way to eat eggs?

I like, what is it called? Glass canned eggs. Is that what it's called? Water canned? No. Water bath canned eggs.

No.

What are they called?

Glassing eggs.

Glassing eggs. That's my favorite.

You're lying. He's lying. Yeah, that's not a recommended practice. And that's because of salmonella bacteria. Originally, back in the day, like you might find a 1910 fact sheet from extension about glassing eggs. And that's when they thought that salmonella was just present on the outer part of the egg. It's actually present in the reproductive system or can be present in the reproductive system of a chicken. or any kind of poultry, I guess. And so you're not going to smell it, taste it, see it. And they don't recommend glassing because that could be present inside the egg at a rainy temperature. What is glassing? So pretty much you're putting it in like a lime water solution. And also I have here another reason that I had not seen before why they don't recommend it. And it says short and prolonged use can include a severe change in acid level, blood, breathing difficulty, skin irritation, abdominal pain from eating those glassed eggs with the lime solution where they're soaking in that lime water. And so honest, for me, it's more of a quality thing too. Like I don't think that's going to, it's not going to be optimal quality. regardless of your feelings about salmonella or your feelings about room temperature storage and this and that, I just, I don't want a weird quality. It's like canning butter beyond just the fact that it's not safe. Like it's a quality ruiner to me. And so there's different opinions out there, but it's not recommended as a safe practice to water glass eggs.

So question. I've always heard like if your eggs are washed, they need to be refrigerated.

Yes, and I really don't recommend washing eggs if you can help it because of the porosity of an egg. And if you do, you don't want to soak it for sure, but if you just feel that you have to wash it, you're going to want to do water a little warmer so that it'll push that out. Like I said, it's not optimal because they're porous. Even when the bloom's taken off, so to speak, or on, they're still porous. So, I've heard sandpaper and things like that.

So we collect eggs from our chickens. How long could we leave them sitting out on the table? You don't really want to refrigerate them.

For best quality, you want to refrigerate them. And you want to keep them about 3 weeks. So for me, it's like I get them and I'm going to put them in the fridge immediately. Of course, like I said, you can have them out, but they're going to start, that air sac's going to start getting bigger. And when people talk about, you know, putting eggs in water to see how old they are, that's just purely that eggs or the air sac has gotten bigger. And so they may still be fine, but you know, obviously they're older.

How do you know when an egg's bad?

Well, I mean, it stinks.

You're going to smell it.

But I'm usually going to use my eggs up pretty quick. And if you're getting overwhelmed with eggs, your best bet for long-term storage, I mean, we usually would like make deviled eggs or do angel food cakes, things like that to use the eggs. But freezing eggs is a great option, but you got to do it right or they get weird. So you'll want to break them up, you'll want to whisk them, but you don't want to try to incorporate air. And then you want to strain them. And I feel like that's a key part with texture is putting them through like a little mesh strainer. And then you can add a little bit of sugar. I'll have to see exactly how much or a little bit of salt to them. And then that's why I have this tray here, this ice cube tray, because it works great for freezing eggs. So let me see how much it recommends. And you never want to freeze them in the shell for when they're going to pop. And like I said, they'll get kind of rubbery if you don't strain them. So you want to break them?

Why are you looking for that? My dad, when I heard this story when he was a kid, you can imagine when my dad was a kid that it was probably important to have eggs, that's your food source. Well, he said one time he went over to his uncle's house and they lived next door and he got in the chicken coop and like they got to throwing eggs at each other. He said he got a spanking.

That's terrible.

I found it.

I was like, it's right in front of me this whole time. Well, Brandon's grandma talked about, they would not, like, they checked every egg because, they may have not had chickens in a coop. They may have been in a barn with a bunch of hay. And dad said, you know, sometimes you'd find the nests and there'd be 20 something eggs. And she said, we never didn't check an egg.

What do you mean, check an egg?

