Aug. 8, 2023
Introducing New Co-Host, Mandelyn Royal: A Deep Dive into Poultry Keeping and Breeding
Welcome to an epic episode where we introduce our newest co-host, Mandelyn Royal. Mandelyn, a highly skilled communicator, writer, and video producer, brings a wealth of knowledge to our podcast and shares her lifelong love for chicken keeping. We delve into Mandelyn's specific goals for her flock, her chosen breed's uniqueness and the challenges she faces.
This episode wouldn't be complete without an in-depth discussion about breeding birds, a complex yet rewarding endeavor. Diving into the importance of being hands-on, Mandelyn shares her insights and experiences about the impact of various factors such as environment, nutrition, and husbandry practices on birds. We also explore the intriguing aspects of observing chicken behavior, a crucial component in making important judgment calls in poultry keeping.
To wrap up, we unravel the critical steps of starting in poultry keeping, including the need for a strategic plan and beginning the process months or even a year in advance. We emphasize the benefits of finding a mentor and conducting thorough research on your chosen breed. So, whether you're a novice poultry keeper or a seasoned pro, this episode promises to be an enriching experience, filled with practical and valuable insights. Join us in this fascinating journey!
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00:00 - New Co-Host and Poultry Keeping Goals
12:19 - Observing Chickens and Breeding Advice
22:34 - Breeding Birds
26:49 - Bird Impressions and Winter Care
37:09 - Starting Over in Poultry Keeping
WEBVTT
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Hi folks, and welcome to another poultry keepers podcast.
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We've got a good show for you today and coming up in just a few seconds, we're going to make a big announcement, day two.
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All right, you know the first thing I said we've got a big announcement and we really do.
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John and I were talking and we felt like we needed to Add a little more value and up our programming a little bit, and we thought the best way to do that was to bring A lady on board to work with us, because let's face it that we have a lot of women now getting involved in this poultry fancy, and we both immediately had the same thought.
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There was one person we certainly wanted to bring on and that's mandolin royal.
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We were so fortunate that she agreed to do this because you know she's she's a great writer, she does her own videos, or katie and orchard, if you want to check out her youtube channel, has some really, really informative videos there.
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But, mandolin, welcome to the poultry keepers podcast as another co-host, glad to have you here.
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Thank you, I'm really glad to be here.
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I love talking about chickens.
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That's my favorite subject Absolutely welcome.
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Welcome, although we've actually met once in the past.
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I stopped by your place on my way to South Carolina and, yeah, it was a great trip and that's what really fueled it for me seeing meeting you and getting to know your operation and your chickens and seeing firsthand what's going on on your farm Like we need to bring this person on at the resource, because it's truly inspirational to see what you're doing with this Line of chickens, which they're very specific and we'll get into in just a second.
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But you know, and you're right, I mandolin.
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I have learned a lot From your writings and your videos, and not only that I have been so inspired because you are such an inspirational Communicator that it really comes through with what you do.
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And not only that, you do a tremendous job with your bird.
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So John Less introduced mandolin formally.
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I think you got a few questions for, so I'm going to let you take it over.
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You betcha.
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So first off you prefer mandolin or mandi.
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Either one.
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Okay, thanks, they're almost anything that starts with an M.
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All right, great.
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I mean I learned it as mandolin because I've been watching your videos now for probably a year.
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But I some of the basic questions and I don't think I really got into this and watching your videos.
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But why did you decide to start keeping chickens?
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Well, wasn't so much of a decision as it was a natural inclination from a love of animals.
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And when I was a little kid I was visiting family in Tennessee.
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We went down there Twice a year and I had a great uncle that was Pretty well into poultry and I asked if I could have one when I was about seven or so and he said, honey, if you can catch it, you can keep it.
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So I went out there and caught myself a little pellet and I've just had birds ever since.
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But there was a whole evolution and how I kept the flock and what the flock goals were.
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It's changed Significantly since then because initially they were just pets.
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But now we're doing the whole breeding and the dole purpose thing and we eat from our flock.
