Poultry Keepers Podcast

Where Are My Eggs?-Part 2

• Mandelyn Royal, John Gunterman, and Rip Stalvey • Season 2 • Episode 75

Share episode

This episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast features Mandelyn, John, and Rip discussing various aspects of egg production, particularly focusing on the discrepancies between hatchery claims and actual performance of heritage breeds. 

They stress the importance of sourcing birds from breeders who maintain the breed's standards. The conversation also covers the nuanced approaches to breeding, the decline in egg production with age, and specific care practices necessary for different seasons. 

The hosts delve into winter care, including nutrition modifications, the pros and cons of supplemental heating, and managing humidity in coops. The episode concludes with advice on avoiding common internet myths about frostbite prevention.

You can email us at - poultrykeeperspodcast@gmail.com
Join our Facebook Groups:

Poultry Keepers Podcast -
https://www.facebook.com/groups/907679597724837
Poultry Keepers 360 - - https://www.facebook.com/groups/354973752688125
Poultry Breeders Nutrition - https://www.facebook.com/groups/4908798409211973

Check out the Poultry Kepers Podcast YouTube Channel -
https://www.youtube.com/@PoultryKeepersPodcast/featured

Alex:

Welcome to another episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast. This episode features Mandelyn, John, and Rip talking more about egg production in part two of Where Are My Eggs? Now, here's the team with more helpful information.

Rip:

I got to be careful how I say this, but when you look at the information online and projected rate of lay for a particular breed I raise Reds, so I'll pick on Reds and they say, 240 to 260 eggs a year. I'm going to be honest with you. Standard bred birds have pretty much been ignored for their production qualities, and they won't come close to that. I've got closer to, with my reds, I get closer to 180 eggs per year on average. Now, there are some lines of heritage breeds out there. For example, Frank Reese's line of Barred Plymouth Rocks in New Hampshire's. They're hitting into the 200, 240 eggs a year, but that's because they've been continuously

John:

selected for. a while. They didn't take the showbird route.

Mandelyn:

But he also gets a really nice looking carcass too out of these birds. They really are dual purpose.

Rip:

He puts body conformation first before anything else. And he'll tell you that.

Mandelyn:

He's like my idol.

Rip:

Absolutely. But you order heritage breeds and I'm going to use quote unquote here from a hatchery and all they give you these stellar egg production numbers and the body weight numbers and then people get so upset and disenfranchised. Oh, they get disgusted, really, because their birds just don't do those numbers. If you're going to go that route, just go into it realizing that you can't always trust what you read online.

John:

Yeah, first off, it's hatchery birds. I think we've beat that subject quite a bit. But, generally speaking, these are the numbers that breed has been known to do. Pfft. possible to work back up to there, but it's far easier to find somebody that's been maintaining the breed to the standard and getting your start from them. Yes.

Mandelyn:

And what's tricky is when you see those advertising numbers of this breed of bird is going to do XYZ more often than not in all of those descriptions. It's a copy paste scenario. It is by no means the real data that came from that specific flog. It's just copy paste, this is what the breed is known to do. But the seller maybe didn't prove it.

John:

Whereas, I can tell a potential customer You know, if you're looking for good egg production, I'm going to give you eggs that are specifically from hen 3732 and 1913 that have been mated with this rooster only. And, you know what, I'm not going to be able to give you 40 eggs in a shipment because, I can get you 20 fresh eggs and usually people are more, agreeable to that because, they're able to choose what they want. If you want a really big, meaty carcass, I'm going to put a different rooster over these same hens, or maybe give you eggs from a different hen. But it's talking to your breeder and, really working out where you want to be, or if you want to be right down the middle, we can do that too. A big hatchery is not going to give you that level of service.

Rip:

No, they will not. They

Mandelyn:

can't, they're too busy.

Rip:

No, absolutely.

Mandelyn:

I come from spending a lot of time in the customer service. And once busy season is going, the customer service can suffer a lot and they don't have time to go through all of your questions that you emailed them. If you want that personable relationship, you want to find someone who's not so busy

John:

or the way you've set up your infrastructure. And that was one thing that really enamored me. Early on is, if a customer is looking for a particular quality, Oh, I'm going to pull them out of pen three or pen four.