They would crack it open to see how it was because it was so important to their, like you said, their survival, basically, that they had chickens and eggs. And Wayne tells a story about his grandma in Northern Missouri. They always had 100 chickens. And he said she could have one from getting in the coop to on your plate 30 minutes. She was quick. So she had 14 kids. And and you were growing what you ate. And so chickens were vital. But yep, they apparently checked every egg. They didn't think if it floated, it was bad. They were cracking it open. But it's recommended to put it in the fridge. And 3 weeks is optimal to have it. But if you're going to freeze it, I was saying, you know, you would crack it, you would whisk it without trying to incorporate air, and then you would strain it. And so to prevent graininess of the yolks, You can do 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar or 1 1/2 tablespoon of corn syrup or 1/2 teaspoon of salt. And salt's what I did because I'm going to typically salt my eggs to eat them anyway. And that...

Per egg.

Per egg. So per cup of whole eggs.

Per cup of whole eggs.

Per cup of whole eggs. And you would do that apparently before you would strain it. And then you're going to give yourself at least 1/2 inch of headspace because they are going to expand as they freeze. And I saw, I don't know what someone had froze the other day, but they didn't allow headspace and it cracked every one of those glass jars that they put in the freezer. So make sure you give yourself that. And then let's see what it says. there was information in here about 1 tablespoon, how much that is of egg mixture. So 3 tablespoons is going to equal 1 whole egg. So you're going to mix these together and that mixture 3 tablespoons equals 1 whole egg. And I've used them before. Typically when I've used a frozen egg, it's when I was baking something that called for an egg and it worked out great. I wasn't using them so much as fresh eating. But so I use them in a baked product like muffins or zucchini bread and things like that.

Makes sense?

So when you're getting overwhelmed with eggs, there will be times where you're not. So you can freeze those, like I said, not in the shell. Definitely need to strain them. Add some of that salt if you're not, have a low sodium diet to help prevent the graininess. And that's your best bet for long-term storage.

How do you, would you think frozen eggs would be good for egging someone's house?

No.

Might break a window.

Well, my dad told a story about when they used to throw eggs at Halloween. And I guess eggs and toilet paper and all that was real cheap back then. And biscuits, they would buy biscuits already. When they threw dough, they bought canned biscuits. Gosh. times they are changing. We had to make our own. Y'all had to make your own dough. Well, anyway, he said they were out throwing eggs and they threw an egg at somebody and they're blind in one eye because of it. So that was kind of the time to quit throwing eggs, I guess. So anyway, I wouldn't be throwing any eggs at anybody or their house.

I've never thrown eggs.

I've never. I may have. The person knew that they were having an egg thrown. Have you ever grabbed a rotten egg? No.

Oh, man.

Like a rotten egg will like dance. Like you can feel the pressure in it. So like say I had a, I should have candled or like, well, one time I found a nest where a hen had just started setting on eggs. And then she had her chicks hatch and she left it. And I was going to grab those eggs to get rid of them. And I could feel one dancing in my hand. So hurry up and threw it before it exploded and it'll just like pop. And I stink. They're stinking. And so she rotten eggs. Well, you know, I've ever smelled a rotten egg.

I don't know.

Like imagine an egg and it rotten.

That's how it smells.

That made me think of the surstroming. Yeah, a rotten egg's pretty bad. Yeah. But you definitely don't want that exploding on you. Yeah, but yeah, you could feel the pressure, the gas build up in them.

Well, what do you got coming up? See if anybody listens to this. If they'll come to our stuff.

Well, next week, we have a busy week. But two of the things we have, we have our asparagus growing in canine class. So You'll be demonstrating that. Your part of the community garden will be pickling asparagus. And then we have our first ever strawberry class. So everybody will be kind of learning with us. You'll kind of do like a beginner strawberries and then we'll be making strawberry freezer jam. And I'm going to be doing that with my cooking club group and then strawberry freezer jam. I'll be making that on the grow your own groceries with Christa Quinn in Faulkner County in May. So I don't know who the presenter on strawberries is for that, but I'll be doing the freezer jam.

Yeah, I'm mad.

I love strawberry freezer jam. If you cook a strawberry, you've ruined it, in my opinion. So you're not cooking it when you make the freezer jam versus when you can it?

