Dec. 16, 2024

Why?....What?....Part 2

Show Notes
Transcript

In this episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast, hosts Rip, Mandelyn, and John continue their discussion on the challenges of shipping poultry eggs, contrasting it with the hand-to-hand model. They share experiences with postal delays and the use of improved packaging materials.

The discussion also touches on the variable hatch rates of shipped eggs, the complexities of poultry behavioral science, and the prevalence of misinformation online. The hosts provide practical tips for maintaining water supplies during winter and stress the importance of verifying information from trusted sources, concluding with insights on natural methods for enhancing the poultry's immune system.

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WEBVTT

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Welcome to the Poultry Keepers Podcast, where Rip, Mandelyn, and John are talking about poultry, from feathers to function.

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In this episode they finish their discussion about the things that furrow their brow in part 2 of Why?....What?....

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So let's let's join them as they pick up where we stopped in our last episode.

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I know how my birds did under my care and husbandry.

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I wonder how this genetic pool is going to do under somebody else's care and husbandry.

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So it's going to be very interesting to watch.

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This is all a great big science experiment for me to see if I even want to entertain the idea of shipping eggs anymore or stick to the hand to hand only model, which has worked in the past.

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John, I think if I had to make a choice right now, I would go with.

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The hand to hand model just because there are so many factors that can go awry when you're shipping eggs There's a couple of postal service hubs that man if the package goes through there You could just count on it being delayed by two or three days and that's not good for eggs in transit But I digress here,

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but I did promise an update several months ago about the egg foam That I was testing from Jennifer and yeah, her new improved foam is definitely better on the shipping.

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It's a denser foam and the eggs don't seem to slide around.

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Internally as much in the sleeves.

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It's got some friction factor that really helps and it helps.

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Mandelyn, you had the same problem before you put a slip of cardboard as well.

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They were slipping inside and the point of the top egg was denting the round on the egg below it and cracking them.

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So this extra dense foam is really helping with that.

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Yeah, love it.

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Great stuff.

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Highly recommend it.

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Not that we Jennifer is supposed to send me some

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at some point so I can try it out too.

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Yeah, fantastic.

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It almost seems like there's no rhyme or reason to knowing when shipped eggs are going to perform and when they won't.

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And I know my hatch rate's here, but the very moment I put them in a box, and it doesn't matter if they're going 500 miles or 2, 000 miles, The closer spot might see a hatch rate at 85%, the farthest away spot might see 10, 20, 30, 40%.

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It's unpredictable and that blows my mind.

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What I want to do next year is in the, when I get ready to do my spring set, is take 50 eggs and go to the post office in the next town over, so it's not the post office that I get sorted and delivered through, and ship them to my address so I know they're at least going to make it as far away as Burlington or Worcester and then come back to me and then set them alongside eggs pulled from the exact same batch and just see What really happens as far as losses just like I wonder what would change if I took

00:03:11.093 --> 00:03:16.704
them to downtown Cincinnati so that they didn't go through the two other stops locally to get to there.

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If I just drove 25 minutes to get them to the main hub, if that would change things.

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I don't know.

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There's a lot to consider.

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There's so much going on.

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It's hard to unpack it all, so to speak, but it's really a tough haul.

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And I'm hesitant to ship chicks because If I hatched them, I could grow them here, but if I put them in a box and lose them all, everybody loses.

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I lose, the buyer loses, everybody loses, because that was a whole batch of chicks that could have grown out here just fine.

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Yeah,

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so I'd rather send the eggs because it's not so sad if they don't all make it.

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No, it's just expensive scrambled eggs at the other end.

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Yeah, which

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has happened.

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We've all, you and I, shipping eggs back and forth.

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We made a lot of omelets.

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I didn't actually cook mine.

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No, the mail lady goes, here, this one's in a plastic bag for you because it's leaking.

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Oh, yeah.

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Thanks.

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Do you want to refuse it?

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Please don't.

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I don't want to take it back.

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It'll start stinking.

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No, take

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it, clean them off and see if anything will come of it.

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Yeah.

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Seems one of the biggest drivers in success

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is how fresh they are.

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It is.

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For me, anything I found a big shipment that I sent out Anything more than six days old from the day I shipped it was not viable at the other end.

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That makes sense.

