Poultry Keepers Podcast

Smart Selection-Part 1

• Rip Stalvey, Mandelyn Royal, and John Gunterman • Season 3 • Episode 115

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In this insightful episode of The Poultry Keepers Podcast, host Rip Stalvey is joined by Mandelyn Royal and John Gunterman to explore one of the most powerful yet misunderstood aspects of poultry breeding: Smart Selection. 

Whether you're raising birds for eggs, meat, show, or heritage preservation, this conversation breaks down how purposeful culling and intentional selection can make or break your flock's future. Discover when and how to begin selecting birds, how to use records and daily observations to evaluate progress, and why even small decisions during brooding can have long-term impacts on flock quality. 

From choosing which chicks to keep, to identifying hidden structural flaws, to weighing birds for growth tracking, this episode is packed with practical, proven strategies. If you're ready to move beyond maintenance and toward meaningful flock improvement, this is a must-listen.

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Rip Stalvey:

Welcome back to the Poultry Keepers podcast. I'm Rip Stalvey, and today we're talking about smart selection, setting your flock with purpose and precision. John Gunterman and Mandelyn Royal and I will be diving deep into one of the most powerful and most. Often misunderstood tools flock selection. Now whether you're raising birds for eggs, meat, or show or simply to preserve a heritage line, how you thin your flock during grow out can make a, can make or break your progress. And this episode we'll talk about what to look for, when to start evaluating and how to use your own birds to make better decisions peer against peer. I. So grab a cup of coffee, maybe even a notepad, and let's dig in because we're ready to go. Mandelyn, John, good morning. Good to see you guys again.

Mandelyn Royal:

Good morning. Happy to be here.

Rip Stalvey:

It is a fun day in Paradise today. I'm looking forward to this show.

John Gunterman:

Oh yeah.

Rip Stalvey:

Yep. It's it is probably one of the most misunderstood topics that people come across to be honest with you.

John Gunterman:

And I really hope we're gonna simplify that and distill it down to make it the easiest topic to understand.

Rip Stalvey:

Absolutely. I like to think of it as every time you feed your birds, it's a vote for your flock's future. And the question I always ask myself, who deserves my feed today?

Mandelyn Royal:

I always pause and reflect on the pen I'm feeding, or maybe I'm just swapping out their drinker or putting'em to bed at night, but I just stop and look at that group specifically looking for anyone that probably shouldn't be in that group. Every day

John Gunterman:

I just look for any characteristic that I don't want to carry forward, and they're deselected for future breeding. Simple as that. I don't want you, you've maybe 95% and we're gonna keep you around just in case 95 percent's good enough for who it's for. But if you've got a feature that I don't like, I'm not even considering you. It takes a lot to get up the hill to the main hen house. Most of my birds live out their lives down there in the pasture overlooking the pond, and they don't ever go up the hill.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah, I think there's. A big difference and many folks don't realize this, but there's a big difference between maintaining your flock versus improving your flock or your breeding. And we've talked about this before and we see it all the time on online eBay and whatnot, but people are just throwing birds together and mating them and trying to make a quick buck off of them. And man, that never works out.

John Gunterman:

I love it when I see show quality chicks. Oh no.

Mandelyn Royal:

How, who were show quality hatching eggs. That's always a nice selling point.

John Gunterman:

I can tell you who the mom and the pop was and tell you how many eggs that mom laid in the past year, and what her survivability rate has been for the past year. But other than that, no. I can't guarantee it's gonna win any awards.

Rip Stalvey:

People forget that breeders have culls at the same rate that anybody else does, and Maybe 10% of their birds are gonna be worth keeping and moving their flock forward.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yep. At the end of the day, it boils down to percentages, and if you mated, it's gonna give you a more clear understanding of how your percentages are actually breaking out. Into what's a good breeding quality bird? What's a possible show quality bird, and what's a bird that should probably only be doing breakfast egg production. And when you flock me and you increase your pool of diversity, it gets harder and harder to track your percentages of what your actual call rate is versus your rate of keeper birds. It makes more sense to shrink down what you're breeding from and selection is how you do that. And it helps guide and steer that flock into being better to get past that maintenance phase.

John Gunterman:

And if you do cer, start seeing certain characteristics popping up that you don't like, you can go back and root them out. Sometimes it's not a retreat, but in advance to the rear. Yeah, and that's where your records are gonna come in handy. And you're gonna be able to say you know what, with this hand, with this rooster gave me this, but this rooster with this other hand gave me these other chicks that had these really desirable qualities. Maybe, I should focus in that direction.