We've got the second part of our Little Red River Beef and Forage Conference. Part 2 will be at JH Farms. in Romance or Rosebud, kind of outside of Rosebud. I remember in like there's a J&M nursery and it's JH Farms, I think. If you know you're listening and you hear this and you're like, I want to go, give us a call. We've got the address of how to get there. But we went and toured their, looked at their facilities on last Friday and it It's pretty good facilities. It's they how what we're going to do, we're going to be talking reproduction. We've got Allison Harmon. She's going to be speaking on bull selection, like visually looking at them. And then I think talking to EPDs. I think Dr. Kirsten Midkiff's coming in and going to do some cattle handling. If not, we'll teach cattle handling. Me and Danny and Brian.

Are you going to do the what not to do portion?

Of cattle handling.

Yeah.

I don't know. It's, I don't know if I'll be talking or what I'll be doing really for sure yet. We've got another, like a vet, supposed to have a vet come in and do talk BSEs doing bull, bull exams and go through that. I think they said that they actually, do one and actually get to look at it under the microscope, see all the little swimmers. And why that is important for, cow-calf producers should be a pretty good program. It's going to be a kind of an afternoon meeting. We're going to start at one and, or maybe not one, I'd have to look. I can't even remember. I think we started going, but we're going till like dinner.

Okay.

Till 5. Dinner's at 5 and then.

What's for dinner?

I'm not sure. It should be a good program. I hope people come.

Will it be beef? Is that what's for dinner?

I don't know. It should be because it's a beef program, but you never know.

They may eat pork.

You never know. We may do, they may do burgers. I've got that. And then you said the asparagus class next week. I already hate.

We over, we kind of over plan sometimes. Well, we just got all these things we want to do and we still don't get all the things done we want to do. Like we've been wanting to do videos and we've not had a chance. But yeah, we've got asparagus and strawberries. Of course, we've been working with our 4-H groups. Oh yeah, I'm gonna be, we'll have two going to the meat evaluation contest in Fayetteville. And then me and Brandon will be doing on Saturday shooting sports training for shotgun next week. And then you're gonna be teaching rifle. And so it's gonna be. And then festivals, Folk Fest is happening in Stone County next week. So it's a lot.

Yeah.

But it's good stuff. Good stuff.

April, is it April 26th? Master Gardener plant sale.

Yeah.

That is always a big hit. It'll be out at the.

Master Gardener greenhouse this year. Well, they have great prices and so it's always good to hit. Yeah, that'll be fun having it at the greenhouse the first year. Yeah. And the community garden.

Got any funny? Anything funny?

I don't know. Not very funny. I'm funny and like a laugh at my what I've done way, not what I say way.

Yeah, I'm not feeling very funny today either, but maybe it's a good educational episode.

You don't have a story.

Well, I don't know. I'm sure there's a story out there, but I can't think of anything funny. I've got, let's see.

After our Bigfoot episode, we got sent a few Bigfoot sightings.

Well, anything else we got coming up? It seems like.

We've got some more 4-H activities, but this week the big thing is poultry. And we've got O'Rama's coming around the corner in May, but we've got our WEP contest, meat evaluation contest. We had some kiddos this last week at the horse contest. So it's just contest season right now. And, but that's always fun and got kids learning and competing and honing in their skills.

Are they learning? Are they learning? We'll see.

I think they're learning.

If they don't win, we'll leave.

Well, I tell you what, every time we do contests, I'll learn.

Yeah.

If anybody's learning, it's me.

All right. I don't have anything else to say. I can't think of anything I've got come. Oh, I leads what I was like. That's what you've got here. Yeah, I laid. But that doesn't have to pertain to anything y'all got to worry about. We're going to Hope. Have you ever been?

I don't know if I have. I've been.

It's a long way down there.

The first time I've been, well, I went to Crater of Diamonds for Memorial Day last weekend, but I didn't, not last weekend, last year, Lordy. And I think I was kind of down in that neck of the woods, but I don't think I've ever actually just been in Hope.

Yep. That's where we'll be next week for I lead. Well, maybe this is a cool episode. I don't know. I'll be editing.

All about chickens.

All about chickens.

Get on that chicken train.

All right, cool beans.

I forgot about that phrase. Man, that had middle school taking over.