Reading, Understanding, and Applying a Written Standard-Part 2
Feb 13, 2024Season 2Episode 33
Rip Stalvey, John Gunterman, and Mandelyn Royal
Unlock the secrets of poultry selection with us, Mandolyn Royal, John Gunerman, and Rip Stalvey reveal the subtle nuances of bird evaluation that go beyond mere aesthetics. This isn't your typical farm chat; our discussion wades into the intricacies of a bird's natural carriage and its dynamic response to the environment. By understanding the importance of patience and employing tools like video analysis, you too can perfect the art of recognizing the ideal tail posture, an indicator of your bird's health and genetic potential.
Imagine a kitchen where every utensil has its place—this is the kind of efficiency we explore when discussing body capacity in poultry. With Mandolyn and John's expertise, we dissect the 'cinder block' shape, not just for its form but for the function it serves in egg production and the bird's protective instincts. We examine the concept of heart girth and its resemblance to the deep chests of thoroughbred horses, understanding that this trait is not only about physical appearance but also essential for feed efficiency and vitality.
So join us as we combine our love for poultry with a touch of science, sparking a conversation that will resonate with hobbyists and professionals alike, eager to explore the intersection of culinary art and avian science.
Unlock the secrets of poultry selection with us, Mandolyn Royal, John Gunerman, and Rip Stalvey reveal the subtle nuances of bird evaluation that go beyond mere aesthetics. This isn't your typical farm chat; our discussion wades into the intricacies of a bird's natural carriage and its dynamic response to the environment. By understanding the importance of patience and employing tools like video analysis, you too can perfect the art of recognizing the ideal tail posture, an indicator of your bird's health and genetic potential.
Imagine a kitchen where every utensil has its place—this is the kind of efficiency we explore when discussing body capacity in poultry. With Mandolyn and John's expertise, we dissect the 'cinder block' shape, not just for its form but for the function it serves in egg production and the bird's protective instincts. We examine the concept of heart girth and its resemblance to the deep chests of thoroughbred horses, understanding that this trait is not only about physical appearance but also essential for feed efficiency and vitality.
So join us as we combine our love for poultry with a touch of science, sparking a conversation that will resonate with hobbyists and professionals alike, eager to explore the intersection of culinary art and avian science.
Hi, I'm Rip Stalvin. I want to welcome you to another episode of the Poultry Keepers podcast. Joining me in the studio are Mandolin Roil and John Gunerman the rest of our podcast team, and we are really looking forward to visiting with you and talking poultry from feathers to flunks. Okay, we've talked about the backs. Let's move a little further down the bird and talk about the tails. You know you have to think about the size, the shape, angle of the tail, carriage and the spread of the tail, and those are all defined in the standard of the profession. So, mandolin, what's your thoughts on selecting for tail?
Mandelyn Royal:
So when I look at the breed standard, it's going to mention the angle of the tail, and the tricky part of that is the bird is going to change that angle as it moves around, based on how it's standing. So you can't make a snap decision on tails, and they also can change over time too. So what they look like at six months old might be different than what they look like at a year and a half old. So I'm learning to be patient on tails to see what they're really going to turn into, and I'm only looking for what's an outright flaw to a tail, like if it's a ride tail, split tail, something like that. You can see that earlier, but it might also show up later. So tails are something I'm just trying to be patient and looking at.
Rip Stalvey:
Yeah, I agree with you, it takes a little bit of time for those things to really develop and settle in.
John Gunterman:
It's really helpful to watch them just in their natural habitat to get an idea of where their tail is in general, because it'll change based on what's going on in the environment. If there's predators around, the tail's going to do one thing. If there's anything above them, naturally the tail set's going to drop. That's why I don't have a nice little viewing pen with a top on it like Mandi does, because when I did, I set one up with a camera so I could get a downward shot. As soon as I did, I saw my Chanticleer's tail drop maybe 10 degrees.
Rip Stalvey:
It makes a big difference.
John Gunterman:
So in the show. I'm sure that's what they refer to as coop conditioning, to get your bird to show properly because it gets accustomed to being in a cage.
