Poultry Keepers Podcast

Getting Ready For Breeding Season-Part 2

• Jeff Mattocks and Carey Blackmon • Season 3 • Episode 135

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In Part 2 of Getting Ready for Breeding Season, The Poultry Keepers Podcast continues the conversation with deeper insights into preparing your flock for success. This episode covers critical topics every poultry keeper should know, including:

  • How to manage lighting for optimal fertility without stressing birds
  • The role of water systems and continuous flow setups in maintaining flock health
  • Why nutrition—especially amino acids like lysine, methionine, and threonine—directly impacts egg quality and chick vigor
  • Ideal egg sizes for hatching strong, healthy chicks
  • Housing and nest box designs that reduce stress and encourage reliable laying
  • The importance of fresh greens, sprouts, and even alfalfa in boosting vitamin A and embryo development

Whether you’re raising heritage breeds, managing a small backyard flock, or preparing birds for show, this discussion provides actionable steps to elevate your breeding program.

To listen to this episode, visit www.thepoultrykeeperspodcast.com 

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Alex:

Welcome to another episode of The Poultry Keepers Podcast. In this episode Jeff Mattocks and Carey Blackmon complete their discussion on Getting Ready for Breeding Season. So let's get started shall we.

Jeff Mattocks:

When I ran my lights, for my flock my lights would go off. When I knew for sure I had a full sun was up, right? So my light was coming on at 3 30, 4 o'clock in the morning going off at 8:00 AM right? I knew the sun was up regardless of time of year at 8:00 AM right? And then the rest of the day was natural light. So I wasn't burning the extra electric. And so again, I had four hours of light stimulation in the morning only. Yeah. So for me, but I never had really old birds. So I never had, there was only a few that turned into pets that stayed to like their fifth, sixth year. And that's before I learned about, feed limitation, overweight, right? Dying of fatty liver, that sort of thing, right? So that was way back in my poultry nutrition, journey. And so learned a lot since then.

Carey Blackmon:

Like for me. Doing that in November and December. There's a lot of days where you don't really even see sun. So again, in my mindset, I'm using that low light this's dm. It's LED now, so it's not, trust me with 10 people living in your house. The lights is the least thing that you're worried about running your light bill up. My thought was on those days where the sun didn't really do a whole lot, it still provided some kind of regularity to the day, which created a less stressful environment for the birds.

Jeff Mattocks:

Okay, so even on your cloudy, overcast, like gray days.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

Your foot candles or your luxe, however you wanna measure, it doesn't matter. You end up at the same place, but they're still enough light, right? So they're still getting stimulation. Back in those days you were still thinking, like everybody else how bright does that lake need to be? But you can have a fully overcast day. And there's still enough light coming through those clouds. Unless you're in the middle of a hurricane or something and it gets pretty black or tornado, but

Carey Blackmon:

and for me there is a pretty solid canopy of trees over a large part of my yard. My birds large,

Jeff Mattocks:

so that's not really a big problem. I'd be curious. It's, go out there with your lux meter and measure it sometime when you think they might need more. But you'd be surprised. I think you'd be surprised.

Carey Blackmon:

I think I've got it pretty well dialed in. If anything, on where the light is within 10, 15 feet of it, it might be a little on the high side, but before it gets to the other light, it's like on the average to the low side of what it is.'cause I tried to set everything up to where it's somewhere in the range without having essentially a nightlight in every breeding pen. cause. When you order a certain number of 25 foot extension cords the Amazon delivery guy kind of looks at you a little funny when he brings like a dang case of them.

Jeff Mattocks:

But I did that. I was sitting here thinking, just why don't you run a continuous power line and just, cut into it with just regular, the gray type that's UV protected type. Instead of you do an extension course, but hey whatever gets it done.

Carey Blackmon:

I did that for part of the yard, but when I added on to it, I actually found some of the strings of lights, like for camping that you can put. It. They also use'em at construction sites where you can screw up, it's like an extension cord, that has, so I use that and I just use the screw in bulb and, run it through that way

Jeff Mattocks:

all now I understand. Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. Hey, how are it doing? That also allows me to if I need to move the bulb one way or another. I can just hop over one of the empty spots,

Jeff Mattocks:

Not to take a left turn, but where are you at with your continuous flow water system?