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And you know, 30 years ago that wasn't a thing.
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30 years ago that wasn't a thought I had, but now that's what I live for those chickens.
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Well, that that kind of leads me to my second question.
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Is what?
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What really excites you about working with poultry?
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Watching the flock evolve and taking ownership in what I'm producing and why, and recognizing what they're supposed to be and going through the process.
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And it's a little bit of art, it's a little bit of Having systems in place.
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It brings together a lot of my favorite activities and then also it's our food too.
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It covers so much ground and what they're useful for that it was pretty easy to get sucked into it.
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So what are the specific goals that you have for your flock?
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I can break it down into Three different categories.
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So I still like to have Pets, but they're not pets anymore.
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They're not, you know, a puppy dog.
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But I do like to walk outside and see the flock out doing their thing.
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I like to interact with them.
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Sometimes you can catch me talking to a chicken.
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But then on the flip side, I'm wondering what value that bird has in the flock If it's going to help with the table traits or the laying traits or the breed standard traits and and working them towards their standard.
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That stipulates what they're supposed to be.
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But then also the goal of the utility.
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So there's three different functions there that I'm always looking for.
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And then paying attention to their health and vigor and making sure that they've got longevity and the ability to chicken well so that I can enjoy them longer, so that they can remain productive in the flock, especially If they're a favorite individual that passes itself forward well in the breeding program.
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So I ask a lot of them and I'm pretty harsh on them, and that takes a little bit of quantity To do that.
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So we've just been growing and growing until I found a comfortable groove with a flock function.
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Well, I've seen your operation and you have sufficient space to hatch out the kind of numbers that you really need to, especially working with your breed.
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Specifically, you want to tell us what's a little bit about the breed that you chose and why it's so special and some of the challenges that you have because of that.
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Oh gosh, where to start challenges or Well, what, what, what?
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I I haven't said it yet because I'm letting you take this.
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So yes, so what reason we talk?
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Well, I chose the first birds who did what I wanted the birds to do, because I was after a particular carcass type, but I needed the variety to be Breedable.
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I wasn't going to do a hybrid and reload from a hatchery every season.
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I wanted to own that whole process, from hatching egg all the way through processing, starting with being able to select my own breeding stock to guide them where I wanted them to be.
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So it ended up being sustainable first.
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Oh yes, sustainable that's the word when we could keep everything in house.
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So it ended up being the American breast.
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Out of a lot of different varieties, I went through several very quickly.
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Some of them I probably didn't give them a fair chance just because of where I sourced them from and I realized and some of them, the other varieties the amount of breeding work they needed.
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To get where I wanted them to be would have been an incredible time commitment and the American breast that first season showed me a lot of what I needed in that first season, so that to me, made it an easy decision because they were most of the way to where I needed them to be.
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Mandolin, I have a quick question.
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I know that you don't have any problem culling your birds, but how long did it take you to realize that culling your flock is one of the most important things we can do as poultry keepers if we want to improve our birds?
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Once I started seeing the undesirable traits.
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Even in that first batch I started with just 22 birds in the very first group from a local breeder in Kentucky and I had her block history.
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I know how she sourced them and I knew she was more of the propagator type rather than a net picky breeder type.
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So I was able to go through and look at the ones who weren't meaty or the ones who grew slower or the ones who were the wrong color, because there was some yellow leakage in some of them.
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So I took what was undesirable and removed those and then bred from oh gosh, I had that down to just a single pen of seven birds and I hatched everything they laid that first season and I did hatch from politics because I was in a hurry, I was hungry.
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So with further research, I'm always reading and looking for additional information, but it was apparent pretty quickly, just the birds showing me this is what you want, this is what you don't want.
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And the fact that the birds made it pretty obvious was really helpful, because I already went into it having an idea that it would be necessary just from my prior mentors and what they had said and the importance of sorting down and selecting through and using compensation mating for improvements.
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So, from your initial start, what percentage did you find you were able to hold back to breed forward that were good enough?
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Well, maybe 40%, because I was being generous, because I didn't want to make the mistake of calling myself out of a flock, and that's easy to do.
