March 20, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of The Poultry Nerds Podcast, we welcome expert breeder and poultry genetics specialist Kenny Troiano to explore the process of breeding and developing your own strain. If you’ve ever wanted to establish a flock that is uniquely yours—consistent in type, performance, and quality—this episode is a must-listen!
We discuss the fundamentals of selective breeding, linebreeding, culling, and maintaining genetic purity, along with common mistakes breeders make and how to avoid them. Kenny shares his years of experience in helping poultry enthusiasts develop birds that can be passed down for generations. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced breeder, this episode is packed with expert advice to help you take your flock to the next level.
Tune in now and start building your legacy in poultry breeding!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carey (00:00):
So today we have been able to get probably one of the
(00:06):
most knowledgeable breedersthere is out there.
We've got Kenny Troiano, did Isay that right?
Troiano, close enough.
I'm close.
Okay.
So we've got him here today andwe're going to talk about
different types of breeding.
And how all that stuff works.
If you don't mind, telleverybody how they can get in
(00:28):
touch with you and all that goodstuff.
Kenny (00:30):
I'm the owner and founder of The Breeders Academy.
And so I teach Breeders from allover the world, how to breed,
how to create strains, how toimprove their strains, how to
maintain them.
You can get ahold of me atwww.breedersacademy.com.
If you wanna message me and askme about, ask me a little more
about the website and everythingyou can go to my email address
(00:53):
breedersacademy@gmail.com.
So that's how you get ahold ofme.
Alright, cool.
Jennifer (00:59):
But, and you have your own podcast every Monday, right?
Kenny (01:02):
Yeah, actually the podcast itself is on Monday, and
then we do a live show onFridays.
And they're both called Bread toPerfection with my co host,
Frank Bradley and my wife,Nancy.
Jennifer (01:14):
Yeah.
How is Nancy?
She was in a boot, wasn't she?
Kenny (01:17):
Oh, that was last year.
That was maybe, actually thatwas like a year and a half ago.
She what'd she do?
She hurt, she did.
She hurt her her leg and sheended up in a boot for a few
months.
That was a horrible time.
Yeah.
But she's a major part of theshow.
She has always been a part ofthe show because Frank and I, We
tend to, we try to simplify asmuch as possible, and we tend to
(01:38):
miss some things because, thecurse of knowledge, we think
that everybody knows where we'reat, what we're talking about,
what we're trying to get across,and then Nancy's there to always
put us in our place, make surewe're getting the message out
properly, ask the questions thatthe, she thinks the followers
would want to know, so she'svital to our show.
I don't think we could do itwithout her.
She
Jennifer (01:58):
keeps you grounded.
She does.
I
Kenny (02:00):
mean,
Carey (02:00):
I've listened to several episodes and my brain would just
start to go.
And then she would ask thequestion that I was thinking and
I was like, yes.
Jennifer (02:10):
And then Kenny comes in there and he's you're messing
up my outline.
Quit boxing all around on myoutline.
Kenny (02:17):
Yeah, she tends to jump in and distract me in just a way
that, so I lose my train ofthought, but she's valuable and
we need her and it all worksout,
Jennifer (02:25):
yep.
It's the benefit of beingmarried for a long time, right?
43
Kenny (02:29):
years.
Jennifer (02:30):
43?
Kenny (02:31):
42, but we've been together for 43.
Carey (02:34):
Yeah.
Jennifer (02:34):
Awesome.
Carey (02:35):
Congratulations.
Yes.
Appreciate that.
People, my wife and I justcelebrated our 20th.
And people, it's sad that itblew their mind, but a lot of
people, they don't know peoplethat have been together that
long.
Kenny (02:49):
Yeah, I see that a lot, but pretty much everybody in my
family and her family has prettymuch stayed together.
It's not something we even thinkabout, so it's a, no, it's not
hard.
It's just, you got to compromiseand get along and understand
each other and talk, talk, wehave no problem doing that.
I'm Italian.
I can talk all day,
Jennifer (03:10):
to pick your brain and expose people to some breeding
methods, some myths and somegood points and just different
vocabulary.
Kenny (03:20):
Great.
Jennifer (03:21):
All right.
So where do you have apreference on where to start?
You want to start with all themyths we see out there, or do
you want to start withdefinitions?
Kenny (03:28):
Whatever questions you think your followers need to
know.
Just go wherever you want to go.
Absolutely.
Jennifer (03:35):
Can you breed a son to its mother?
Kenny (03:38):
Absolutely.