Carey Blackmon:

So with the continuous flow water system, I have it working on about a fourth of the yard. So one of the projects that I've had for the last six weeks, I've been adding some grow out space. Like I didn't have enough and I built me a 16 by 16. I also built a 14 by 22, and I'm gonna build another one that's probably gonna be a 14 by 26, maybe 32 for turkeys. Because I'm getting more and more people wanting heritage turkeys.

Jeff Mattocks:

As finished birds or as? Both. Both. Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

Both. A lot of people are wanting pulses and then they're discovering that pulses are pretty much suicidal. And then they're wanting. Juveniles like Drakes and stuff.

Jeff Mattocks:

So the big thing I see moving in the pasture poultry world is buying started Turkey puls. Where they're already six or eight weeks old. So you get'em past that, you get'em past that suicidal age. Yeah. You may want to think about that. But anyway, let's get back on topic. Pre prepping your breeders for breeding seed, but

Carey Blackmon:

The. The continuous feed water, it's working out really well. The noise that it makes draws them to it, like in the the reservoir.

Jeff Mattocks:

They can hear it in the pipe. Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

And I'm using Turkey sized nipples. Where the nipples are. And like last night I went out and some of the, some of them were being curious about it and I hit it with my finger and it started squirting out water. And one of the roosters looked at me like, I just handed him a million bucks or something. Light just went off and he went over there and wore it out. So hopefully them wanting to play with it and being able to hear the noise that it makes when it jiggles will. Make them drink more water.

Jeff Mattocks:

You got the cups in there too, so they have a choice.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah, I got

Jeff Mattocks:

cups. They got those little pecker cups where they can hit that yellow thing in the middle and

Carey Blackmon:

Yep. So

Jeff Mattocks:

they've got choices. They can have a nipple or a cup,

Carey Blackmon:

but Yep. They got choices. I'm, I have not yet, but I may also put a place and bale in there because I haven't really had issues with'em freezing up. There's been a couple times where it was in the teens for several hours overnight that I had to go grab the rubber hose and whip it really good to, to get it to break up the ice and then start working. But

Jeff Mattocks:

yeah. Now have you put any ice in the reservoir yet? Frozen bottles.

Carey Blackmon:

You haven't been hot? No, it hadn't really been that hot. Okay. Thankfully it, it did rain. Yesterday, which blew a lot of people's minds'cause we hadn't had that in two weeks. So

Jeff Mattocks:

there

Carey Blackmon:

was

Jeff Mattocks:

that You'll have video for us in a full description soon, right?

Carey Blackmon:

Oh yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

I wanna, I'm gonna sit out there and get some that might be what I do Saturday when I'm not doing anything. Oh,

Jeff Mattocks:

perfect.

Carey Blackmon:

Is set out there on my bucket. And just

Jeff Mattocks:

get your favorite of my chicken, favorite beverage and a cigar and just sit out there on your bucket. Yeah,

Carey Blackmon:

that sounds like a plan for Saturday.

Jeff Mattocks:

I like it. Yep. Yeah, so I'd join you if you weren't 14 hours away.

Carey Blackmon:

It would be a little far, but you're always welcome when you're thinking about feed is obviously the requirements for birds during breeding season is different for laying season. What. What do you wanna look for? What do you wanna stay away from? What would you ideally do there?

Jeff Mattocks:

Look, you, again you have to evaluate how important is your breeding season to you, right? And then you've gotta make your decision on what investment you're gonna make in that breeding feed. But you've got to up your vitamins, your amino acids and get the bird prepared. You need at least 21 days before you start collecting eggs, okay? Just to see the difference. You'll start seeing differences in seven to 10 days, but to get the full impact of elevated nutrition. Going into the egg, which means it's going into your chick. You need about 21 days. Now. You also need to be like, when we had Jason Yukon month or two ago, right? It's important to weigh your eggs, okay? It's important to get your egg size right. Okay. It does, you no favors to be set in small undersized eggs or oversized eggs. And that's gonna be a function of controlling the amount of feed that you're giving that bird, okay?'cause if they're eating too much, your egg size is gonna be too large. And if they're not eating enough, if they're one of the ones getting pushed back that don't get a chance to feed her. Those egg sizes, in the medium range are gonna be iffy what kind of chicks you're gonna get out of'em. Now, the upper medium, right at the cusp of being a large egg weight-wise will still hatch out, especially on a heavy breed bird. It's gonna hatch out a good check, okay? So you want to be at the very top end of the medium scale through the large. And about just into the extra large or about halfway through the extra large weight range, so you're talking, you really don't want to be over 60 grams, 60, 62 max, right? Your target weight should be 54 to 60. As far as egg weights for most breeds, right? That doesn't apply to a banum. That doesn't apply to a duck. I'm talking about chickens, right? So

Carey Blackmon:

you pull out a bantam egg. That's 60 grams.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

And you definitely need to re-look at your feeding program.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. Somebody's claw is hurting. So anyway, bad. Bad. She's struggling. She's struggling.