Rip Stalvey:
You take a bird that's been running out and you put it in a show coop, it's going to almost instantly change the way they look. I know Sue Dobson's red champion up there at the Ohio National. If you looked at that bird in the coop you saw that his head was kind of shrunken down to his shoulders. His tail was going downhill instead of being level like it should be. That was because he was in a coop. Over the top of the coop was a piece of plywood because they had set band of coops on top of the large falcon. Anytime you do that, it's going to make them hunker down.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah. So it's also important to look at them in all their different areas. Don't only base your opinion off of when they're interviewing cage. Don't only base your opinion when they're out in the field. You want to see them in every scenario to get an idea of what's really going on. Then you want to find out what angle and shape and length and all of that you're supposed to have for your particular breed, because every single one of them wants a slightly different variation.
Rip Stalvey:
You bring up a good point there. In measuring tail angles we've used breasts for an example. Their back should slope from basically their shoulders back to the tail have a downward slope to it. Do you measure the angle of the tail from the horizontal plane or do you take into account the amount of slope in the back?
Mandelyn Royal:
At this point it's kind of both, depending on the overall balance I'm seeing from the bird With where they're at in development. I've got some other stuff to pay attention to first before refining tails, the longer they're not squirrely or toothy or otherwise wonky. It's something I'm looking for later in the actual particular angles I've got other stuff to fix.
Rip Stalvey:
The standard actually prescribed that it be measured from a horizontal plane, as if the back were level to get the proper tail that makes them. That put everybody in the plane.
Mandelyn Royal:
That could be back for later.
John Gunterman:
If your particular breed has a flat back or is prescribed to have a flat back, that makes it a little easier.
Rip Stalvey:
Reds are really easy to evaluate tail of them because they have that long level horizontal back.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah, that would make it easier.
Rip Stalvey:
You were talking about looking at your birds when they're doing different things. Sometimes I've just been known to go out there with a video camera and just turn the birds out that I want to evaluate and just to turn video as they move around, as they scratch. I want them to feel comfortable, to feel relaxed. You can do more to evaluate birds that way that any other way that I found One.
Mandelyn Royal:
You can go back and reference it later too, and you can check out some other details, like what their legs are doing, what their wings are doing, how alert they are watching their behaviors.
John Gunterman:
There's a lot to be seen when you're just observing, and then, if you video it now, you've got references to go back to if you need to and you were looking at a video of some shanta clear and we'll talk about this in a minute and you spotted something going on with the legs that I didn't see and I'm like, oh yeah, you do get flock blind. So, having somebody else take a look at something you know, you spotted it right away.
Rip Stalvey:
We talked about tails and evaluating those. Oh.
Mandelyn Royal:
I did have one more tail comment. One of the things I'm looking for is for the back end of the tails to be open rather than pinched, and then what that looks like is when you're looking from the backside of the bird, with like a head-on shot of the rear. If those tail feathers touch each other and it's real tight, that can indicate a narrowness that's on the backside. That's not just the tail Like. Once you put your hands on them you can confirm it. But I'm looking for Almost like a tinted shape there where there's an openness between either side of those tail feathers.
Rip Stalvey:
The old timers used to call that a teepee shape, because if you look at the bird from the rear end it's got that elongated V shape. You can rest assured that that's tied in To the width of the back.
John Gunterman:
That's mirroring the structure that's ahead of it.
Rip Stalvey:
Yeah, and you can look at the the leg how far the legs apart. The wider the legs are apart, the greater the width of the tail will be from side to side.
John Gunterman:
So the, the spread of the tail, is directly tied at least to the, the latter half of the body capacity.
Rip Stalvey:
You brought up something good, and that's the next thing I think we need to talk about is body capacity, what it is, why it's important and have a look for it, john. What are your thoughts?
John Gunterman:
You need the basic room for the organs to fit and do their Stuff, naturally. So, too tight of a body, too narrow. I equate everything to the kitchen. So I I see some things that are, you know, torpedo shape, like torpedo rolls. They're kind of narrow at the front and narrow at the back and, you know, broadest at the shoulders, but it's too pinched and that's gonna cause all the internal organs to be Stressed. I like to go for this cinder block shape where I've got, you know, a lot of room for the pen to have her organs and do her reproductive thing. And, you know, roosters can be roosters. They need to be able to defend their flock and Be able to carry themselves and ward off predators or at least warn of them and you know I had somebody asked me one time Well, why do I need to be worried about body capacity?
Rip Stalvey:
I said, well, body capacity dictates so much else that goes on in a bird rate of growth. It's a frame.
John Gunterman:
Yeah, it's what everything is built on.