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I aim for It was three days in transit,

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so nine days total.

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That was a hard, nothing more than nine days hitting the incubator was viable.

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But that was a pretty big trip too.

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That was about as halfway around the planet as you can get for those eggs.

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Here's a question for you.

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Why is there so much incorrect information about poultry online and why do so many people believe it?

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That's what blows my mind.

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Because my birds are

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special and I want to believe it to be true?

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And I can understand that's part of it.

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But there's so many people who are what a friend of mine used to call three year experts that get tickets, had them for two or three years, and they're suddenly an expert on poultry.

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In the martial arts, we called them coochie booshie, mouth warriors.

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Folks, I've had poultry 65 plus years, and I don't pretend to know it all.

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I'm learning something new every day.

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Just today, I had a question on a group.

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What makes the difference in males crows?

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Yes, they're very distinct.

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And I knew they were distinctive, and I've gotten to the point in life where I can identify pretty much the breed by the sound of the crow.

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That's the difference.

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What actually causes it?

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I didn't know, but I looked it up and I found out and we're going to talk about that Thursday night on Poultry Keepers 360.

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Oh, we've been here online chit chatting and I can hear one of my Chanticleers crow at Mandy's farm, and I know that's a shant, not a bresse.

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Yeah,

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he sounds different than all my other boys, for sure.

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I can hear Buddy from this window right here.

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And her bresses?

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Yes.

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Don't sound anything like my, even the females sound very different.

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The females, the shants have a nice little cooey, sorta, almost like a cat purring.

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And the one hybrid

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boy, he sounds different than both of them, but more similar to his dad.

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Yeah.

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So I wonder if it comes down the male side.

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Rip will

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tell us.

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That's right.

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On Thursday night.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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It can be caused by several factors and it's usually a combination of several and not just one or two, but genetics is one.

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Breed is one.

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Size of the bird is one.

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Sometimes I play copycat.

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Have you ever seen, or I should say heard, a hen crowing, or a rooster making the egg song?

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Yeah, okay, so that.

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I just thought it was really weird the first time.

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I actually got up to go get the egg, and I'm like, the rooster was standing there doing the egg song, and I'm going, dude, you don't do that.

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You have to do, they're a full support of egg laying.

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Yeah, but they,

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Those boys may have worn it out.

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When I hear

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it, I go get the egg because I want it still warm in my hand when I'm weighing it and putting it in the rack.

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I had an especially sassy Marans hen that would walk into the barn and crow and then walk back out.

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Okay.

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Just gets you stirred up, they do that.

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She hardly ever laid an egg and I just wonder if something was off in her hormones or what.

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Because I had ample males, there was no reason for her to step up.

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Because I think crowing hens are more common in flocks that don't have a male.

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And the lead hen will pick up that role, but I had ample males.

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There was no reason for her to step up like that.

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Oh, poultry behavioral science is a wow.

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There's people that do PhDs in this.

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They get to sit and just observe.

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And yeah,

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I do that for fun.

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They do that.

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They get paid to do that.

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That's probably fun.

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And get to tell us.

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So if you've never read any of their work, shout out to Temple Grandin.

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Rip has a copy of my book Ethical Livestock Handling.

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I cannot recommend that highly enough.

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Let's see.

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What else we got going on?

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As you can tell, folks, we're just trying to catch up here.

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It's fall or winter.

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I

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just started to say it's not cold here.

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Is it finally cold down there?

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All right.

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It

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was cold enough up here that I So whenever we have freezing temperatures for the daytime highs, I will put a heater in the hatch room and put garbage cans full of water.

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ahead of that freeze in that hatch room.

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Cause otherwise I have to lug water from the house and it's about 150 feet.

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So I'm on my third can of water and we thawed out enough to get it refilled yesterday and process some birds.

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Cause I don't like doing that when it's freezing.

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Cause my fingers go numb.

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Here's a helpful tip.

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If you're a homeowner and you need hot water or warm water out to your animals.

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Put a insulated hose especially on the outlet of your hot water tank where you would normally drain it once or twice a year and use that to pump the water out to your birds and you're going to drain and flush all the sediment from the bottom of your tank a lot more effectively and you're not actually pushing all that hot water through the whole house plumbing system and out your outdoor spigot and most people's spigots aren't plumbed for hot water.