Carey Blackmon:

All right, so obviously the three aminos, you wanna make sure there's plenty lysine, methionine, and three aine. Yep.

Jeff Mattocks:

All that stuff gets, people don't really get it. Those building blocks of proteins are getting transferred into the egg, which means they're gonna be your chick development. And that chick vigor, when those chicks pop that chick vigor is huge. It

Carey Blackmon:

is. I, I've actually. Been able to see birds, that eight feed that you designed as chicks, breeder, birds, and seeing their chicks come out and their chicks come out hello world. Here I am, watch out. And I've seen, I've fed in the past feed that. I thought was good and it's been dang, I gotta find something to put in the, I gotta give these birds something. They look puny when they hatch out. So it definitely transfers from the hen all the way through the chick.

Jeff Mattocks:

But that next chick feeding it right all the way from chick till she's a layer makes the next level. Better or easier or whatever. Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Since I've been doing that for a couple years I don't do crap in a brooder. Like I've got four chicks that's two weeks old in the, in my, one of my brooders over there. Literally all I did was put some water in there and put some feed in there, take them out. I took the hatching basket out there to the brooder with me, tossed them in there, plugged the heat plate up. I changed water out every other day.

Jeff Mattocks:

It's a big difference. Just look, I think everybody listening knows. Proper nutrition is important, whether it's for you, whether it's for the chickens, whatever animal you've got, right? If you don't realize that, proper or balanced, nutrition is important, and you're lost. Sorry. Just,

Carey Blackmon:

so we, we talked about that. What about housing and what do you, what kind of nest boxes, how big do they need to be? How do we need to set up these pens?

Jeff Mattocks:

Your nest box is dependent on the size of your breed. Like your Rhode Island Reds, they're true Rhode Island reds, and they're a much bigger bird. You're talking about eight pound hands in that eight pound range. And they're wide and girthy. If I had a standard bread Rhode Island Red, like you and Sue and Rip have, I would be looking for a nest box that's 10 to 12 inches wide, probably close to 12 to 14 inches tall and about 14 inches deep. So she, a hand needs to be able to comfortably go in and turn around. Just make it a little, just like she's gotta move her head to do it right. So just so you could almost measure a bird from her tail head to where her neck attaches. And I need to be just about an inch wider than that. Just so she can do the whole turn. Okay. I really want curtains on those nest boxes. So she has privacy. When she lays her egg, it, it eliminates or reduces the chance of a second hand in there. Everybody likes their privacy when they're doing private things. Okay. So it just, it's a good thing. Yep. Before breeding season, you want to get some really good clean bedding material in those nest boxes if you're using bedding material. But I'm a fan of some really great chopped straw. If you can't get some good chopped straw, use some larger flake type pine shavings. Don't use peat moss in the nest boxes because when they come out and the bloom is on the yig. It is gonna stick like a glue it. Yeah. So now you're gonna have a peat mos covered egg doesn't hurt it, but you're gonna wanna wash it before you put it in the incubator. But chop straw shavings are really good. Never, ever use hay for bedding. For whatever reason it leads to skin disorders. It often harbors things like mites mites and external parasites like living in hay. Whereas they don't really care for straw or they definitely don't like pine shavings. But

Carey Blackmon:

And by straw you're talking about that stuff that's slick like bamboo. Depends on what kind of straw you feed a cow or a horse. Nothing like that.

Jeff Mattocks:

No.

Carey Blackmon:

What you would spread out when you put down grass seed.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yep. Exactly. Alright, because there's very little sugar content in straw, whereas in Hay there's a fair amount of sugar content and when it gets damp or moist from the end being in there just her perspiration or body moisture, it's actually gonna start creating some molding or fermentation going on. So you're stimulating further fermentation things like straw and shavings. Don't do that. Now, this is the one time when I actually go for a pine shaving over pretty much anything else because the pine oil. Of the pine it naturally repels, any insects. Yeah. So things like mites and lice don't l living in that piney No, they don't like it environment. So yeah, the best nest boxes I saw had three to four inches of pine shavings in the bottom right. She can get in there, she can get really comfortable, she's got a nice fresh mattress.

