Broodies, Incubators and Eggs-Part Two

In this episode, John, Mandelyn, and Rip talk about the different types of incubators, broody hen management, and the important role nutrition plays in good-quality hatching eggs.

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Transcript

John Gunterman 0:00

Hi, I'm John Gunterman, and I want to welcome you to another episode of the Poultry Keepers podcast. Joining me in the studio are Mandelyn Royal and Rip Stalvey, the rest of our podcast team, and we're looking forward to visiting with you and talking poultry from feathers to function. The absolute best way that I've discovered to ship eggs is to source yourself a live chick or live bird shipper box, put some padding in the bottom of it, put your eggs in the bottom of that. And maybe if you have a sacrificial bird, throw them in there and pay the 120 it costs to have it overnighted. Because those boxes ride in the cab. They are treated so well because it has hand delivered, hand carried everywhere because there's a live animal in it.

Mandelyn Royal 0:54

And

Rip Stalvey 0:57

just the box alone gets a great deal of respect from a postal carrier.

John Gunterman 1:03

Yes,

Rip Stalvey 1:04

I've got a really good story about that. I got some New Hampshire hatching eggs from a guy out in Oregon, but I said, I'm going to send you a box for you to put those eggs in and I sent him one of those Horizon single bird carrier boxes and I told him, put some packing peanuts down in the bottom and wrap the eggs in bubble wrap. Put them in there upright, not laying down, put more peanuts on the top, and then take a piece of cardboard that'll fit inside that and put down on them, don't smash them, but just lay it down on top and then tape it in place so that prevents any up and down movement. Lo and behold, when they showed up at the post office, local postal clerk called me and she said, Mr. Stalvey, your birds are here. I said, oh good, I'll be right there. She said just be prepared because I think they're dead.

Mandelyn Royal 1:53

No noise coming from the box.

Rip Stalvey 1:55

That's what she said. She said, they're not making any noise. I'm really afraid they're dead. And when I got down there, she said, you be careful about opening it. I'm afraid they're dead. I said, ma'am, if there's any noise coming out of that box, something's wrong. She said, what do you mean? I said those aren't birds. Those are eggs. She said, why did you put them in a live bird box? I said, because they get more respect if you ship them that way. And she looked at me in the light bulb and you could tell in her eyes the light bulb had gone off. She said, that's brilliant.

John Gunterman 2:28

Yeah,

Mandelyn Royal 2:28

that is pretty smart.

John Gunterman 2:30

And for what you're investing, it doesn't really cost all that much more.

Mandelyn Royal 2:34

And you could probably, how many eggs fit in there? Maybe like 25, 30 or so?

Rip Stalvey 2:39

Oh my gosh, she sent me 48 and there was room left over.

Mandelyn Royal 2:43

I noticed when I did ship some birds out west the shipping on that box with the weight of it, it was just shy of eight pounds and they told me there was an eight pound cutoff. And then it was 90 to 100 in shipping alone for that box, but the birds did good. They survived and everybody was happy, but the expense was definitely quite high. But then when I priced out shipping for the big box of 56 eggs, that's going to run$105 in shipping alone. So that's actually pretty comparable. Yes, it is. It is. I want to ask you guys a question. Would you ever ask somebody you're considering getting hatching eggs from to tell you about their nutrition program? Absolutely. And if you would, why? Yeah. Why? The resiliency of the yolk to stay suspended where it needs to be, the connective what do they call those, John? Yeah, that. And then the density of the whites, because if you have real runny whites, that egg is not going to ship well at all. So I would expect them to know their nutrition, but also like their egg quality. When you break that egg open, how thick is the white? Because that's what is supporting that egg in transit. And then also the age of the eggs that are getting sent, because when they're freshly laid, That air cell isn't there yet. So if you receive eggs and you candle them, you should only see like a three or four day old air cell. It should be pretty little. And the older they are, the more chance you have of having detached air cells, bubbly air cells, and saddled air cells where they split and can move around the egg. So that's why the freshness. But then also the nutrition matters a lot and how that egg is going to hold up.