Rip Stalvey:

I think that most people tend to keep too many average quality birds in their flock.

John Gunterman:

You're. If you have a overall average flock, that's all you can ever expect

Rip Stalvey:

to have. Exactly right. You can't improve your flock, build a stronger, better flock using just average quality birds.

So

Rip Stalvey:

y'all keep that in mind. Setting eggs from hands

John Gunterman:

that lay a minimum of five eggs. Per week consecutively before taking a pause. That's my minimum threshold for production going forward. If you're not laying me five eggs a week, you have no place on anybody's farm that's going to depend on you for, food sustenance and, a good return on investment, the amount of food going in versus the amount of food coming out.

Mandelyn Royal:

The way it was explained to me that made it really easy to understand was an old time farmer sat me down. And said, you can raise a$10 chicken or you can raise a hundred dollars chicken. They need the same space, the same feed, the same daily care. You get to pick what kind of bird are you raising and why. And putting that to me that way made it go, oh,

Rip Stalvey:

It boils down to. Making poor selections waste your time, your space, and your feed. Even if you're working with great genetics.

Mandelyn Royal:

Sure. Because those good genetics need to be upheld it. They need to be it. It's continual work. The work doesn't stop because you bought good birds. It just gave you a solid beginning to work from.

John Gunterman:

And you should always be working to improve. If you're not moving forward God, all these military cliches just keep coming into play. I'll stop, but it's so true. It's so true. You're it's a constant process and if you slack off for even a generation, things can slide real fast in a direction you may not like.

Rip Stalvey:

Let's talk a little bit about I guess for lack of a better description, the timeline of thinning, what to watch for and when I start looking for reasons to call birds as soon as I take'em outta the hatcher I don't wait. I don't wanna overdo it, but I also don't want to leave an obviously inferior bird No. To have to. Carry it forward, feed it, carry for it, and invest money into it.

John Gunterman:

Navel not fully sealed even.

Rip Stalvey:

Yep.

John Gunterman:

Deformities of any kind,

Mandelyn Royal:

pretty much any kind. Being the thing to harp on, because I did for a while, spend my time trying to save everyone, for sentiment. And

John Gunterman:

you're weakening. You're weakening your flock by doing it.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. That eventually became really apparent. And those issues, you need to really spend your time doing your homework on getting to the bottom of why you solve those problems. Was it incubation? Was it nutrition? Was it genetics? Do your due diligence to figure out why you solve that and it makes the decisions easier to manage later on.

Some

John Gunterman:

of things, and now that we've been around this cycle a few times, oh yeah, you folks, you should be getting it. I. I'm really inspired. I wanna start hearing back from the folks that have been listening for a while and been applying some of these concepts and, give us a reality check. Are your birds looking better today than they were two or three years before this podcast? Mine

Mandelyn Royal:

are. I know mine are because I'm constantly

John Gunterman:

learning and I'm constantly improving. And if there's a mistake to be made, I've made it and I probably will make it a few more times.'cause I've taken a couple knocks in the head and I learn hard.

Mandelyn Royal:

I hear in another 10, 15, 20 years, I expect to still be learning.

Rip Stalvey:

I've been at this chicken business since I was three and I'm 74 now, and I still learn something new on a regular basis.

Mandelyn Royal:

Me too. I started at seven, I'm 42, and there's still a lot more to learn.

Rip Stalvey:

It's a lifelong process,

Mandelyn Royal:

and every time you start with a new group of genetics and your birds, you're starting over

Oh.

Mandelyn Royal:

With how they're gonna be and what's included in their genetics. It's a whole new adventure with every type you try.

John Gunterman:

I thought we've talked people outta. Out crossing by this point. But seriously, if you wanna look at your long-term sustainability and line consistency, that's what it's about. It's all about selecting and having a homogenous flock and just being very critical and attention to all the important details. Sorry, military folks.

Mandelyn Royal:

That first couple of weeks, let's say the first four weeks, that's pretty universal in what you're looking for selection. You're looking for your most robust, you're looking for your healthiest. You're looking for the ones with the most energy and the ones who kind. Yeah, sit under the light too often in the brooder. They don't get up and eat as often as the others do. Like those are the little notes you can start looking at in the beginning. Yeah. And that's universal in all brooders. Someone's gonna be the leader, someone's gonna be the dud.