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That's another thing you may want to consider in the winter is plumbing your spigot.

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to a hot water instead of a cold water tap.

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I'll bring that up to my husband, but I'm pretty sure he's just gonna say just remember to fill your cans.

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But cleaning, if you have a tank style hot water heater, cleaning the sediment out is one of the best things you can do to prolong its life and flush it out regularly.

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Oh you're

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supposed to do that yearly too?

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Twice a year.

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Twice a year?

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Twice a year.

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When you change your smoke detector batteries you should flush your hot water tank.

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Did not know that, thanks for sharing, John.

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I thought it was once a year, and if you skip it, chances are when it goes bad, it needs one of those new rods down the middle of it, not a whole new tank, just that rod.

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Yeah, you short out the elements.

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But if there's no sediment buildup, you're not going to short out your elements and your tank will last longer.

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We have an on demand, so it's not an issue anymore because it's constantly flushing itself.

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But hot water straight out to your birds.

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Things to think of when you're installing your infrastructure.

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If you're going to put in a freeze proof hydrant or an underground water line, then maybe you want it plumbed for hot in the winter.

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That's true.

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I can see some advantages to that.

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Whether you could do either or.

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Just by opening and closing a couple of vowels.

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Sure.

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I'm looking for ways to

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streamline and make my life easier on the farm.

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We're not getting any younger and things are becoming more challenging.

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When Rip had the question about why there's so much bad information floating around online, my thoughts on that is because they already have trust in the source and through that trust, they then parrot that information themselves that they heard.

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And it spreads through all the homestead style influencers.

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If they say it, it's true.

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Now there's even more people saying it.

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And a lot of myths can float around that way and make the rounds.

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And Mandely, Mandy, I honestly think that's what is the biggest problem.

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Perpetuator of that.

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I always try to validate everything I hear.

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Even if I trust the source, I don't have blind trust anymore.

00:12:04.698 --> 00:12:06.158
That got ruined a long time ago.

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That was rule number one in Navy Intel school, trust, but

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verify.

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Yeah.

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And I don't know if you guys have noticed it, but in my recent postings, when I write an article down at the very bottom, the last thing on there is I include.

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Three to five, six, maybe six references where they can go back

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and

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verify what I've been talking about.

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Hopefully that will make a difference for some folks.

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I don't know.

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Sometimes I'll even

00:12:32.203 --> 00:12:35.453
try to include a reference that refutes what I just said, too.

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I'll be like, oh, and FYI, here's a couple of references that completely refute everything I just said as well.

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You figure it out.

00:12:42.943 --> 00:12:47.244
Because here's another big takeaway that I came out of academia with.

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All research is biased in some way.

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So look for the bias, be aware that it exists, and take the data for what it's worth.

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But somebody had to pay for that laboratory or intern or that research to exist.

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So it's going to be slanted in one direction because of that investment in it inherently.

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Usually there's plenty of valid information there though, but just be careful.

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And you know how the game telephone works.

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One way to help prevent your waters from freezing is to put salt into a bottle of water and then put that into your troughs or pans.

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And it helps reduce how quickly it'll freeze.

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But that got translated somewhere, and people are going around saying, Just put salt in their water! No, you don't put salt directly in the drinking water.

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No, you put the

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salt in a bottle.

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What I saw recently was beet juice.

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Add beet juice to the water.

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Sure.

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If you want to give a mold, that beet juice is going to mold.

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Sorry.

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It's going to grow stuff as soon as it gets warm enough.

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And God only knows what it'll do to their poop color.

00:14:00.749 --> 00:14:01.759
Oh my goodness.

00:14:02.558 --> 00:14:04.158
Oh, talk about a triggering episode.

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Yeah.

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These things just don't get old.

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Do it.

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Man.

00:14:07.844 --> 00:14:10.114
But it's sugar water.

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It's nothing more than sugar.

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It's so sad that we have to take everything anymore off the internet that we read or hear or see with a grain of salt.

00:14:21.234 --> 00:14:25.464
Sometimes we have to use a whole box of salt, but it's just a fact of life.

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If you don't know, if you don't really know your source, don't trust it.

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Oh, and probably one of the worst things I saw going around recently was using crock pots on warm for your heated water drinker.