John Gunterman 4:34

So all the nutrition that hen is storing in the yolk is what that chick is going to feed and develop and live off of while it's in the shell. So we want to make all those essential amino acids and everything available, all the essential building blocks to set that chick up for success in the shell.

Mandelyn Royal 4:55

Oh yeah, because it's totally possible to hatch chicks that already have a vitamin deficiency if those adults were deficient. So let's say everything goes pretty well and you get your eggs, you set them, you get about 50 percent to hatch, but then two of them pop off with wry neck right out of the egg.

John Gunterman 5:10

That straight back to mother hen nutrition. It stands to reason for every species on the planet. Human mothers, oh, you're pregnant? Bam. Start taking the folic acid. Here's your nutrition regimen for the next, however months. And, responding to your body's cravings. I lived vicariously through my wife's two pregnancies, and I believe that There is a strong maternal drive to get those essential nutrients into you to help your developing child. And we need to make that available to our birds, just like our human babies.

Mandelyn Royal 5:47

We haven't talked about the different types of incubators yet, like the still air, forced air. Cause I first started incubating with a light bulb and that was even using home eggs. I maybe had 50 percent hatch because it was so inconsistent. And from there I went to the good old fashioned wafer thermostat and a still air and then I've used a couple of different incubators coming from there and each one had very particular operating methods and you have to watch some of those cheaper incubators because they may have that temperamental operation that you have to learn. Like you might have to go through five batches of eggs before you really get it dialed in.

John Gunterman 6:30

And by the fourth or fifth batch of eggs, your incubator starting to get a little dirty and a little worn, and you need to get in there and deep clean it to keep your temperature and humidity regulation running on point,

Mandelyn Royal 6:42

right? Because those sensors are small and every hatch is going to have a little explosion chick dust. And when that sticks to the sensors, it's not gonna perform well. Chances are the temperature's not gonna get as high as it needs to get because it's not reading correctly because it's got fuzz on it.

John Gunterman 7:01

Or it's swinging too slowly. It's not responding fast enough. Because of the fuzzes on the sensor so it can overheat and underheat and, stress your eggs. All these variables to consider, right?

Mandelyn Royal 7:17

Several years ago, I was using the Genesis 1588, and about two years in, the control panel went bad, and the parts weren't available when I needed them to be, so I ordered a new unit. And they had made an improvement to the humidity tray because it used to have just three cells to put water in. So humidity is determined by how much surface area of water there is. So if you need to raise your humidity, you have to increase the surface area of the water. So the new and improved tray had five different channels so that you could really tweak it and dial it in. I thought that was really neat. So every once in a while they'll upgrade units and make them better, especially, I know you guys like the hatching time and I haven't had the pleasure of using those yet, but you can dial those in digitally, which is almost set and forget.

John Gunterman 8:08

Yes, precisely. And that works for me because I get confused and overwhelmed easily and forget things. And I got little alarms that start beeping if things go wrong.

Rip Stalvey 8:18

I will say about my hatching time, I have never had an incubator that maintained the heat and the humidity exactly where I had set it, the way this one does. I would purposely go in there multiple times trying to catch a variation in temperature or humidity. Never could.

John Gunterman 8:38

Good insulation and good controlling circuitry.

Mandelyn Royal 8:41

Have you guys used the the Govee sensors that do

John Gunterman 8:46

heat and temperature? I don't think they're accurate enough.

Mandelyn Royal 8:48

Mine seem to be pretty accurate. They were a gift. And I like how it stores a week's worth of data. That's really great. It's reflecting what the units are saying, so far. But I bet they would be susceptible to chick dust as well, because they have a little, almost screen port. Yeah. I'll have to use a can of air and blow them out every once in a while.