John Gunterman:

Sure. And if you're interacting with your birds regularly, which you should be doing again, if you weigh your birds. Every day for the first three weeks, that information is incredibly valuable to us. The selection process and just that level of interaction with your birds, even if it's for 30 seconds every day, just handling them, you're gonna be able to start sorting'em and they're gonna start imprinting on you and them. And there's all sorts of helpful benefits to that, but in the selection process you're evaluating Bird Against Bird in a cohort, which you're always doing.

Rip Stalvey:

John, you were talking about weighing your birds and that is so important. I pay attention to the size at Hatch, but by regularly weighing them as they grow during that first four weeks, I get a really good idea. About their feed, their response to the feed that I'm using. I know I'm using a good quality feed and I hope y'all are too. So if you know you've got a good quality feed, how they respond to that feed? How they grow Yes. Is so important.

John Gunterman:

I had a watering problem that I didn't realize until I was doing daily weights and I had flushed the watering system and I weighed everybody. I cleaned the watering system, weighed everybody, and then put'em back in and I forgot to flush the system. And the very next day I noticed there was like no weight gain across the board. And I went, whoa. So something's wrong. And I realized that, they weren't drinking because it still had some hydrogen peroxide based cleaner in it. And I drained the system and flushed it, and they immediately started drinking. The next day the weight gain came. But even seeing that very slight. I'm used to a two to three gram gain at that phase of life. What is that gonna cost me at harvest time? It's super important during that phase of life that you always have feed and water in front of them at all times, and just being off of water makes them go off a feed.

Mandelyn Royal:

And then it affects the gain and affects the yield.

John Gunterman:

So that whole hatch, I consider just meat birds. I'm not even looking to move them forward just'cause they didn't drink water for 12 hours.

Rip Stalvey:

And for the folks that are listening, that's so important and you probably never would've picked up on that if you hadn't been weighing your birds on such a regular basis. If that had gone two days, no, completely. I would've had

John Gunterman:

dead birds in the broder.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah, absolutely.

John Gunterman:

Because at, I think they were four or five days of age. They can't go two days without water. No, that's, and you've been sitting there

Rip Stalvey:

scratching your head trying to figure out what the problem was.

John Gunterman:

Oh, I knew exactly what the problem was.'cause the drain bucket was sitting right underneath the tap that I installed to train the system.

Rip Stalvey:

No, if you had ignored it, if you hadn't Oh yeah.

John Gunterman:

I would've had a bunch of diagnosed the problem.

Rip Stalvey:

You would've wound up with dead birds.

John Gunterman:

Absolutely. Especially at that stage of life. Now

Mandelyn Royal:

sometimes I get a little frustrated when I see stories about, catastrophic loss, where a problem went unnoticed and now they have birds no longer in existence. And a disproportionate number of people sometimes seem to blame the source when they miss something. That was, it happened on the farm when they had the chicks. It wasn't the breeder. It wasn't the hatchery. It was a mistake that happened. But they didn't see that mistake, so they put the blame elsewhere.

John Gunterman:

I would say that if you get a bird past day five without any deformities, it's all on you.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah.

Rip Stalvey:

Anytime that I would lose a bird or two. All right and during the brooding stage, I knew I was feeding good feet. That wasn't the issue. I knew I had great genetics. That wasn't the issue. So the next thing it can be is something I've done management wise that's caused that problem. But most folks just don't see themselves as being prone to making mistakes. I know I was. And boy, that can bite you big time.

John Gunterman:

It can, it's really hard to, and it hurts and it's frustrating.

Mandelyn Royal:

Frustrating for sure,

John Gunterman:

because ultimately you come back to something there, Rip. Ultimately it all comes back to one thing, the chicken tender, the person. Yes,

Rip Stalvey:

absolutely.

John Gunterman:

So you have to take that res I consider my chicken, my junior enlisted, it's my job to get'em through bootcamp and deployed to the field and bring'em back home for their welcome home barbecue or roast or. Sauce or whatever.

Rip Stalvey:

A, after I get my birds outta that first four weeks, that first month, then I start to focus on feather growth and development. I'm still focused on vigor. I always, you don't necessarily

John Gunterman:

want the first or the last?

Rip Stalvey:

No.