Mandelyn Royal:
You can't put two pounds of poop in a one pound bag, as my grandfather Exactly Well, and remember that even during egg laying, once it's into the what do they call that? The calcification process, that egg is in there spinning and turning and moving down through the laying track and if it's tight then it's going to not function probably as well as it should and it's going to want a priority of space. That can affect the other organs, especially if you get them too fat. That further causes additional inside constriction and you might see some problems coming from poor structure, poor capacity.
John Gunterman:
You could have torpedo shaped eggs or you could have golf ball shaped eggs, and that's going to be a reflection on the body capacity.
Mandelyn Royal:
Well with where the laying equipment is. It's right up underneath the spine and you can even have poorly shaped eggs if it's pushed up into that back. So when the egg gets laid it'll look pretty normal. Until you turn it to one side that'll have like a flat spot on it.
Rip Stalvey:
Another thing is that body capacity is linked to. If you have birds that your females suffer from getting egg bound where they have, they can't actually lay the egg because the egg is so big and they have that physical blockage there between the pubic bones that can cause you some real problems. It causes you to lose some of those birds.
Mandelyn Royal:
You'll absolutely lose them, because if they prolapse once, they're going to do it again.
John Gunterman:
Well then, you need to lose them.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah, they shouldn't be part of the breeding equation, that's for sure.
John Gunterman:
I mean, nature selects pretty well for us. Naturally, we're the one, maybe the one's messing it up, because we're always, I think, trying to go, oh, this is a really nice bird, let's give her a chance, when you should have maybe put her in stoop out a long time ago.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah, there's not any one trait that is worth sacrificing the important things for. It doesn't matter what their head is like, what their comb is like, their color. That all is secondary, At least to me. It is when you're looking at those more important utility traits that help with their health and function.
John Gunterman:
So, Rip, there's a couple of terms that I'd like to clear up from the standard that talk about heart girth. Two or three more, I'm sure we're going to work our way around to.
Rip Stalvey:
Well, to me heart girth and I like to measure that. When I'm evaluating birds, I put my thumb on the very top of the back, up near the neck, and then I'll put my middle finger underneath the bird, on the bird's breast. That'll give me an evaluation of how deep that chest cavity is, and then I'll report that. So, top to bottom, top to bottom and side to side.
Mandelyn Royal:
Is that in front of the wing?
Rip Stalvey:
Yes, I do it in front of the wing, and the greater the heart girth, the more efficient that bird becomes at processing feed. Just being able to live, in other words, it's directly linked to the bird's overall quality.
John Gunterman:
The vital organs. They call it the heart girth because that's pretty much where the heart muscle is Right.
Rip Stalvey:
It's just like if you were measuring it on a horse or a cow or something like that. Heart girth is important there, just like it is important in a chicken.
Mandelyn Royal:
Well, like how thoroughbreds are so deep in the chest because they're working hard and yeah, the heart muscle needs room to work.
Rip Stalvey:
Heart, muscle, lung capacity. It's all tied into that. Hi there, poultry keepers. This is Rip, one of the voices behind the poultry keepers podcast. We're on a mission here to create a larger, more vibrant community of poultry enthusiasts and we need your help. If you enjoy our poultry conversations and insights, here's a simple way to support it Just spread the word and share the poultry keepers podcast with your fellow poultry lovers. By recommending us, you're not only helping our show grow, but you're also connecting more people with the joy of poultry keeping. So hit that share button, post it on your social or tell your chicken loving friends about it. Let's grow a larger community together. Thanks for being part of the poultry keepers fan. Now back to our show.
Mandelyn Royal:
Well, we covered the depth of the body and how important that is. If we're just working our way down the bird, then we get to think about the strengthness and the width between the legs, because that's what the whole body is standing on.
Rip Stalvey:
Yes, and, like I mentioned before, if you've got a good wide bird, you're going to have a well formed tail with a nice spread side to side and top to bottom, although I realized that's kind of a cosmetic thing. But that spread in the bird between the legs is related to heart, it is related to body capacity and you want legs that are straight top to bottom because if they're turned in, or cowhawk as most folks would say, that's indicating a bird that's wider at the top than it is kind of down at the bottom. Those are the ones that have leg problems, have trouble walking and they can also be bow-legged.
John Gunterman:
Yeah.
Mandelyn Royal:
They can.