Rip Stalvey 9:12

I don't care. I've used many different forms of hygrometers. And I don't care which one I use. The inexpensive ones never are as trustworthy and reliable and as accurate as the one that you have to pay a little bit more for. It's definitely a case of you get what you pay for with those, I do believe.

Mandelyn Royal 9:34

Yeah, with anything. Except hatching eggs. You can definitely overpay for those.

Rip Stalvey 9:40

Let's talk a little bit about egg mills or scammers.

Mandelyn Royal 9:46

Oh, there's so many now.

Rip Stalvey 9:48

What are some of the things that should be a red flag in somebody's mind?

Mandelyn Royal 9:52

For a scammer or for a mill because those are very different because the scammer is just gonna take your money You're not actually gonna receive anything.

John Gunterman 9:59

As I mentioned pictures of birds where the backgrounds are grossly different.

Mandelyn Royal 10:03

Oh on Facebook Yeah, if you look at farm pages check for little angry faces because they will block you after They've taken your money But the angry faces, you can still leave reactions to their posts. You just can't comment. So if you see those little angry faces through multiple posts, plus the birds are all different, the coops are all different because when go out and look at your own setup, like you can tell that there's a consistency to the building there, and then you can check the trees and photos. If they have palm trees in one image. And oak trees in their next image. You already know those are different parts of the country and they're using fake pictures.

Rip Stalvey 10:44

Yes. I pointed it out. You should be able to.

John Gunterman 10:47

Ask them what their fertility and hatchability rates are. Say, if you set 100 eggs there, how many develop and how many hatch?

Mandelyn Royal 10:57

If they say 100%, I'd almost be a little skeptical.

Rip Stalvey 11:01

I would agree with that, yeah.

John Gunterman 11:02

Yeah, I can't do that. I'm happy with 75 percent overall.

Mandelyn Royal 11:07

And then the egg mills, like if you ask how many different varieties and they say, I have, All of these popular breeds, then you're oh, okay this might be a for profit operation and not necessarily about the bird. And then you have to decide, is it worth getting started through them, or do you want to keep looking for someone who has your flock goals?

John Gunterman 11:26

Start with, are they NPIP certified? And what's that number? And you should be able to go to any state and look that up.

Mandelyn Royal 11:33

Yeah, and check

John Gunterman 11:34

the

Mandelyn Royal 11:34

database.

John Gunterman 11:34

If they're not NPIP, stop. You don't want them. Period.

Rip Stalvey 11:40

Explain what NPIP for those who may not be aware, John.

John Gunterman 11:43

It's the National Poultry Improvement Program. It was started several years ago to basically wipe out a few of the more prevalent poultry diseases. It was pullorum originally. And now they're using that to monitor avian influenza and a couple other transmittable diseases. And it's real simple. A state inspector comes out, takes a blood sample, your birds pass, you get an NPIP certification, and then you're legally allowed to ship across state lines.

Mandelyn Royal 12:14

Yeah, and there's more that they'll test for, but you pay extra for those additional tests. I think what's included in most states is the avian influenza and the pulorum. But anyone who's willing to ship out of state and break the rules, For the sake of a sale, you gotta question their integrity at that point. I don't do it that often, or I'm just trying to recoup some feed cost, or

Rip Stalvey 12:39

I just thought of something that folks need to be aware of when they're sourcing hashing eggs, is the time of the year. And by that, eggs that are laid early in the hatching season, sometimes can have reduced fertility because they know they got to light the females to get the eggs, but they forget that males require light and they require more light earlier than females do before they can become fertile. Sometimes those eggs early on in the hatching season are not going to give you as good fertility as the ones in the midpoint or the late point. And down here, the late point is bad, too, because of the hot weather and humidity, which shoots fertility and hatchability into the foot.

Mandelyn Royal 13:25

Yeah, that's true. And then, are the sellers willing to break open a week's worth of eggs to monitor that before shipping? Or are they shipping everything and just apologizing if you got dud eggs, and then they blame the transit. You really have to monitor that fertility to know when it takes an uptick. But some people are really just trying to get those sales and they're not even checking.