John Gunterman:

But you can,

Rip Stalvey:

but it's good note to them. Yeah. And during that second month, you can also begin to check for structural alignment body structure. Yeah. This is when he's right at that

Mandelyn Royal:

five to eight week point is where I'm looking for mine to start widening out.

Yes.

Mandelyn Royal:

And if they don't, then I know they're on the call list.

John Gunterman:

How many body types do you think you can distinctly differentiate in your flock?

Mandelyn Royal:

In my own flock?

John Gunterman:

Yeah.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh, like five. Okay. Because I have some diversity alongside my line bread birds and my experimental breeding, let me see the range and that range just in one breed. Fascinating.

John Gunterman:

It is

Mandelyn Royal:

And lots to sort through, right?

John Gunterman:

So the less of a sample set you start with, like having a rooster and a hen, or a rooster and a hen or two

that would, you're tighten it up a bit. You're going

John Gunterman:

to have a much tighter genetic bottleneck. And as long as you maintain with enough rotational diversity, we. We've talked about that to keep it moving forward, the tricky part, you're moving more towards a tighter flock, I think. But yeah, that diversity, I would say about four or five distinct body types I can recognize out there, even in the chicks, I'm like, oh yeah, I know you and I know you.

Rip Stalvey:

I've been very fortunate in that I'm working with a line of bread that's very old. They've been bred the same way for decades and they are very consistent. Yes. And so I can tell at a glance when there's a grow out that doesn't look like it should. I don't see it very often.

See, there's value in that.

Rip Stalvey:

Yes.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. And they've been grown in your general area, right? With your general feed and water and husbandry practices. Man, now they didn't get imported from some cold place and have to acclimate.

Rip Stalvey:

And I say that to encourage people to really focus on the consistency of your flock, because the more you do that and the more consistent your bird gets, your culling decisions are going to be much easier. Because you'll spot something that's outta the norm. Right off.

John Gunterman:

Differences will be more dramatic.

Rip Stalvey:

Oh, absolutely.

John Gunterman:

It's like the old system to be street song. Can we sing that without getting,

Rip Stalvey:

probably not

John Gunterman:

dinged by the, I can't sing anyways, but one of these things is not like the other. Bye-bye.

Rip Stalvey:

And. Some of this is what we're talking about is going to be influenced by the breed itself. Do you have a fairly fast developing breed or do you have something that's more towards the long time slow development like coachings or bras or some of the Asia addicts? Mandelyn one thing I've always been impressed by year birds is they develop. Really good for a dual purpose bird. They don't mention they're great

Mandelyn Royal:

for impatient people

Rip Stalvey:

and they'll tell

Mandelyn Royal:

you pretty early.

Rip Stalvey:

One thing I see in Johns Birds is the consistency.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh yeah.

Rip Stalvey:

Not only that, consistency, not only the, it's hard

Mandelyn Royal:

to interrupt,

Rip Stalvey:

but the chick you can spot there tight, just bam. Even as chicks,

Mandelyn Royal:

I have some birds in my little project pen that even though they're 75% American breasts, that level of breeding that went into the Cler outcross it's still there just as strong. And I'm like, these are 75%, a completely different breed. Why do they look like the one 25% parent? Wow. Yeah,

John Gunterman:

the force is strong, but you back breed in and a Yeah. It's generations and generations of election. Now that you've met my upstream breeder I get goosebumps thinking about you getting some hatching eggs straight from them. You, I gotta get you contact. I get today

the person

John Gunterman:

that I consider the master breeder of this line, which I recently met, and it was a, an amazing experience. In fact, I've got a rooster out here named Hale that came from him.

Mandelyn Royal:

Nice.

John Gunterman:

He said, Hey, I've got a rooster that I heard you desperately need. And I'm like, oh, okay. And wow, is he great.

Rip Stalvey:

After we get through the second month. And start into that nine to 12 week period. E even with the slower growing ones, you'll begin to see early hints about what their brewed type brewed their breed type is going to be.

John Gunterman:

Definitely.

Rip Stalvey:

You're gonna see you temperament and postures and this is when you can really start to see the width of body on it at least you can. On my birds. Yep,

Mandelyn Royal:

mine too.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah,

John Gunterman:

John's too. I've got some that I'm looking at with, I've got a particular line, the bird is more of an upright head posture, like a Cornish posture with a a puffed out chest, kinda like standing at attention versus there's a bird that's got a slightly slouched shoulder looking thing and I'm like, okay, I like you better.'cause you just look better, stronger. You're looking intimidated at.