John Gunterman:
And that's the opposite problem, and those are structural defects and those should not be bred forward.
Rip Stalvey:
Exactly and it's easy to evaluate. If you're watching your birds, if they turn and walk towards you, directly towards you or directly away from you, it becomes readily apparent If those legs are straight or if there's a problem with them.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah, the more you look for it, the more you see it. Yeah, and I've also noted that the legs and how they're set and where they're positioned on the body and if they're coming down bowed in, there's almost always a very steep and sharp V-shape to the keel. That's very narrow more often than not and that's a problem I've noticed on most birds of most varieties. I've tried Well, the underside of the bird is getting completely neglected.
Rip Stalvey:
Well, so many people really pay attention to the top line of the bird, or let's say the top half of the bird, because it's easy to see visually and they forget all about the. Equally important is the bottom half of the bird when viewed from the side.
Mandelyn Royal:
Well, for, purpose and for table. The underside is even more important if you're worried about what it's going to look like in a shrink bag.
John Gunterman:
That's the breast.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah, that's the part that's turned up for display. If they're narrow or pointy or sharp or otherwise not looking very meaty, that's the first thing you're going to see as soon as they're in a shrink bag. Absolutely.
Rip Stalvey:
And amount of body fleshing is something we need to touch on too, because if you don't have good body fleshing, you're going to have a really small carcass to eat, because that's directly tied to the amount of breast meat, the amount of thigh and leg meat.
John Gunterman:
Also your feed conversion ratio. If you're feeding and keeping and housing a bird for that long and it's only producing X amount of meat where the bird right next to it is producing 125% in the same time space and feed, who's more efficient?
Mandelyn Royal:
Well, and if you've already accounted for your environment, your husbandry methods and you've already ruled out feed as being either helping or hindering what's going on, if you know you're on the right track with everything but that fleshing still is not there, then that's when you start looking at the genetic influence. And if they're even going to be able to produce birds that have a better condition and I've experimented a little bit by taking a really meaty bird and breeding it to one that wasn't that great to see how that would kind of spread forward in the hatch results and when there is a genetic tie, you might only see 25 to 50% of them as being as meaty as the one parent and then the others are as not meaty as the other parent, which was interesting confirmation to not be tolerant on poorly fleshed birds for the sake of other trades.
Rip Stalvey:
I know it's not worth it. To me, in a way, this goes back to what we were talking about when we first started, and that's the importance of the balance of the bird.
Mandelyn Royal:
Yeah.
Rip Stalvey:
If you've got birds that are shallow breasted and kind of pinched and tucked up in the rear, it looks out of balance.
John Gunterman:
So for the first couple of years, maybe the birds that actually would look best in the shrink bag are the ones you want to breed from instead.
Mandelyn Royal:
That's what I did initially. Yeah, you put your lesser quality birds.
John Gunterman:
When we're doing restoration forestry, we call it low grading your forest. Where you're doing single tree selection worst first you're taking the worst out first and only leaving your best trees to grow and mature, so you're always building the best possible forest. I see a direct correlation here.
Rip Stalvey:
Single parent correct.
Mandelyn Royal:
Worse first out, that's exactly it, and by the time you're done.
John Gunterman:
You just have great birds and you're like, oh, you know what you look the most like this bird and you both meet the standards. So you can have some conjugal visits and I'm going to collect your eggs and we'll see what you do.
Rip Stalvey:
Okay, we were on legs. Let's move down to the toes. They should be nice.
Mandelyn Royal:
Oh toes those are going to be frustrating.
John Gunterman:
Yeah, Especially as soon as you get your incubation right, at least for me. Toes cleared up a lot of issues. I was culling for crooked toes unnecessarily because there is a direct correlation to incubation temperature accuracy, especially in the early development stages, Right, and if it's not that it's riboflavin.
Mandelyn Royal:
Nutritional things can affect it. The incubation can affect it. You have a lot of leg work to rule out things before you can pin it to genetics.
Rip Stalvey:
Well, you know, you were talking about nutrition and it's important to remember that it's not just the nutrition we feed the chick, it's nutrition that we feed the breeders, because if they don't have good nutrition bases, they can't put all the nutrients those developing embryos will need up until they hatch.
Mandelyn Royal:
Right.