Rip Stalvey 13:51

And you need to be aware of the weather on both ends of this deal.

John Gunterman 13:54

And in

Rip Stalvey 13:55

transit. Your weather and where is the egg shipment originating from. If they're experiencing freezing cold weather, then, hey, I don't want you to send me any eggs right now.

John Gunterman 14:06

I always prefer that over too warm, because the eggs can start to spontaneously incubate if it's too warm in the truck. That can't happen if it's too cool.

Mandelyn Royal 14:16

I'm hoping by switching to the double boxing that it provides more insulation, especially using bubble wrap because the air pockets will insulate quite a bit.

John Gunterman 14:26

But down there, you're always hot by our standards, at least.

Mandelyn Royal 14:30

Oh yeah. Poor Rip down there in Florida and the sand and humidity.

Rip Stalvey 14:35

No, but we've already had high nineties here. 96, 97, 98.

Mandelyn Royal 14:40

Yeah. It's too hot.

Rip Stalvey 14:41

I want to say one other thing about ordering eggs and that is consider ordering more eggs than you think you'll need.

Mandelyn Royal 14:53

At least twice. We talked

Rip Stalvey 14:53

about that before that, don't expect more than 50 percent hatch if that. So if you want a dozen chicks, you better order at least a couple of dozen eggs.

Mandelyn Royal 15:07

Yeah, that's true.

Rip Stalvey 15:08

If you get more than that, hey, that's gravy. But they're not all going to hatch, and I see so many people, I've seen auctions, six eggs, golly bum, I'll be doing good if I get two or three chicks out of those six eggs.

Mandelyn Royal 15:23

Or just one, and it's gonna be a boy.

Rip Stalvey 15:26

Let's talk about broody hens now. Let's shift gears to broody hens. Honestly, it's been many years since I've hatched eggs with broody hens. I've become almost strictly, for all practical purposes, I'd only use incubators. Mandy and John, I know you guys have done some of that. What's your experiences using broody hens? What are some of the pluses and some of the minuses?

John Gunterman 15:50

I think, You can't compare the health and vigor of a hen hatched chick and hen raised. If I have a hen that goes broody the very first thing I do is I go to my incubator and I find the oldest eggs that are in there ready to hatch and I slip them under her. I do want to break her brood as soon as possible to get her back to work, but I need to fulfill that mothering instinct so she hatches out the eggs and raises them. And that's a trait that I. Want to preserve in my birds. So I encourage that. I just don't want the health consequences of her sitting on them for up to a month and the impact that does to her. I want to keep her in good shape until the molt.

Mandelyn Royal 16:33

So my breed, the American Bresse, they're not known for going broody and they're supposed to be a non setter, but every once in a while, I'll still find. A broody or two, and I like to put her through her paces to figure out if she's gonna be a good mother or a bad mother. And sometimes you do need to let them try twice, because the first time they'll botch it. And typically once you look at the statistics, a broody hen has a 50 percent success rate, but that's accounting for those first time mothers who might stomp an egg while it's pipped and smash it, and then, I always pull them and put them in their own space, and that'll tell me if the stress of that move didn't bother her at all. So a really good and stuck broody, you point her at eggs, and she'll walk and sit right on top of them. But if you change her location and point her at eggs, and she panics and wants to get back to where she was, that'll actually probably break her, which is what just happened to me with the broody I had. Episode two is going to be how to break a broody hen because I broke her. So if she tries again, that'll be on her. And if she just never sticks that well, then I'm going to take her as a cull for being a terrible mother, because a broody hen is going to raise about 12, 14 chicks or so, and it's going to take her. About nine weeks. By the time she sat for three weeks and then raised them up to around six weeks old or so, a non setting hen would have laid 45 eggs in that amount of time that an incubator could have hatched. So she needs to be a really good, strong broody for me to even fool with her. And if she's not that, and she's not going to be laying eggs for me, then I don't need her at all.