There's a number of ways to dothat, too, and there's a number
of reasons to do that.
For instance, like if you wantto, let's say you have a hen
that you bred to another cock,they're not related, so you're
producing hybrids, but you wantto make a family out of that.
And to get more, let's say they,they produce offspring, but the
(03:59):
offspring are not quite betterthan the parents.
So you would breed the son backto a mother to get more from the
mother.
And you would keep doing thatuntil you get offspring that are
better than the parents so youcan move forward.
And another reason would be in aline bringing situation where
you're trying to clone thatmother.
So you'd be bringing not only toher son, but to her grandson and
(04:22):
great grandson.
So a lot of people are afraid ofinbreeding and line breeding and
they go towards what we call inand inbreeding, breeding to
aunts and nephews and, uncles tonieces and cousin to cousin, I
can't talk all of a sudden,cousin to cousin, because
they're afraid of theinbreeding, afraid to create
deleterious genes anddetrimental defects.
(04:45):
And they're afraid of what it'sgoing to mean.
They're afraid they're going toget too close and have problems.
And to me, I want to get ashomozygous as I can.
I want to.
Get them as close as I can andthen weed out those problems as
I go.
But no I try to breathe as closeas I can to get that homozygous
state.
Jennifer (05:03):
How many generations do you think you can go before
you start running into problems?
Kenny (05:08):
It depends on the it depends on the birds you're
starting with.
Some can take it a little bitlonger.
Some have issues that you'regoing to have to deal with.
See, the one thing that we talkabout, like in the Breers
Academy, is that how do I wantto say this?
That you don't want to linebreed something that's not ready
to be line bred.
Because not every bird should beline bred.
(05:29):
Cause the whole idea is to clonethat bird.
And so there's a cleanup processwe use in the founders program
that actually gets them to apoint where you can start line
breeding them.
And as far as backcrossing, Ionly want to breed to the parent
until I get offsprings arebetter than the offspring.
Better than the parent.
So if I'm breeding that closeback to the parent and I start
(05:54):
seeing problems, that's when Istop.
Because I, I have no problempushing them to the limit to see
how far they'll go.
Once I hit that limit, I discardthat.
generation, and I go back one,and then I move on from there.
Jennifer (06:08):
So what if just Nancy down the road goes to Tractor
Supply, buys a bucket full ofchicks, and throws them out in
her backyard, and just lets themmultiply?
How many years can she do that,you think, before there'd be a
problem?
Kenny (06:22):
Along, you can go a long time that way.
Jennifer (06:24):
Like a whole lifetime?
Kenny (06:26):
The thing is if you're putting a lot of birds together
and you're basically flockmating them and you have a
number of roosters being bred toa number of hens, the chances of
them getting too close to wherethey're starting to see issues
would be longer than you'd everknow.
Okay?
You just wouldn't get there.
Because there's so much geneticdiversity.
The problem is you want to, whenyou're breeding or inbreeding or
(06:49):
line breeding or breeding close,like a close family.
The idea is to get close, to getthem homozygous, but knowing
when to stop is the importantpart, okay?
You'll get there sooner that waythan you would just breeding
crosses and mixed birds andthings like that,
Jennifer (07:04):
so the people that just want to hatch because
they're addicted to hatching andjust like all the pretty egg
killers and the pretty birds intheir yard, they don't really
have to worry about depressionand defects.
Kenny (07:15):
The only time they'd have to worry about that is if
they're Using or working from asmall number of birds.
Then you start to deal with whatthey call genetic drift.
That's when it gets tight, andthen it goes in a direction.
And it's, sometimes thatdirection works in your favor,
and sometimes it doesn't.
If you're dealing with a lot ofbirds, then I would never worry
(07:36):
about it.
I really wouldn't.
Jennifer (07:38):
Can you define genetic drift for me?
Yeah,
Kenny (07:41):
when you have, let's say you have a flock of birds, or
like my strain, my Maximus line.
And all of a sudden a disease orsomething comes in and wipes out
a good number of them.
And I'm only left with a small,let's say a couple pairs or
maybe a cock and a couple ofhens from that whole flock that
whole strain that forced me togo in a direction that I either
(08:01):
didn't want to go or where it'sgoing to, where it benefits me.
So what happens is you take,you're taking genes from a
larger family.
Condensing them into a few birdsand that's going to change the
direction where they'll go nowrather than where they were
going to go.
That's basically genetic drift.
It's that change of directiondue to a low number of birds
(08:24):
from a larger flock.