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If you get too picky too early, you won't have very many things to choose from later.
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You do need some genetic diversity to start with, Otherwise you don't have anything to select from.
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Well, it depends on the strength of the original line too, because you're picking up where someone else left off.
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So, based on the work they did before you came by them, it could be relatively easier.
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It could be an uphill battle.
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You have to hatch and see.
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So what are your goals?
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What do you hope to bring to the podcast, besides keeping us old men awake?
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Well, I'm pretty much like Palki with a stick and keep you awake.
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I'm hoping to just hang out with you guys and have fun talking about chickens.
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I've learned a thing or two over the years and I've probably got over 25 years of learning under my belt.
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A lot more to go, but I'm getting somewhere.
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Well, I don't think I've reached a point in my poetry experience, so to speak, or journey, even if you want to call it that, to where there's not something that I learn, literally sometimes every day, that helps me understand or appreciate or gives me a new idea of a technique to try.
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And that's a fascinating part to me, because I've always been a person who enjoys learning new things.
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And, boy, if you raise chickens long enough, you're going to learn a lot of new things over the years.
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Well, Mandolin and I, we banter back and forth and we always say for science, everything is for science.
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You know what?
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It's all going to the freezer eventually.
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So along the way, let's give the birds the best possible environment in life.
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Let's learn from them.
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I believe there's so much in observation and imitation.
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Yes.
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I spend a disproportionate amount of time just watching the birds.
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You can't spend too much time watching your birds.
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I wish people would just, you know, go out into their pen area, pull up a bucket or pull up a chair, a glass of iced tea and just sit and watch your birds.
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You will learn so much about type, you will learn about color, you man.
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It's just one of the most important things that you can do is walk the flock.
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One of the tasks that was actually assigned and graded in a animal sciences class that I took at college was we had to spend an hour per week sitting quietly observing our species.
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I was, you know, observing chickens and at first I was like you know and Howard.
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That's a pretty serious commitment, but you know I'm getting graded on it, so I got to do it and after you know, 10 minutes and everybody calms down and forgets you're there and they go back about their lives.
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You can learn a lot by just sitting there and observing.
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It was.
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It was a real eye-opening experience.
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So I do recommend that Just take your cup of coffee or tea after they've been fed and just sit down and let them forget about you, don't you know?
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Call them up and feed them, scratch and give them attention.
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Let them forget about you.
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And that's what they do.
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Let them be chicken.
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You'll learn not only about chicken behavior in general, but also you're going to learn a lot about those individual birds and pretty soon you'll get to the point where your eye can just go over a flock and you can pick out the top 10% pretty easily.
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Well, there's birds I recognize just by the way they run, the way they back and forth, and I'm like, oh, that's Laverne, because she's wide and sluffy and you know, I just recognize that.
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And then Vandalin observed some pretty good behavior on the part of some other birds this morning.
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Oh yeah, I'm glad somebody else saw that, because most people don't believe that those birds will do that.
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Well, I put them into a pen with a similar-aged American breast.
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So there's these two oh they're what?
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Three or four weeks older than who I put them with.
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So immediately they went in there and told everyone they were the boss, but they were very polite about it, and they've been in that pen now for a little over a week.
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And this morning when I went out there, one of them was running with a mouse in her beak trying to protect it from her sister, and they were very cutthroat on who was going to have possession of this little mouse they had caught.
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I tried to get a picture of it and she just kept running and hiding.
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Because I needed proof to show you, john, I'm street novel, but proof is always good.
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Meanwhile, my birds were standing there watching, going, what are these girls doing?
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But because yours had already staked their claim on the dominance, they weren't going to jump in and argue with them over it, so they were just watching.
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So then, as I watch them, watch them I'm wondering well, are these two then going to teach mine the value of going through?
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And do that, because the birds, they learn a lot from each other.
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Absolutely.
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So I'm hoping your two dinosaur birds are going to teach mine to go back to their roots a little more and hunt for their but the interesting thing is those birds were raised as chicks with no elder birds around them, and when I restarted my line it was all as hatching eggs from my breeder.