Speaker 2:

And she's

Jeff Mattocks:

good. Yeah. Yeah. And and if an accident happens, you clean it out and you put some, you keep your veil of pawn shavings right there and you do it again.

Carey Blackmon:

Oh, Brian says five gallon bucket laid on the side with a lid cut in half. Works well for him with American games all now

Jeff Mattocks:

I see a lot of buckets either screwed to the wall. I do the nest box up about 16 inches off the ground. Not too high, but I don't like it on the ground. But the buckets and that just, that

Carey Blackmon:

just helps keep trash and crap essentially out of it.

Jeff Mattocks:

Right?

Carey Blackmon:

I'm

Jeff Mattocks:

not against the buckets and what he's doing with the half cut lid. It should have a per trail on the front so she can fly up to that and enter. But I would use, if it was me, okay. I would use black buckets so no light gets in through the sidewall, whereas most of your white, yellow, most of your other colored buckets are gonna allow some light penetration in there. Again, she's looking for the darkest place. The instinct of a hen or any poultry is to look for the darkest place to lay their egg. Yep. That is their natural instinct, so we might as well make'em happy.

Carey Blackmon:

And like I use a, I use five gallon buckets a lot. Yeah. And I use black ones. One of my first laying pin that I had layers in back before I ever met Rip was I had a black five gallon bucket with, I cut. It was more, a little more than half out the top, but I screwed from inside a two by four right above the lip because I didn't want'em to cut their legs when they were getting in it. And then I screwed another one to the bottom of the lid so they could, so they had that perch to get on it. And then I got three fender washers and some screws and stuck the thing to a tree and screwed it. That thing still screwed to this tree, to a tree this day. And sometimes the free rangers I'll find eggs in it, but five gallon buckets are great. There are another thing you can do with a five gallon bucket is set it on the ground right side up, and if you cut it in half, basically the part at the top where the lip is, and right below that, if you cut that's almost the perfect size for a Turkey.

Jeff Mattocks:

Really? Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

Yes. And Frank Reese Jr. Put me on that because his, he said he uses, they're the same size as milk crates. They're one foot squares on the ground with an open top. And I was like, okay. And I don't know if it's because turkeys or communal or whatever, I don't know, but that mine. I was getting eggs all over the place where my turkeys are. Took that cut part off the bucket instead of finding a milk crate or whatever. Stuck some straw down in that. Came back the next day, had two eggs in it

Jeff Mattocks:

there,

Speaker 2:

okay.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yep. Now turkeys have a different instinct, right? Yep. And they are ground layers. Not that chickens aren't, but they are, they're ground laying birds but they don't necessarily look for that darkest place, they're not looking for a darker place,

Carey Blackmon:

right.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. Rob corrected me. Not the darkest, not quite the darkest. But they do fairly dark. To get, for laying their eggs.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. They want a little privacy. Yeah. When they go do their business. Yeah, they do. I don't blaming'em. I do too. But, on the farm I count buckets. You can do everything with that.

Jeff Mattocks:

You can, and you know what, if you're using a white one or a yellow one or something, but let's light in it. I would just either paint it or I would figure out a way to, to lay something over it, to darken the inside. That's the only thing I'm suggesting. I'm not saying don't use the white or the yellow or any other color. I'm just saying, let's do something to help make it a little darker. I'd like for it to be up off the ground, right around 16 inches to the opening. Helps keep it cleaner, helps keep things out of it. You're le less likely to go out there and find a rat snake or a bull snake or something in it if it's up off the ground. Okay. But you

Carey Blackmon:

don't

Jeff Mattocks:

want

Carey Blackmon:

it higher than your lowest rost point?

Jeff Mattocks:

No.

Carey Blackmon:

They'll try to roost on it. Yeah. And using a five gallon bucket and screwing it to a wall or something like that you gonna have to have a very talented chicken to balance on it. Because they'll get up there and they'll start scratching, trying to land and stay straight, and then they'll fall off. They're just like, eh, screw this.

Jeff Mattocks:

You don't really want'em, mar them on it anyway. No,

Carey Blackmon:

you don't. That they do. That's why it works.