Mandelyn:

That's because I have different breeding goals for each pen. And so based on what goals they have, then that tells me what pen they ought to be buying out of. Even though the birds are the same breed, same exact breed, there's little tiny differences. And I think that's another thing that sets breeders apart from hatcheries. It's monitoring those details and you can't do that if the quantity is too high.

Rip:

Exactly right. But it takes time to do that.

Mandelyn:

Boy does it. Yeah, I sit on a bucket for hours sometimes. Just watching birds and letting them tell me about themselves

John:

And actually having birds that are 2 and 3 years old who, may have started to slow down. But Those are your proven breeders, and those are the ones that you know if I put this rooster with this hen, I am highly likely to get this offspring.

Mandelyn:

Those are the ones that have proof of longevity, too. Yes. A lot of people are in a hurry to get those eggs, and they're in a hurry to hatch them, and that's not always a good thing.

Rip:

Exactly. Speaking about getting in a hurry. John, here's one for you. How much reduction in production do you see from, I would say normally late cycle, but I want to say from year to year on, on females with your birds?

John:

I think on average, I could lose 10 to 15 percent in overall production as the birds start to go on in age. I'm able to manage that down a little bit. Now that I'm very aggressively managing the molt and, shedding all that external body fat and getting the birds back down into, being ready to lay again. Yeah, every year it does decline.

Rip:

And that's a normal thing. Mandelyn, what about you? What do you see with your birds?

Mandelyn:

I just had a question. So when you see that decline, because that decline is inevitable year over year, they're going to lay less and less. Yeah. I wanted to ask John if he's seeing that in that full year, or is it weekly? Because mine will still do five, six eggs a week, it's just not as many months out of the year. And they'll slowly dwindle down to where they might only be in active life, or Three to five months, but I'm still getting five to six a week when they are in active lay. But is it possible for them to just drop to three eggs a week over a long active lay period? That's where my brain went.

John:

Usually when they turn back on It'll be a couple of weeks of bumpy spotty eggs And then they're gonna establish their new production and if they were a five egg a week last year They might be a four egg a week this year

Mandelyn:

See, mine do the same, just not as often. Not for as long of a period.

Rip:

I see a longer pause in my birds.

Mandelyn:

Yeah, a longer pause, but the same production as before with slightly larger eggs each year, too. Because the older they get, the bigger those eggs get.

Rip:

Yes.

Mandelyn:

And then anytime they are coming into lay or out of lay is when you might get some wonky eggs as they shift. That's when you're at a higher risk of soft shell eggs or double yolks or goofy things is when their system is going through change to either stop or begin.

Rip:

Here's a loaded question for you. If you're getting fall and winter eggs, Should you hatch them?

Yes.

John:

If that's what you're looking for, yes. And I, my belief is yes. If you're naturally getting them, I think you should absolutely preserve that genetic.

Mandelyn:

It comes with a caveat though. It's not for everyone because it also means winter growing and winter brooding and you don't want to do that anywhere near your house. Because your heater is going to be kicking on and blowing all that around. You don't want it anywhere near where you are. I would only consider doing it if it's out in its own barn or shed or somewhere insulated where you can have your stable temperatures. And get your lights where they need to be so that they grow because growth will be different when they're winter grown. You might not see the same size. There's some little changes in there as they respond to that environment that they're in. So it's not necessarily something for beginners.

John:

But it is something that we've covered every single critical aspect of being successful. In the process now that we're really diving into the lighting that's really the last part and getting on a, there's some lighting schedules that people can run that'll really promote chick vigor and health. As Mandelyn said, we've already talked about the health dangers here. It's especially important if you have any sort of recirculating forced hot air or forced air system in your house, because you're pumping that into every room of your house now, no matter where these chicks are. So you may think, they're down in the corner of the basement, but no, they're, it's not, it's everywhere.

Mandelyn:

Chick dust is about the stickiest dust there ever was. And if you want it all over the vents of your house, go ahead and do it. But otherwise, the more you can keep them outside, the better. Don't, I can't recommend like brooding babies in the house. Just please don't.

John:

Get a sweeter heater or any of those, radiant type heaters. Where it warms the thing, not the space, and the chicks will be super happy. It'll be just like a mama, unless you have a broody hen. I have hens, and I'm fighting them right now. I'm kicking them off piles of eggs and taking the eggs, because I want to hatch them. They want to hatch. See, I would let

Mandelyn:

them do it, because those chicks are so robust. They're gonna get them back. It could be 22 degrees outside, and Broody mama has it covered.