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So that is not a learned behavior, instinctual.
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Well, I don't know if that's a learned behavior or not.
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Did one do it and they figured out, hey, we can eat this thing.
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And so now they all do it.
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I don't know when or how that started happening with these birds, but I'm always finding half of a dead chipmunk or mouse or snake out in.
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Anybody who tries to come in their run is out.
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Oh, so they go for big game too.
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Well, around here we have the red squirrels, which they'll take out, chipmunks, they'll take out mice, of course, and we don't have any venomous snakes in Vermont, so we don't need to worry about that.
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Yes, I've seen them feasting on a garden snake, and it's not for lack of amino acids.
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They get an amazing diet.
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They're not wanting for anything, they're just.
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They take offense to other things trying to steal their food, I guess I had a buff coaching cockerel one time and I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.
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There was a rat came dashing out of the orange grove making a beeline for the Barn and that that coaching cockerel ran that rat down, killed him and hauled him off in 80 and, far as I know, he'd never seen anybody do that before.
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And For me that's, that's a huge breeding factor because we have ermine and mink down at the culvert and they do come up and I have lost a lot of birds to predation from them.
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But I have not lost any of the chantichlera to ermine ermink.
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I've lost them to foxes and skunks.
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But you know that's natural selection as well.
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What I have left they've.
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They've proved, at least to me, that they could survive.
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And that's good.
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In a flock, the survivability Is more than just keeping them safe, but how they have the instincts to keep themselves safe too, and if they keep an eye on the sky for aerial predators, if they are Constantly putting their head up from being out on pasture and eating.
00:17:45.569 --> 00:17:56.577
They seem to have a Watch bird, one who spends the most time Looking around, and they also take turns with that too.
00:17:56.917 --> 00:17:58.702
Yes and it's not always the male.
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Sometimes there's a head female too, who will keep a stronger eye out and she might actually be the one to start the alerting, and Then the male sometimes will take over.
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I've got a short video Somewhere of a hawk flying over and all of my males does.
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Right where they were ready to go.
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They were all fluffed up.
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They started calling, all the hens made a mad dash and went back into their barn pens, but the boys stayed out there and waited like come on, hawk, but let's do this.
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Yeah, it's.
00:18:33.873 --> 00:18:45.123
It's amazing what those birds will take on sometimes so now that you've had a few years under your belt With various breeds, what, what type of advice would you offer to somebody just starting out?
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Try to source your birds from someone that shares your goals.
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So think about what your flock goals are and then find who's producing the birds that are most likely To help you and your goals sooner rather than later.
00:19:00.758 --> 00:19:11.932
Because to have you know first, second, third season success or five to ten years of breeding effort to try to get them close to what your goals are you.
00:19:11.932 --> 00:19:18.942
You save a lot of time by Looking for someone who has the same goals, who's already done a lot of the work for you.
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So how do you find that person?
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That was a challenge for me.
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It's a challenge for everyone, because I'm not convinced there's all that many people that actually had clear and defined goals and I hope to see that number grow.
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And I hope, through education and outreach, that more people take their flocks more seriously, even if it's not as extensive of a breeding operation as what I have or some of the larger flocks out there.
00:19:49.664 --> 00:19:58.759
But getting away from mass produced birds with no breeding goals, it's a lot to sort through.
00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:15.156
So sometimes the advice I give to people, especially if they're worried about cost, is Start with a hundred chicks from wherever you can find them and then sort them down to what you're looking for, because you can take 100 birds down to ten and come out Okay for that first season.
00:20:15.156 --> 00:20:26.349
But if you start with ten You're not gonna establish a flock very quickly that way no, is it's difficult at best?
00:20:27.653 --> 00:20:28.354
And if you can.