If I go to Kerry's farm and Ibuy a trio for him or a pair.
Now, if I am able to get areally good pair from him, then
I've got, and I got a reallygood sample of his flock, then
I'm going to go in a really gooddirection.
I'm going to create.
A great strain.
I could probably, I have theopportunity to make something
better than even what Kerry hason this farm because he's
(08:46):
dealing with a larger number ofbirds.
But if Kerry sends me a coupleof birds that are basically
crap, excuse my language, thenI'm going to go in a really poor
direction no matter what I dobecause of genetic drift.
Yeah it's taken birds from alarger flock, a small sample,
and then going in a, and thenstarting from there and going in
(09:08):
a, possibly in a differentdirection.
It either works for you oragainst you, depending on what
you're using and your skill as abreeder.
Jennifer (09:17):
Interesting.
Carey (09:18):
The important thing is a really solid foundation flock,
like where you're starting.
That's what I'm hearing is themost important thing about
keeping that clean and gettingtowards that homozygous bird
quicker, if you will, isstarting out with a really good
(09:40):
quality set of birds.
Kenny (09:42):
Starting with good seed fowl is priority, but if you
don't know how to select themand breed them.
and create a strain from thatand then it doesn't matter.
Yeah.
So it's, there's, it's startingwith the right birds, but having
the knowledge to know what to dowith them after that.
Because even from the bestbirds, they're going to show
variation.
They're going to show somegenetic diversity.
(10:04):
And if you don't understand whatto do about that or recognize
it, you're not gonna be able tocreate a strain.
Carey (10:11):
Got it.
And that makes
Kenny (10:13):
sense.
Jennifer (10:15):
What about sibling mating?
What's your thoughts on that?
Kenny (10:17):
Sure.
Yeah.
That's a great way to fixate theline, lock in the genes, clean
them up.
It's a, we don't think of it asa method.
We think of it as a tool.
It's a great tool.
We, it's one of the methods.
We have three phases of theFounders Program, six stages,
and that's one of them.
That's one of the stages and weuse that actually in the cleanup
(10:40):
process.
Jennifer (10:41):
It's a good way to find recessives, right?
Kenny (10:44):
It's a good here's what happens is when you breed two
birds together that are brotherand sister, you're going to
expose the good, the bad, andthe ugly.
Okay?
You're going to get good ones.
You're going to get somemediocre and you're going to get
some real bad ones.
That doesn't mean anything.
It's doing its job.
That's what you want to see.
And if you're hatching as manychicks you can manage and afford
from that.
(11:04):
Then you're going to have a goodselection and you can move
forward with what the ones wecall our standouts, you, if
you've done a coaching call,what you've done, listen to
enough of our shows, we talkabout that a lot is you usually
we them down to the top 10%.
And then from there you pick thestandouts and you move forward
with that.
Yeah, you're going to get someof the Bad recessive, not all
(11:26):
recessives are bad, but you'regoing to get some bad recessive.
You're going to get somedeleterious genes.
You're going to get somedetrimental defects.
You're going to get issues thatyou want to make sure you weed
out.
The one thing I would say, ifyou're thinking about breeding
from the sister is to make surethat the brother and sister are
good representatives of theirbreed.
That's important because if theyhave faults, you're going to
perpetuate the faults.
(11:46):
So they got to be as good asthey can be, otherwise I
wouldn't breed them.
You don't want to breed it,inbreed everything.
You want to inbreed the goodones, so you can clean them up
and move forward with them.
Jennifer (11:58):
Yeah, I think that's something that we forget is that
while we're picking out all thegood traits that we want to
Passed down that we also have tolook at their faults because
those are going to go to we tendto look at the positive And not
always think about thenegatives.
Kenny (12:17):
The thing is even from the best birds.
You're always breeding to Thestandouts and they're always, no
matter how good they are,they're going to show some
variation and you just got tounderstand which are good and
which are bad, which you want toexaggerate and what you want to
call out.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, it's just name of thegame, actually.
Jennifer (12:37):
Is clan mating and spiral mating the same thing?
Kenny (12:40):
It's basically, yeah, it is the same thing, just two
names for the same brainprogram.
That's an interesting one, whichI think is ingenious if used
properly.
A lot of people want to use itfor the wrong reasons.
They want to use it to create astrain or to improve a strain.
I think it's a great maintenanceprogram.
Because, What you're basicallydoing is you have at least three
(13:03):
clans.