John:

They will get the eggs back at basically day 20 of incubation. I'll reach under them and pull the eggs out. So once I kick off incubation, I'm going to let them sit on whatever they've got. And then when I'm at day 20 or 21, I'm going to reach under and swap the eggs out and let them raise the ones that I want them to raise because yes, hen raised chicks, especially in the raised in the fall or dead of winter. It makes me wonder why my hens want to go broody in October and November that's not naturally when, the chicks are going to be hatching and they're going to be, have an abundance of forage.

Rip:

John, I think sometimes that goes back, excuse me, to when a breed was created. And they create it with a specific goal in mind, and it could have been that they were selecting for birds that were production heavy during the fall and

John:

winter months. Which is the Chanticleer, specifically. They were designed for that.

Rip:

When your best egg prices were back then.

John:

They don't pay well. Because not everybody had layers. When it's hot, and especially humid, and my birds are miserable, they'll shut off in the middle of the summer. They don't want to lay.

Mandelyn:

Now, my favorite thing about the fall born pullets is right around March, April, May, they're starting to lay when I need to be hatching from my more established females. So during hatch season, I get plenty of eggs for the incubator, and I still get breakfast from those young girls that just started. That's where my breakfast comes from in the spring, is the fall hatch pullets. Cause they need time for that egg size to get right. They need to give me their laying history. So for a good three to five months, their eggs are breakfast.

John:

And people don't question pullet eggs in the early spring. They just go, Oh, pullet eggs. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's April. Great. Yeah. I'll take a dozen. Thanks.

Rip:

What about selling birds? I have found that if you have excess pullets, that they're much more marketable in the springtime. Yes.

Mandelyn:

There's like a three month magic window of when a laying age female is her most valuable and it's right in chick season. Cause. Especially if you have a small urban coop, do you really want to brood chicks while you still have your older hens hanging around? Because it becomes very tricky with the space, and it's a lot easier to introduce started pullets than to go through the whole chick thing. And that three month period is when beginner layers are at their most valuable, which will vary by market and region and breed and all that. But after chick season, when everyone's trying to figure out how many extra boys they have, that's when the whole selling market kind of drops off. Because everyone already got what they needed in the spring and now it's a matter of watching them grow. Or people already got their started pullets and they're already filling up their egg baskets.

Rip:

One thing we haven't talked about that really has an impact on egg production and where your eggs are is nutrition. John?

John:

Huge. It's everything.

Rip:

Nutritional needs for winter layers. What do you, what are your thoughts on that?

John:

I have a special winter ration and pretty much all I do is, if you do it long enough and manipulate the formulas, you can recognize certain patterns. I'm just increasing my corn, increasing my fiber, and increasing my oil. Giving them more energy production, basically more empty calories to burn off and giving them extra fiber to counterbalance that while maintaining their amino acid levels across the board. They still need the same base nutrition, they just need a little extra oomph to help them through the winter.

Rip:

What kind of oil do you prefer to use, John?

John:

Corn oil. Because my, poultry diet is mostly corn based anyways, and it's the cheapest thing. I can't afford to give them the really good stuff. Now, during breeding season, I will definitely invest in a jar of either avocado oil or coconut oil to make my breeding ration with to help everything, all the additives adhere to the particles. But in the wintertime. I'm being a little cheap with my birds. It's time to save money and help them through the winter and help my budget through the winter. They're not producing, so they're costing me money. Now.

Mandelyn:

And there's a family of vegetable oils that are known to promote more energy and more calories and help get them through the winter. And it's not those higher energy things is what you want to skip in the summertime for that ration. I was talking to Jeff. Probably several months ago now, and I was like, so you're telling me there's about four different ways I need to feed my birds seasonally, and that I should change my feed over the course of the year, and he chuckled and said, you haven't been?

John:

There's really, now that we've looked back on it, there's six different formulas we need, because we've got different seasons, but we also have the moult and the post moult pair. And the different stages

of bird.