00:20:28.354 --> 00:21:00.144
You know I was lucky to find a breeder who was able to pedigree mate my eggs for me and it's interesting that we struck off this relationship because most people come saying, hey, I want a dozen or two eggs from you I've heard you have good birds Whereas when I approach them I was like I need, I want to buy a hundred eggs from you, and this is why and you know, they were practically tripping over their coveralls because they realized that you know, this is somebody who's kind of got their you know cards in line and knows what they're doing.
00:21:01.190 --> 00:21:02.232
What do you think are?
00:21:02.252 --> 00:21:03.415
those yeah go ahead.
00:21:03.817 --> 00:21:08.112
Oh no, john, I was just gonna say that Y'all are right.
00:21:08.112 --> 00:21:14.544
There's very few people have clearly defined goals, as people just starting out and people who are trying to breed birds.
00:21:14.544 --> 00:21:23.714
But it's so important to have good goals and they can't be Simple, little things either.
00:21:23.714 --> 00:21:26.239
They got to be long-term, big picture.
00:21:26.239 --> 00:21:30.551
Don't just say I want to improve the egg production in my flocks, you know.
00:21:30.551 --> 00:21:38.118
Say something like I want to improve my egg production from 150 to 225 birds per hen.
00:21:38.118 --> 00:21:41.719
That's the kind of gold I'm talking about stretch gold.
00:21:43.771 --> 00:21:44.153
But that's.
00:21:44.153 --> 00:21:47.789
That's gonna take a lot of qualities in a breeder.
00:21:47.789 --> 00:21:50.276
The Mandy throw this back on you.
00:21:50.276 --> 00:21:57.481
What do you think are the qualities essential that a person needs to have to be successful at breeding chickens?
00:21:57.481 --> 00:22:05.653
Well, just the general Personal qualities.
00:22:05.653 --> 00:22:14.934
Like I know, I have to be Insanely organized, otherwise I get overwhelmed with all the data you go for a lot more data than I do.
00:22:16.211 --> 00:22:26.801
I'm a little Week in the note-taking department, but I use my my hands in my eyes mostly and I let the birds tell me.
00:22:26.801 --> 00:22:33.682
And Health and vigor really needs to stay at the forefront.
00:22:33.682 --> 00:22:40.602
But as far as the Individual breeders, you need to have the gumption to do your calling.
00:22:40.602 --> 00:22:53.883
You need to have the space to do your grow outs, having a row of cages for sorting and figuring out the differences and the similarities from bird to bird so that you can do your breeding stock selections.
00:22:53.883 --> 00:23:03.936
Because if you take a male, put them in with a pen of ten females and you didn't really look at them too close, you just put the the grip together without.
00:23:03.936 --> 00:23:07.494
And just how do I say that?
00:23:07.655 --> 00:23:10.935
blender breeding blender breeding.
00:23:11.830 --> 00:23:22.453
Yeah, the you can't bank on achieving glows that way, so being organized is a big part of it.
00:23:24.925 --> 00:23:44.281
You know, and I think, and Mandy is clear that you realize this, but for the folks listening, it's important that you choose a system and choose a method that works for you, because your individual situation is different from mine or John's or Mandy.
00:23:44.281 --> 00:23:47.964
You know, if it doesn't work for you, you're not going to follow through on it.
00:23:49.569 --> 00:23:50.031
That's true.
00:23:51.365 --> 00:23:53.906
And there is a lot about typical expression.
00:23:53.906 --> 00:24:13.984
We can take the exact same eggs from the exact same birds and ship them you know four different areas of the country and grow them out, and they're they're all going to express the same to a certain extent, but they're all going to express slightly differently based upon the husbandry practices of the poultry keeper, the environment that they're being raised in, the access to nutrition.
00:24:13.984 --> 00:24:17.944
I mean it all leads to the bird at the end.
00:24:17.944 --> 00:24:25.984
So finding the bird that does the best for you in your environment may not be the same egg that did the best for somebody else in their environment.
00:24:25.984 --> 00:24:30.336
It's, it's a lot of phenohunting is what we called it in the plant breeding world.
00:24:30.336 --> 00:24:34.984
You know, pop a thousand seeds to kill 998 plants.