Mandelyn Royal:

Area I'm looking for a level stance. Nothing too upright, because some of'em are pretty posty and it almost implies they're not gonna get the length I need'em to get Uhhuh just by that early expression of the structure they're developing, like I know they all have a long time to grow and to keep maturing.

Rip Stalvey:

Mandelyn, I've got a question for you. Those very upright chicks. Do you also find that they are very shallow in their body with very little Bresse? Yeah.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah. A little short in the back. They're more penguin than chicken sometimes.

John Gunterman:

That's a good description. Yeah. I'm looking for the bulldozers. So when they're out there at this level of age and they start doing their little chest bump and wing flapping thing, I'm looking for the guy that's got the chest and the. Mass behind him. I almost said the word without the m to, win these little chest bumping contests. That's the natural progression. That's how they would naturally choose who's the it out there. So by observing this and going, oh obviously, that's the leader of the pac they've established themselves to the PAC and to me,

Rip Stalvey:

I think by the time. Birds hit around 13 to 16 weeks, four months of age. You can get a really good idea about how they're gonna finish out, what your condition's gonna be,

Mandelyn Royal:

and that's right before another Molt, that'll change'em. And you have to give'em tolerance anytime they're in a Molt.'cause you're not seeing the real bird No.

Rip Stalvey:

While

Mandelyn Royal:

they're transitioning feathers.

Rip Stalvey:

Yeah. And that's something I. I don't know if we've ever mentioned on this show, but chicks will go through three molts before they mature. You have to be tuned into that, and you have to learn about when your birds, your breed, and your line will go through that process because it can vary from breed to breed

John Gunterman:

and

Rip Stalvey:

line to line.

John Gunterman:

My selection process starts at Chick down. I'm looking for the silvery down. Chicks. Not the golden yellow down chicks. And that goes away, very quickly. But wing banding at Hatch, when they go in the brooder and making note of that on day two when they dry out really well, it's pretty obvious. And now I've gotten more and more silver chicks and less gold chicks

Rip Stalvey:

And that's something else too fast feathering and slow feathering. If you don't check that early on, by the time they hit about. Three and a half to four months, you won't be able to know who it is if you're working on improving the feathering rate. If you don't mark those slow feathering birds, you're gonna wind up keeping some of them.

Mandelyn Royal:

And they become pretty apparent at about five weeks, depending on how they're feathering in. That's a pretty early thing you can see. The first set of feathers will tell you a lot.

Yes, absolutely. And then the

Mandelyn Royal:

second set, and then the third set, and then the one year mini Molt.

John Gunterman:

And then you, if you're looking to show, you get some odd color feather popup and you go, oh darn, I'm out.

Mandelyn Royal:

Oh,

Rip Stalvey:

yeah. I don't really cull for color. I. Until they go through that first adult Molt, because then it's pretty well set. But unless it's a black or white or something like that, but on, on party colored birds with more than one color in their feather patterns, they gotta be mature before you can call for color.

Mandelyn Royal:

Now for the dual purpose thing, because I always want to have my bulk harvest done at 14 to 18 weeks. I spend a lot of time with'em at 12 weeks. Really looking at who's meaty feeling now, and who's lanky and bony focused on structure growth because those birds focusing on that structure growth. Where they have like that heritage Turkey growth rate where they gain their height and their frame before they flesh in that lets you know they're gonna be a slow burn. You're gonna have to give'em some time and you're not processing at 16 weeks. You're gonna have to wait. So my breeding focus is on those who are meaty for the duration of growth, and I've noticed some structure notes there between the length of lag and stuff like that. It, those are all your indicators on what type of growth they have. So you really wanna get in there and spend time with them and handle'em and weigh'em and feel'em and figure out which growth trajectory. They're following. And if it's what you want, that's your possible breeding bird. And if it's not what you want, then it's not gonna be a breeding bird because the whole point breed'em for what you want'em to be while monitoring your breed standards so you don't stray outside of that for breed integrity.

Rip Stalvey:

I think one thing that the three of us has done, and I'm not bragging on myself, but I'm. No longer than you have been into the game compared to me. I'm very proud of what you two have accomplished, but is you've learned about the inherited potential of your birds. And by that I mean you've learned what your line's going to do. You could look at a bird at a certain age and you can see in your mind what it's going to look as an adult.