You can have more, but you haveto have at least three, three
clans and Basically is whatyou're okay What you're doing is
you have the hens from each clanwhich stay in those clans and
then all the offspring from themstay in Those clans as well and
you're moving your best roostersover one clan each generation
It's a great way to maintaingenetic diversity, but only in a
(13:27):
family that's well establishedand don't have any issues And
they're already repeatingthemselves, they're uniform,
consistent, they haverepeatability, predictability,
and you're not getting anysurprises.
If you're doing it to create astrain, it's the worst thing you
can do, because you're, you justnever get there.
Because you're actually, you'recreating more genetic diversity,
(13:51):
all you're doing is you'retrying to manage the variation
the best you can.
But what's happening is how do Iwant to say this?
Oh, I lost my train of thought.
Okay, it's all about the numberswith clan mating.
So let's say you want 12 hensper clan.
You have your main roosters,you're moving from clan to clan.
(14:11):
You keep some spare roosters onthe side just in case.
The only way you're improvingthem is by culling.
Because you have to keep thenumbers.
So you're keeping your best 10or 12 hands per clan, and then
you're culling out the worstones.
You don't make the progress youthink you're going to make from
that.
It's not very fast.
(14:31):
So I always tell people, ifyou're going to do a clan mating
system, that's fine with anestablished family, but you want
to keep another line on the sidefor your improvement program,
and then you move your best birdfrom your improvement program
into the clan mating system, andthat'll help improve that.
So a clan mating system has itsplace.
It is ingenious for what itdoes.
(14:52):
But it's terrible for creating astrain or improving a strain.
It's a great maintenanceprogram.
Jennifer (14:58):
I can see that because you're keeping all the hens and,
but you're really only keepingone male from each pen.
Kenny (15:05):
And that male is being rotated from pen to pen each
year.
Okay.
And you definitely don't want todo it with a mixed flock.
I think you're going to create astrain.
You want to have a, you want tohave a family.
You want to have, you want toestablish family.
We tell people in the found, inthe Breers Academy, when you're
using the Founders Program, thatonce you get to stage six, You
(15:27):
want to there is a rotationalprogram in that, and then you'll
start over.
You can also keep the clanmating family on the side where
you can keep a lot of extrabirds.
Okay.
You have your best birds foryour improvement program.
Use a clan mating as amaintenance program.
And then all your productioncomes from that program, not the
(15:48):
improvement program.
That makes sense.
Yeah,
Jennifer (15:51):
it just means more chicken math and more pins is
what it means.
Kenny (15:54):
More pens.
A lot of chickens live in forsomeone.
Do you really want to do that?
Are you really up to doing that?
You're really able to maintainthat many chickens, but it's a
great, it is a great method, buta lot of people don't understand
it and they use it for the wrongreasons.
They think it's the beginning,middle and end of a brain
program.
Of maintaining your strength.
A lot of people think of linebreeding the same way.
(16:16):
They think of it as its solething.
Like it is a breeding program.
Like it's middle, it's like thebeginning middle end of a
breeding program.
That's just the cloning process.
That's one method of a breedingprogram.
A great breeding program hasmultiple methods that represent
the whole program.
If you think an inbreeding is abreeding program, no.
(16:37):
You think line breeding is abreeding program?
It is not.
Clan mating?
No.
It's not a brain program.
It's a method for maintainingyour strength.
But it's, it will not, it's likewe say, you look at selection,
that's a, you select aprogressive strain, you cull to
maintain it.
That's the only way you canmaintain a clan mating system is
(16:59):
through culling the numbers,because you have to maintain the
numbers.
When you have that many numbers,some of those birds aren't going
to be as good as others.
How are you going to improve afamily when there's birds that
are not as good as others in thesame clan?
When you look at the FoundersProgram, we're only breeding to
the standouts.
It's the standouts that progressthe family, not the whole flock.
(17:22):
It's like when you breed a bunchof birds and you're trying to
create a family, you don't breedto all of them.
You breed to the best ones.
And that's usually a few ofthem.
At a time.
Jennifer (17:32):
Yep.
Kenny (17:33):
Yeah.
Jennifer (17:35):
What about double mating?
Can you explain that?
Kenny (17:39):
Double mating is a nightmare.
I don't agree with it.
I don't like it.
I know why some people use itfor people who show birds that
are all about the color andtrying to match.
their birds to the standard,it's a necessity.
I get it.
But when you're trying to createa family or improve a family,
it's the worst method you couldever use.