00:14:38.688 --> 00:14:50.448
And the next thing you know, you see the burn victims or the bird that jumped its whole body into the crock pot of water and then froze because when it got out, now its feathers are all wet.

00:14:50.719 --> 00:14:53.188
Just use the species appropriate.

00:14:53.989 --> 00:14:57.259
Water fixtures, don't use kitchen appliances.

00:14:58.058 --> 00:15:04.828
I know I've told you guys before that the Premier One insulated heated poultry drinkers are fantastic.

00:15:04.828 --> 00:15:08.019
They work down to negative 20 Fahrenheit, no problem.

00:15:08.818 --> 00:15:11.308
You just gotta train your birds to use a nipple drinker.

00:15:12.109 --> 00:15:15.658
See, I just go out there twice a day and swap frozen water for not frozen.

00:15:16.198 --> 00:15:20.499
Yeah, but I can't always get out there every day with fresh, warm water.

00:15:21.298 --> 00:15:31.229
So if it's raging a blizzard out there, which it does happen a few times here in Vermont I do rely on just plugging in that heated water out in the pen, not in the coop.

00:15:32.028 --> 00:15:35.038
I don't want to be, no warm water in the coop.

00:15:35.458 --> 00:15:37.458
And that's a recipe for disaster.

00:15:37.458 --> 00:15:40.918
You're creating humidity right where you want it the least.

00:15:41.609 --> 00:15:42.198
Yeah.

00:15:42.908 --> 00:15:44.278
There is one other option.

00:15:45.078 --> 00:15:46.548
You could move to Florida.

00:15:47.349 --> 00:15:47.859
humid all the

00:15:47.859 --> 00:15:48.158
time

00:15:48.548 --> 00:15:54.458
because in all the time I've been living here in Florida, I have only had my automatic water freeze up twice.

00:15:55.259 --> 00:15:56.519
Oh, like your mosquitoes?

00:15:57.068 --> 00:15:58.028
No, there is that.

00:15:58.828 --> 00:15:59.609
It's just two people.

00:16:00.359 --> 00:16:01.379
There's also that,

00:16:01.438 --> 00:16:03.719
but all the best news stories come from Florida.

00:16:03.778 --> 00:16:03.928
Where

00:16:03.928 --> 00:16:10.038
else you gonna go and find out that we have problems with falling iguanas down to South Florida when the temperature hits warm,

00:16:10.038 --> 00:16:11.629
only when it's cold and spiders

00:16:12.428 --> 00:16:13.058
alligators.

00:16:13.859 --> 00:16:15.359
Nah, alligators don't bother me.

00:16:15.719 --> 00:16:17.089
I like to go swimming.

00:16:17.599 --> 00:16:18.149
A lot.

00:16:18.399 --> 00:16:19.349
In nature.

00:16:20.139 --> 00:16:21.519
We don't have alligators up here.

00:16:22.028 --> 00:16:22.538
That works.

00:16:22.688 --> 00:16:25.259
Just don't float around looking like a log.

00:16:25.269 --> 00:16:25.989
They won't bother you.

00:16:26.609 --> 00:16:27.999
Or looking like another alligator.

00:16:28.798 --> 00:16:29.119
Okay.

00:16:29.918 --> 00:16:31.808
I would trust you considering your background.

00:16:32.158 --> 00:16:33.879
That is being good advice.

00:16:34.678 --> 00:16:35.288
I don't have any.

00:16:35.288 --> 00:16:35.599
What other

00:16:35.599 --> 00:16:38.928
triggering statements are out there that, especially this time of year?

00:16:39.149 --> 00:16:41.229
Ba Oh! Big debate.

00:16:41.739 --> 00:16:46.308
Give your birds corn to help them stay warm.

00:16:47.078 --> 00:16:49.538
Yes, but, don't overdo it.

00:16:49.759 --> 00:16:50.208
Don't overdo it.

00:16:50.208 --> 00:16:50.408
Don't

00:16:50.408 --> 00:16:51.078
overdo it.

00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:56.719
You want to get them too fat so that right when spring pops off, they're all too obese to lay an egg.

00:16:57.408 --> 00:16:58.918
If they got too fat over winter,

00:16:59.698 --> 00:17:02.288
then you'll have to force a molt right during prime time.