Mandelyn Royal:

And you only get that from spending time with them. That's

Rip Stalvey:

right. And spending time is not going out there and feeding water and then cutting out and going and eating or do something else, or throwing a

John Gunterman:

handful of sit down on a bucket, blood worms at em

Rip Stalvey:

bucket. That's right.

John Gunterman:

Yeah. Every morning now I'm taking my bruter birds outta the brooder, putting them in a catch cage and carrying'em out to a little kid playground pen that I put in the front yard and letting them. Cheap, around in the grass with water and food and every night I put'em back into the brooder.

Mandelyn Royal:

And you get to handle each one?

John Gunterman:

Yeah. I got to the point now where if I lay the catch cage down and open the door, they'll run into the cage. I actually have to like only let half of them in.'cause it gets a little too heavy for me. But the five turkeys and 10 chi, I don't know, four, three and a half, four week olds, they really need to come outside. I'm waiting for somebody to come pick these up Saturday.

Mandelyn Royal:

They love routine.

John Gunterman:

Yes, they do. They do. And the turkeys are so cute. It's gonna break my heart to lose three of the five.

Mandelyn Royal:

This doesn't have much to do with selection, but a couple of days ago, we did have to march our nine teenage turkeys into a new area. And if I was assigning their demeanor into selection, there's one male who is better at being a leader. And listening to me and leading the flock where I want'em to go. And the other two got distracted, wanted to do their own thing. They made the whole thing more difficult than it needed to be. But there was one male Turkey turkeys, man. He's I could go hiking with that bird probably, and he'd keep up.

John Gunterman:

You can I don't know enough about turkeys and especially about these turkeys to tell them apart yet, but and this is part of the selection'cause these are being used to seed somebody else's flock. I'm inherently gonna keep the two smallest, least desirable birds and the other three are going with them. And hopefully we've got a male and a female and something else in that. But we've got until Thanksgiving. To back out and get a male and a female together to get their flock started. My thing is I just want, Christmas dinner out of the deal and a good local supply of genetics. So I do think it's important to get them being raised at their destination farm as soon as possible. Because the local environment and your husband's reef practices will affect the development of that bird. So the longer they spend here the worse for the breeding process going forward. If they're destined for that farm, they need to get there as soon as possible and get under their that specific care and management regimen, because that will affect their development, especially at this early age.

Mandelyn Royal:

Yeah, that's true.

John Gunterman:

So Gwyneth, come get these turkeys.

Rip Stalvey:

I, I think one thing that folks who are fairly new to breeding need to remember is that there's a difference in maturity rates. Maturity rates between meat type birds, layer type birds and standard bread type birds. It's not all the same. It's, if the information on the internet makes, it sounds like the birds are gonna be all mature at 20 weeks and yada yada. And that's just not

Mandelyn Royal:

Nope.

Rip Stalvey:

True. Doesn't work that way so

Mandelyn Royal:

much. It'll vary.

John Gunterman:

Depends on where they came from. Yeah.

Mandelyn Royal:

It'll vary within the same breed.

Rip Stalvey:

Oh, absolutely.

Mandelyn Royal:

Bloodline's a bud line, they're gonna be a little bit different one to another.

Rip Stalvey:

And the reason is because one breeder's selecting for something. And the other breeder may not be selecting for that same quality. But by spending time with the birds, we can learn within our breed. Some traits are gonna show earlier and some are gonna wait until much later. They're not all gonna be at the same rate.

Mandelyn Royal:

And hopefully the breeder you source from is also willing to mentor on the genetics. You actually have.

John Gunterman:

Yes.

Mandelyn Royal:

Because they have all that information from all the previous generations.

John Gunterman:

Definitely

Rip Stalvey:

they should. And speaking of having all the information one thing I would encourage listeners to do is to keep a journal. When you're set out and you're observing your birds make notes, just jot down what because I guarantee you, you're gonna forget it.

Alex:

This concludes Part 1 of Smart Selection. and we thank you for joining us today. We hope you got some good information to help you better understand this important poultry keepers tool. But we didn't cover it all today so that means we'll finish this up next week so be sure to join us then. Thank you for listening to the Poultry Keepers Podcast and we hope you'll share this episode with a poultry friend who could benefit from learning about Smart Selection. Untill next week keep learning, keep growing and keep enjoying the birds you love.

People on this episode

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John Gunterman

Co-host
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Mandelyn Royal

Co-host
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Rip Stalvey

Co-host