Matter of fact, if you'refollowing the standard of
(18:00):
perfection, which I have a bunchof them here and you're trying
to make it in the shows, youcan't help but double mate
because most of those breeds, tomaintain the colors that are,
they're listing in these, in thestandard, have to be double
mated.
They just do.
Not very many of them can bebred true just by breeding the
cock to the hen.
They all have to have a cock'sline, a stag line, a hen's line,
(18:22):
a pullet line to get the colorsthey want.
And you have to understand thatbreed.
You have to understand your fowlso that you know which cock and
hen to breed together to get thecolor you want.
Is
Jennifer (18:33):
it like a pattern thing?
Kenny (18:35):
It's not exactly a pattern thing.
It's more like some okay.
Here's a good example.
This happened to us.
We I raised American games forthe most part But we were
raising we wanted to raiseWelsumer because they have
there's a certain, the colorabout them There are certain
things that kind of represent itWhat the kind of things I like
(18:55):
that the same things I see inAmerican games when it comes to
color that party color and Ifinally got some birds and hands
were a beautiful partridgecolor.
The Cox had nice black breastswith the red hackle and
everything.
They're beautiful.
Birds had good station, goodcarriage, good body, good
confirmation, good type.
(19:18):
And then after a few years, Istart knowing the notice.
The coloring was getting awayfrom me.
And the hens were losing thepartridge color and going foxy
on me.
And I tried like hell to getthat color back because the
cocks were looking really good.
And I was culling all the cocksthat were showing mottling in
the breasts.
I finally talked to a friend ofmine who raises them, he said
(19:38):
they had to be double matedbecause it's the hen, the cocks
with the mottling in the breastswhich gives you the proper hens.
And when I found out that it hadto be double mated to maintain
that color, I just got rid ofthe whole bunch.
I was not going to do that.
That was not something I wasgoing to deal with.
I only know a handful of peoplethat can do double mating
properly, and they are reallygood at it.
(20:01):
Jack Dodd, he's a old Englishgame, Bantam breeder.
He really understands it likenobody I know.
And some people, they juststruggle with it.
And this was, according to BrianReeder, this was the big con, is
that a lot of breeders knewthat's what had to happen with
some of these breeds, and theydid it on purpose because they
(20:21):
knew which hens had to be bredto which cocks to get the color
they want, and they were winningall the shows.
Yeah.
Okay?
It's something that should'venever started, but now it's
there and there's nothing youcan do about it.
Red pile's one of those.
It's a, if it's a blood pile,they breed true, but a normal
(20:42):
red pile is the, it's frombreeding a dominant white to a
light red cock.
And you get that pile color inthe cocks and you get white hens
with some salmon in the breasts.
Okay unless you're holding on tosome reds on the side and some
whites on the side to managethat color, eventually the hens
(21:02):
are going to lose that salmon inthe breasts and even the cocks
are going to get lighter andlighter.
So you have to double mate themevery now and then to bring the
color back.
To me, that's just a nightmare.
I won't do it.
I'm sorry.
Jennifer (21:15):
I'm no expert on the blue black splash, but would
that be A way of double matingwhere they have to keep putting
the black back in to keep theblue true I don't fully
understand blue.
I don't
Kenny (21:25):
know that breed that and i'd probably have to refer to
brian reader on that one Matterof fact, there's some colors.
I know american games like theback of my hand for the most
part A lot of the domesticchickens.
They are difficult They'recomplicated, and Brian has a
great handle on that, and himand I are, he's working with me
on that, which is helping, andI'm getting a handle on some of
(21:45):
them, but I don't know them all,if that's what they're doing to
maintain the color, it soundslike double mating to me.
Jennifer (21:51):
Okay, so back to the Wellsummers, because everybody
likes the Wellsummers for thosedark eggs.
To keep the hens, the partridgecolor, they have to basically
create this pen over here to getthe pretty girls.
And then to keep the boys howthey're supposed to look, they
have another pen over here justto breed boys out of.
(22:12):
But you never really mix thetwo.
Kenny (22:15):
It's not so much that, it's knowing what colors that
are produced produce the othercolor.
Like I was saying, I had noproblem getting the black
breast, black breasted summersthat I wanted and got them going
good.
I was losing the hens and hetold me to get the hens right.
I needed to breed them to a cockwith modeling in the breast.
(22:37):
The red modeling they showsometimes, which I thought was
ugly.
And that he said, that will giveyou the partridge in the hens.
So yeah.
It's not about keeping a pen ofthis and a pen of that.