Jeff Mattocks:

Somehow. You've gotta establish a per trail, right? They need a place to come land before they enter. So figure out your portrayal. I've seen a lot of'em screwed to the back of a shed, in, in a row. If you don't have'em screwed in there, if you've got two support bars, like the back sits here and the front sits here with a slight, just a ever so slight downhill angle. That worked pretty good. I've seen that set up. But, and they were in a fully enclosed, not fully enclosed. The front side was open, like a run-in engine, so the back was fairly dark, if you have it placed at the right time of the day. All right. What? What did we miss?

Carey Blackmon:

So one person says, never hear if it's important to have greens during any season, such as grass clippings, weeds, et cetera. For those that only have small flock, chicken runs or greens, really necessary.

Jeff Mattocks:

Alright, so the right kind of greens are high in vitamin A. So greens are going to help they're gonna help with embryo development. They're also gonna help with chick vigor and health when the chick comes out. So I'm gonna say, yes, a small amount of greens is gonna be beneficial. Okay? Now the most I've ever seen chickens eat. As far as greens as part of their diet is 5% by weight. Okay? So it's not a large amount, but it's better if they're fresh greens and not fermented, like he, he was talking about grass clippings. You gotta get those grass clippings in there. Pretty quick within an hour or so.'cause they, they start wilting and fermenting and doing other things once they're cut. And they actually can start turning rancid on you after a few hours. So they need to be really fresh grass clippings, if your runs don't have grass and you can't get your bird on living greens, I'm not, I'm all in. The grass clippings are fine. I did it too. Sprouted lentils are fine, but you do need, so if you're gonna sprout, a lot of sprouts are done in the dark or they don't get a lot of sunlight. What you're after is the green and the chlorophyll in there is where you're gonna be getting your vitamin A from. Not, I don't want a white spr. Okay. I want something that's got as much green as I can give it. I would even be sprouting if you wanted to. I'm not a big fan of fodder and sprouting, if you have no other choice sprouting something like wheat or barley or any of your cereal grains sprouting those for six or seven, even eight days it doesn't take a lot. It's hard to even measure. I would say a quarter cup of sprouts per mature bird is enough. Okay. And it's now, if you're gonna sprout a grain, don't give'em the seed part down that's been sitting in the water. There's a good chance that there's some Molt down there. Just give'em the tops where, you know, above the seed, out of the water, clip that off and give it to'em.

Carey Blackmon:

So what I did was actually a couple years ago, got a lawnmower that had a bagger and a mulching blade, and about once a month I'll use it and cut the grass when it's good and green and I'll take, I'll take the bag off a handful, throw it in, handful, throw it in, and I'll give'em a handful of that. And then, the rest of it'll go to the pigs. Because the coy coons they do like to graze on grass, but I do that for that reason. I just a little bit something green. They're good. Has anybody got any questions? Where At our hour. I think we had a really good show. It turned out, yeah, I

Jeff Mattocks:

mean, back to the greens, if people have access to it, if they're in a horse area or something like that. Feeding just, good green alfalfa hay. If you can get some good green and alfalfa carries more vitamin A than the grasses due right then just a straight grass, like a grass out of your yard. For whatever reason, a legume hay tends to have higher vitamin content. If you can buy small barrels of alfalfa hay and give'em a handful of that periodically, if you can figure out a way to hang it actually, and let'em peck at it as they want, just so they stretch a little bit. So they'll always, so what you do

Carey Blackmon:

is you get you some string, like a cat string. Eye bolts that are designed to go in wood'cause they have the point on the end and the thread. And then you go to your feed store and buy a 50 pound bag of alfalfa cubes. Screw the cubes on the eye bolt and let it dangle. They'll look at it stupid for the first little bit, but once they see the shininess of the eyeball and they, the thing moves, when they hit it they'll wear it down pretty quick.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. I, anything new that you give'em, like even when we've talked about milk or yogurt or any of these little extras that you give'em, that's not part of their daily routine. Yeah. The first day or two, they look at you like, like they don't trust you. What is this? Is he trying to kill us? Yeah. Again, and then once they figure out what it is and they're, they can't wait for you to show up with more.

Carey Blackmon:

Mine, mine, like the cubes. I can throw the cubes in on the ground and they'll, they'll pack at'em and they'll run around, do all kinds of stuff with it. It's good entertainment.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. I don't know if everybody has access to the cubes like you do. You have to be in beef country to get the alfalfa cubes but you'll find something. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Where there's a will, there's always a way, right? And with that, we will see y'all in two weeks.

Jeff Mattocks:

See y'all later.

Alex:

Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Poultry Keepers Podcast. We hope you comeback next week for another great episode of poultry information and know how.

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