John Gunterman:
I mean a human finds out she's pregnant, bam. Prenatal vitamins folic acid especially, you know the essential amino acids become even more essential when you're building an offspring. I don't care what species it is, and that's going to help epigenetically set the checkup for success, because as it's being developed, it has access to all these things. So it's going to breed forward better and stronger. It's going to come out of the egg with a higher hatch weight initially, which is going to translate to its entire life.
Mandelyn Royal:
You heard somewhere that if you see nutritional issues prior to 10 or 12 weeks, it very likely came from the adults being deficient in what they were able to put into that egg for that chick.
John Gunterman:
It's like if you do get crooked toes or a right neck or something, look at the onset. Is it before, after you know, two days, three days, Is it before, after you know, a week and a half to two weeks, It'll tell you whether it was. I don't want to say prenatal, pre shell or catch, what is the proper term for that. I feel so non-scientific, I don't know, I'm sure there is one.
Rip Stalvey:
There is Probably is.
Mandelyn Royal:
Pre hatch.
Rip Stalvey:
You know, talking about straightness of toes. I got a question for you guys. If the rear toe twist around forward, what's that called?
Mandelyn Royal:
Duck foot.
Rip Stalvey:
There you go.
Mandelyn Royal:
I got one right.
Rip Stalvey:
Hey winter, winter chicken dinner.
John Gunterman:
Does that mean it's initially coming off the shank straight back and curves back around, or it's coming off?
Mandelyn Royal:
The whole placement is off.
John Gunterman:
Yeah, it is Okay, because I've seen them come straight back and then curve back around. I think that's different, I think that's just not taking care of your chicken's nails.
Rip Stalvey:
I think Duck foot is when that toes coming off almost at a right angle to where it should, so it should come straight back.
John Gunterman:
If you look at your chicken footprint in the snow or in the mud or whatever is soft ground around, you should come straight back in their gate, naturally.
Mandelyn Royal:
Wow, that'd be a good way to test them out. Scatter some flour on a smooth surface, set your chicken to walk on it and it'll tell you where that toe is.
John Gunterman:
Or just wait till it snows. The way it's been going, pretty much anywhere in the country is likely to get snow. Even maybe you ripped. I saw a snow in Naples, florida, in 1980 mumble something on Christmas day, I remember, because iguanas were falling out of trees.
Rip Stalvey:
It snowed here, interestingly, on January, the 19th 1977. We got three inches of snow here where I live, so it can happen, melted the same day. Yeah, most of it did, but some of it was around for two, three days.
Mandelyn Royal:
Right, well, we're getting distracted. Let's talk about straight keels.
John Gunterman:
Straight keels You've been selecting hard for this, Mandy.
Mandelyn Royal:
So hard. I am so sick and tired of seeing that flaw. I've seen it in every breed I ever put my hands on, mostly because of how I was sourcing my birds, because I like to make things more work than they need to be. But the keels, oh man, there's a lot of different shapes they can be, and you want them straight and smooth, and not boat inward, not boat outward, just a nice straight, even probably long too. There's not too many that should have a short keel. But measuring them and getting your hands on them, that's the only way you're gonna know what you're looking at. Rip, how do you measure your kills?
Rip Stalvey:
when I first pick up a bird, I put the front point of the keel bone up against the heel of my hand and Then I lay the keel bone along through the palm of my hand, along my index finger. That allows me to feel is it straight or not and how long it is.
Mandelyn Royal:
That's also different than how I do it. We should hang out and handle birds the other end.
John Gunterman:
I like to see it, you know, inside the carcass after it's been cooked. I Look at the cartilage and the bones and see I have this image. Remember the old Battlestar Galactica series, the colonial viper spaceship? To me that looks just like the cartilage and Keel should look like you're right.
Mandelyn Royal:
I never thought of it that way, but you're right.
Rip Stalvey:
I.
Mandelyn Royal:
Want the bones out and look in real close.
John Gunterman:
I mean if it's sitting on the platter and you're taking it apart when you're eating it. I mean, as I'm enjoying the meat, I'm definitely analyzing the carcass of the bird that I'm consuming.
Rip Stalvey:
And this brings us to the close of another poultry keeper podcast. We're happy you chose to join us today. Until next time, we'd appreciate it if you would drop us a note letting us know your thoughts about our podcast, and Please share our podcast with all your friends, the key code too. We hope you'll join us again when we'll be talking poultry Beforeเป этих госполод. Nevertheless, th demonstration drove me crazy. I had my noseプルプル just faster than me and