00:24:35.826 --> 00:24:36.587
Exactly right.
00:24:36.587 --> 00:24:43.439
And y'all touched on something without putting too much emphasis on it, and that's evaluating your birds.
00:24:43.439 --> 00:24:51.022
You've got to get those birds in your hand because you don't know for sure what that body is like.
00:24:51.022 --> 00:24:51.984
You can't see the body.
00:24:51.984 --> 00:24:54.984
You can see the feather outline, but you can't see the body.
00:24:54.984 --> 00:25:00.479
So you have to acquire the skills and and learn how to properly handle the bird.
00:25:00.479 --> 00:25:11.984
To tell how long is is the back, how deep is the body, how much distance is between the pellet that's something you only figure out by handling your bird.
00:25:14.251 --> 00:25:17.984
Mandy, how many times have you been asked for the dimensions of your hand?
00:25:17.984 --> 00:25:20.733
Five viewers.
00:25:22.358 --> 00:25:22.964
Oh, a couple of times.
00:25:22.964 --> 00:25:36.984
So I did do a video where I actually put my specific hand measurements on, because one of the pieces of advice I give to people because they say I give to people because they send me pictures of their flock going what do you think of this male or this pellet?
00:25:36.984 --> 00:25:40.736
And I'm like I can't tell you what I think of this bird from a picture.
00:25:40.736 --> 00:25:46.984
The most important part of it is what it feels like and what it handles like, and I can't see it in a video.
00:25:46.984 --> 00:25:55.964
I can get like a little touch of what is suggested, but until your hands are underneath those feathers you can't make a judgment call.
00:25:56.686 --> 00:26:01.984
So I hesitate online, especially on social media what do you think of this bird?
00:26:01.984 --> 00:26:20.894
I can't give them an answer because you've got to be hands on and I'm hoping, when the Ohio Nationals is going on this November, to have a couple of birds for people like Rip who want to see what I feel Like.
00:26:20.894 --> 00:26:21.984
This is what I'm feeling here.
00:26:21.984 --> 00:26:47.718
Hold this bird and I'll go home and eat those birds because I've taken them off property, but I'm going to bring birds that exhibit that kind of feel to see if that's something that had even been felt before, because I've been through a lot of birds that didn't handle the same and it's important for the dull purpose side of things, but overall condition too, because there's good condition and there's table condition.
00:26:49.766 --> 00:27:05.884
You know, mandy, one thing that I've I got to say I've honestly been really impressed about with the breast, is that to look at the bodies Just the birds bodies they don't look like they would be that media or bird they don't.
00:27:05.884 --> 00:27:19.964
But then when you look at the photos of the carcasses of the birds, I go I just can't believe all of that was hiding under those feathers, because they look like they would have Very small breast.
00:27:19.964 --> 00:27:29.894
The legs don't look all that meaty, but my goodness, when you, when you look at a carcass of one of those who it's impressive to have a lot of fluff, no no.
00:27:29.914 --> 00:27:30.195
I've handled.
00:27:30.215 --> 00:27:31.723
Mandy's birds and they're not fluffy.
00:27:31.723 --> 00:27:44.420
I'm wondering if the science experiment I've got going out of the garage or express fluffy or not, because they're being raised in a colder environment as compared to being raised in Ohio.
00:27:45.806 --> 00:27:52.193
I was always under the impression that cold hardiness had fluff under the main hard feathers.
00:27:52.193 --> 00:27:57.140
But the hard feathers on the outside were actually tighter because they could hold more heat in.
00:27:57.520 --> 00:27:57.701
Yes.
00:27:57.701 --> 00:28:35.355
But in theory they ought to still be tightly feathered, and whether they develop more fluff or not could be environmental, but that overall tightness shouldn't change much in theory and you're right, mandy, if you look at some of those heavily feathered breeds like Orpingtons or Cochens or Brahmas or Langians, the ratio of if you pull a feather and look at the individual feather, the ratio of fluff on that feather to the ratio of firm web on that feather there's sometimes there's a lot more fluff than there is webbed to the feather.
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