Rip Stalvey 18:21

If you're going to be a

Mandelyn Royal 18:22

mother, be a really good one.

Rip Stalvey 18:24

You mentioned something that a lot of folks don't take into account, and that when you have a hen that goes brooding and starts setting on eggs, your overall egg production for your flock just dropped.

Mandelyn Royal 18:36

So she needs to be successful, otherwise she's a waste of time.

John Gunterman 18:40

Exactly.

Mandelyn Royal 18:41

Yeah.

John Gunterman 18:42

Precisely. So once she's proved herself that she is a good broody, I want to preserve those genetics, but, make it as quick as possible. Slip some eggs that are You know, getting ready to pip right under her, break her off three or four days early. But the health and vigor, we got a chick in fact, that it was recently adopted by Esther Feathers. Her name is October because I had a hen go broody in October and I slipped an egg under her that was just getting ready to hatch and we had four inches of snow out there. And this hen and this chick just were amazing and stupid cute. And the, that chick turned out to be an amazing bird.

Mandelyn Royal 19:25

Now, one thing I won't do with a broody is trust her with valuable eggs until she has proven herself, because I see a lot of people saying, Oh, I have two broody hens right now. It's my first flock. They've never had babies, but I see these eggs. I'm going to spend$300 on these eggs. Give them to my broodies. They don't own an incubator and you still, if you're working with broodies, you should have that backup incubator in case they don't follow through with it. Otherwise all of those eggs are going to be lost. And if she, cause I've had two experiences with broody hens. Two different breeds, this was a couple years ago, and one was such a diligent setter, I had to kick her off the nest to make sure she would poop and eat, otherwise I'd find those giant, gross, broody poops in the nest, all over the eggs, but she would not get herself up. So some people will say to put food and water close to them. Don't do that because they're not going to get up and they're going to make a mess in the nest. They need to get up and move away from it so they can go through their bodily functions and they should return within about an hour. This particular hen wasn't getting up and she was just mean as all get out. Whenever I tried to mess with her and then when the chicks started hatching, she killed them. Every single one. As soon as they pip, she'd break the egg, the rest of the way open and kill the chick.

Rip Stalvey 20:48

One thing I learned about broodies, at least for me, and I won't say it was a hundred percent true. The vast majority of time it was true that older hens make better broodies.

Mandelyn Royal 21:03

Yeah, that's true. And she was awful the second time because I usually give them the first time to screw it up and the second time to prove it.

Rip Stalvey 21:11

I've also found that some breeds are much more dependable and better as broodies than others. Yes. Some of the best broodies I've ever had were game hens or game crosses.

Mandelyn Royal 21:27

Oh, yeah, the games will really take it seriously. I've never had a game hen fail me.

Rip Stalvey 21:32

Those game chickens are really good setters, and they are magnificent when it comes to raising a flock of chicks that she hatches.

Mandelyn Royal 21:42

I had one that got carried off by a hawk because there was a hawk circling, she had her chicks out. The chicks were maybe two and a half, three weeks old or so. And the alarm went off for this hawk and she's standing out in the middle of the field and she huffs herself up, she covers all of her chicks, she looks up at the sky and screams, bring it on! So that hawk swooped down and took her and carried her off over the trees and I had to spend a couple hours catching the chicks, but she was prepared to take on anything she needed to protect those chicks. And she would sit on everything. She would steal eggs and carry them into her own nest. She was chronically broody.

John Gunterman 22:24

That is something to observe.

Mandelyn Royal 22:26

She was like a full time incubator.

John Gunterman 22:28

This brings us to the close of another Poultry Keepers podcast. We're very happy you chose to join us. Until next time, we'd appreciate it if you would drop us a note, letting us know your thoughts about our podcast. Please share our podcast with your friends that keep poultry. We hope you'll join us again when we'll be talking poultry from feathers to function.