00:17:03.089 --> 00:17:03.739
Give them a little bit,

00:17:04.538 --> 00:17:04.769
but not

00:17:04.878 --> 00:17:05.229
much.

00:17:05.308 --> 00:17:09.898
Jeff's winter formula, we were talking about that on the Frigid Mix.

00:17:10.269 --> 00:17:10.558
Yeah.

00:17:10.568 --> 00:17:10.959
Yeah.

00:17:11.209 --> 00:17:11.568
Great.

00:17:11.628 --> 00:17:14.638
Just a, just an extra handful before they go to roost at night.

00:17:15.429 --> 00:17:17.679
Don't forget the fiber, if you're going

00:17:17.959 --> 00:17:18.338
to up the fat.

00:17:18.709 --> 00:17:25.118
Somebody also said that or asked a question, what could they use in place of corn?

00:17:25.919 --> 00:17:28.459
Because they have some corn allergies in their family.

00:17:29.259 --> 00:17:31.578
And Jeff's response was Barley is

00:17:31.588 --> 00:17:38.058
popular up here because a lot of reasons, but we have a large, originally it was a Scottish influence.

00:17:38.858 --> 00:17:39.909
settled in this area.

00:17:39.949 --> 00:17:40.068
I

00:17:40.068 --> 00:17:40.429
don't.

00:17:40.558 --> 00:17:41.489
A lot of barley farming.

00:17:41.939 --> 00:17:44.429
Ever seen barley down here in the south.

00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:47.778
Of course, we don't grow much in the weggrains down here anyway.

00:17:48.548 --> 00:17:54.278
You guys grow some dandy sorghum and sorghum's, it's basically a corn.

00:17:55.058 --> 00:17:57.298
Yeah, sorghum, milo, pretty much the same thing.

00:17:58.098 --> 00:18:00.068
Use it a lot in wild bird feeding.

00:18:00.858 --> 00:18:00.888
The

00:18:01.689 --> 00:18:03.598
other nice ingredient, hemp seed.

00:18:04.374 --> 00:18:05.374
It's really great.

00:18:05.483 --> 00:18:11.403
It's got a lot of really great natural oils and fiber, but the oils are the really good part.

00:18:11.943 --> 00:18:19.374
And if you've noticed your wild bird food blocks are usually very high in hemp seed for that reason.

00:18:19.384 --> 00:18:21.773
A lot of good energy for the birds.

00:18:22.564 --> 00:18:25.284
What do you guys think of using oregano oil?

00:18:26.084 --> 00:18:27.344
I've done it a time or two.

00:18:27.534 --> 00:18:30.453
If I've had a specific need for it I've used it.

00:18:31.253 --> 00:18:32.653
I think it does a pretty good job.

00:18:33.453 --> 00:18:33.763
I know why.

00:18:33.763 --> 00:18:33.943
I

00:18:33.943 --> 00:18:40.834
used it quite a bit and it helps a lot with their immune systems.

00:18:41.634 --> 00:18:46.163
And I had one develop an ear infection and it cleared it up.

00:18:46.913 --> 00:18:48.703
I did get a little bottle of it.

00:18:48.753 --> 00:18:52.663
I was building a, what I call a holistic husbandry.

00:18:53.009 --> 00:19:10.699
First aid kit for my flock, so it has things like oregano oil, I make my own garlic tincture switchel, just the things that you always have on hand, but I've never had to use it the highest I've had to go is the garlic tincture, look up that formula, that's great stuff,

00:19:11.459 --> 00:19:26.239
garlic, honey, oregano, I've seen blends that included some thyme oil and cinnamon, Stuff like that so that it looks like there's growing research that shows some of the natural methods being as effective.

00:19:27.038 --> 00:19:34.358
Why don't we just wrap it here and we'll be back with another great episode of poultry keepers podcast.

00:19:35.159 --> 00:19:36.108
Don't miss it, folks.

00:19:36.878 --> 00:19:40.169
This concludes another episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast.

00:19:40.429 --> 00:19:43.009
Thank you for joining us and we hope you enjoyed this show.

00:19:43.479 --> 00:19:48.509
Remember we'll be back next Tuesday talkig poultry from Feathers To Function!