John:

We've got molt, post molt, we've got breeding formula, we've got our, I've got a winter formula, and a summer formula but it's so easy, these modifications, it's just, once you start doing it, and you recognize these patterns oh, all I'm doing is adding a little bit more of this, which makes sense if you look at the season and what's happening and what you're trying to accomplish, It all just makes sense if you're going to put in that level of OCD ness into managing your birds nutrition Or you could just give them a really great balanced product year round. I do will Absolutely for two weeks before breeding season. I will bump their calcium up to 6 percent Because I need extra eggshell strength To withhandle the rigors of travel, but I bring it right back down as soon as all the orders are filled.

Rip:

Mandelyn, let's stir the pot for a minute. You up for that?

Mandelyn:

Sure.

Rip:

Good. Should you heat your chickens?

Mandelyn:

No.

Rip:

Why not?

Mandelyn:

A, it doesn't help you get any more eggs. B is a safety hazard and C is just not good for them, especially if you lose power. If you're using a power source in any way, shape, or form, but specifically to heat your coop and then that big ice storm comes through, are you going to run your generator out to the chicken coop or are you going to run it to your house? And when they have a sudden change in temperature, let's say you have it heated to just above freezing. So like 38, 45 degrees. But then that power outage is when it's 15 below zero. If they don't have the plumage because they didn't need it, if they don't have the stamina and being acclimated, and now it's suddenly gone, you are now highly likely to lose those birds versus having let them adapt to what the environment was doing, and then it's not something you even have to think about. And I also, I don't heat the water drinker either. because my males have really large wattles. So every time that they go and they get a drink, they're dipping it in warm water and then they walk away. And if we're in below freezing temperatures, it's going to turn into ice. And then they're going to go back and get another drink in that warm water. It's going to put another layer of warm water on there for it to go through a sudden freeze as well. And then they're going to get frostbite and the thing's going to get infected and fall off. It's just not a good recipe. Plus the issues with the added humidity, that humid cold air is the number one driver of frostbite. And no, I don't want to put heat lamps out there and have my whole barn burned down, and I don't want to increase the odds of frostbite. So I'm anti heat pretty much. All the way around.

Rip:

I don't think folks realize that chickens can withstand a good bit of cold weather. Now, I'm not saying take them up to Alaska and throw them out in a snowdrift. No, that's not going to work.

John:

They have to be acclimated. Acclimated

Mandelyn:

is the main thing. They have to adjust to their environment.

John:

And a lot of it is starting with an appropriate breed. That suits your fancy. A lot of people fall in love with breeds that aren't necessarily ideally suited for their local environment.

Mandelyn:

Oh, like silkies can't hold in any heat. They don't have that hard outer feather to hold their body heat in. Silkies and really small stuff is probably going to need some sort of supplementation.

John:

But my quail needed nothing, negative 38 Fahrenheit without the windchill factored in, and they are just hunkered down, I call them snow pigeons, they were great.

Rip:

And I know some folks are, they're going to be insistent on heeding their birds and you know the bottom line we're going to tell you the optimum way to manage your birds if you choose to follow another method that's fine you know they're your birds or you're spending you're the one spending the money and taking the time to care for them But if you do use supplemental heating, for heaven's sakes, don't use the glass heating lamps. Those things have caused more coop fires than anything I can think of. A lot of folks go out and they get these little red heat lamps, and it's not the heaviest glass to begin with, and then they use a little clamp on Holder for the light and man that thing falls off the light breaks and BAM you got a fire started

John:

We see the pictures yearly on Facebook and different online. Yes.

Rip:

Yes

John:

It is heartbreaking

Rip:

if you're gonna heat them get a ceramic heater emitter. It's

John:

infrared heat They break, they stop working, they're instantly safe.

Rip:

And these are, you can find them sometime as reptile heaters, but they have a base on them, just like a regular light bulb and just screws into that porcelain outlet. And you're good to go. Yeah. I like plate

John:

heaters. Yeah. Plate heaters

Rip:

work well.

John:

They mimic the mother. And there's an interesting one. I saw just some chicken wire and a heating pad and a towel. Definitely mimics the mother.

Rip:

Interesting. So if you heat, just please be careful. Okay. Please be careful.

John:

Yeah.

Mandelyn:

And if you're using any sort of light fixture, look for a minimum of two points of contact and do not trust what it came with.

John:

I would not be putting any sort of brooder heater in a active coop. If you're brooding, it should not be in your tank. Coop. It should be in its own space. More often than not, these little chicks just can't handle being around these rambunctious adults, especially locked inside of a small structure. Most people's coops aren't that large. And you think about, a seven or eight pound bird jumping down off a roost, possibly on top of a chick that maybe weighs, 200 grams. It's not going to end well. So maintain their own space, unless you're hen raising. If the hen raised it. Let mom do the job. She will keep people from stepping on her chicks. Trust me.

Rip:

Mandelyn, we talked a little bit about frostbite. and what the causes are. What, give us your thoughts on frostbite. Can you really prevent it? And if so, how?

Mandelyn:

It depends on the natural environment and those extremes. If the snowstorm is coming in and it's all wet snow and the air humidity is really high, it might be unavoidable there. If it's that cold, like I'm talking negative temperatures. But generally speaking, if your coop is insulated, draft free, and well ventilated, it's going to give them the best protection possible. And you want to aim for one inch of designed ventilation per bird. And then just make sure you don't have any drafts blowing on them.

And those drafts are probably going to

Mandelyn:

come from your corners, under your door, around your pop door. You want to really go through and seal that up and then just have controlled ventilation because their breath and their poop is also going to generate humidity. So if you have it too tight and there isn't ventilation, now you're increasing the humidity. And if it's below freezing, now you're the cause of the frostbite. By creating that human environment from a lack of airflow.

Rip:

What about, and here again, I'm at a loss to explain some of this, just because of the weather conditions I'm facing in the winter are much different than you guys do up north. But what about, and John was just touching on it, we got smaller coops, most folks, How do you control the humidity in that whenever it's cold outside and you find the humidity is increasing? Other than ventilation, are there some steps that folks can take to maybe prevent that or what's your thoughts? Keeping

John:

your extra litter deep litter to absorb a lot of the moisture from the excrement. That's going to be very critical. Turning the litter often is going to help dry it out, expose any damp spots poop boards places where the excrement to drop and dry before it actually gets your litter wet could be beneficial, but you do need to get in there and scrape it. There's some husbandry choices and challenges outdoor in the winter, as much peat moss as you can afford, as deep as you can afford. It's the best.

Mandelyn:

If it gets too awful bad out there and the poops are freezing before I can really get in there and clean, I'll add maybe some agricultural lime or stall dry. To help it dry a bit faster until I can get in there and get it out.

John:

And the next thaw, it's going to dry and, or not dry, thaw. Yeah. When it thaws,

Mandelyn:

it's going to boost that humidity a lot.

John:

So getting out there on days that it's above freezing and opening up your doors and windows and really airing your coop out. is really helpful at any opportunity you can air your coop out. The birds are out, doors are open, windows are open.

Mandelyn:

Before we wrap up, I wanted to remember not to follow the internet advice of using Vaseline on combs.

Rip:

Oh yes.

Mandelyn:

It contains water. It will cause frostbite. Avoid anything that has water as an ingredient because water is where that frostbite is coming from. So if someone says to use Vaseline on combs and waddles,

John:

don't

Mandelyn:

do it.

Rip:

I have seen folks recommending a product called Mushers Secret.

John:

I use it on my dog.

Rip:

It doesn't have any water in it, so that's something to think about. But really, when I Thought I was going to have a problem with frostbite and red males can have pretty big combs and wattles. I would gather up all my males and put them in a show box. The box I would use to transport them to and from a show. And just store them in there overnight in the garage or something. And never had an issue with that.

Mandelyn:

What, keeping them out of the draft? Yeah.

Rip:

All right. Hey, you know what? We have come to the end of another great series here. Mandelyn, any final thoughts you want to share?

Mandelyn:

No, I think I'm good. I remembered the Vaseline thing of do not use.

Rip:

I was just about to bring that up. So you got me. So you're good. You're good. You're good. John, what about you?

John:

Wow. Yeah, there's so much to cover on this topic. I think we've hit all the highlights. If anybody has any questions, we're always available on Poultry Keepers 360 and Poultry Keepers Podcast. Ask your questions. Let's raise the healthiest birds we can.

Rip:

We hope you have enjoyed the program and gotten a lot of information out of it. So until next time, so long, everybody. Have a good time.

Alex:

Thanks for listening to the Poultry Keepers Podcast. We hope you'll join us next Tuesday as we talk about poultry...from feathers to function.

People on this episode

Head Shot

John Gunterman

Co-host
Head Shot

Mandelyn Royal

Co-host
Head Shot

Rip Stalvey

Co-host