It's just knowing what'sproduced is that this color, who
actually looks ugly, doesn'trepresent, represents his breed,
(22:58):
bred to the right one.
We'll give you the color and thecocks that you want, you know
what I'm saying?
It's just a, it's a game andit's a magic trick that you use
to get the cocks.
And there's a magic trick thatyou get to get the hands, but
you can't bring them together.
I think you've got the right
Carey (23:12):
colors.
I think it's knowing whichdefect offsets which to create
the desired outcome.
That's probably the biggestchallenge in all of that.
Kenny (23:24):
That's a good way.
Look at that.
Actually.
Yeah, I would call all thosebirds, but then I'd be shooting
myself in the foot.
Yeah.
Carey (23:31):
You'd call them all and then you'd be like, that's what
I did too.
I needed that bird.
Cause that would offset this,which would give me that.
And then you're back to eitherscrapping the project or trying
to figure out how to get thoseagain.
Yeah.
That's a nightmare.
Kenny (23:50):
Sounds like one to me.
I won't go that direction.
I don't really teach it.
I don't think you can.
How do you, how can you create astrain that can't repeat itself?
How can you create a strainthat's uniform, that's not
uniform, consistent, andrepeatable?
To me that's not a strain.
That's not a pure family.
To me the definition of a purefamily is one that is uniform,
(24:10):
consistent, repeat, it repeatsitself, and it's predictable.
You don't have that, you don'thave a pure family.
How are you going to get thatwith a family you have to double
mate?
That's just my opinion.
I'm not fond of it.
You know what I mean?
I get it.
Okay,
Jennifer (24:23):
so what about single mating?
Kenny (24:26):
Single mating I think is important when you're creating a
strain because you need to knowwho the parents are.
Okay, group mating is great forjust producing a lot of birds.
That's what we do when we'reclan mating.
Okay, but when we want to knowwho exactly who is the mother
and father of that particularOffspring and I want to know
that for every bird on my farm,then I will single mate
everything I can move the cockaround but as long as I'm
(24:49):
keeping records of who he's bredto And I know exactly who the
mother and father is of everyegg on that in those boxes, then
I'm good to go You know, you
Jennifer (24:59):
move the male around
Kenny (25:00):
If I need to, depending on my brain program and
depending on my lines, like Ihave three lines of the Max's
line and I've got three lines ofthe black pearls, and then I've
got a couple of the single rail.
So those are all specializedfamilies.
It's a program I use thefounder's program.
But they're all single made it.
Yeah.
Carey (25:20):
See, that's why I think trap nest should be a more
common thing than what it is.
Because if you put one roosterin to a pen with a few different
hens, you obviously know who thefather is.
And if you have trap nest,you'll know who the mom is
because you take the egg out andlabel it with whatever the leg
(25:42):
bands are.
You're good.
Kenny (25:43):
It's true, but it doesn't come.
It doesn't go without anyproblems.
I've,
Carey (25:48):
I've used them.
I've used other
Kenny (25:49):
people, broken eggs, stressed out hens and you don't
get out there in time.
They die because of the heat.
It's a mess.
So although it's a good way todo it, if you can manage it and
you're good about getting outthere often to collect the eggs
and mark them and stuff, andyou're using incubator fine, but
then you got to find a way toseparate them inside the
incubator too.
So there's issues with it.
Carey (26:10):
There's a lot of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's an option.
Yeah, pros and cons toeverything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennifer (26:18):
Yep.
Carey (26:18):
So tell me this with lime breeding specifically, if you do
it correctly, How manygenerations can you get out of
that?
Again,
Kenny (26:29):
it depends on the quality of the birds that you're line
breeding.
That's why we have a cleanupprocess in the Founders Program,
because it does get you to apoint where you have birds that
are what we call worthy ofcloning.
And that's the key.
Do they represent their breed?
Are they free of defects?
Are they healthy?
Do they have the right typeconfirmation color?
So if they're, if they haveeverything you're looking for,
(26:51):
and they're a good quality bird,you can go pretty far.
I'll push them as far as I can.
Usually I tell people try to getthem to 7, 8 or 15, 16.
That's your goal.
Now every now and then you mightcome short of that.
You might get to three quarter.
But if you can go even furtherthan that, great.
Because again, I want to getthem as close as I can.
As soon as I run into problemsand every bird is different, you
(27:12):
never know what that's going tobe.
That's when I stop.
I call those birds, go back onegeneration, then I move forward.
So it's not something, there'sno set line.
Every bird is different.
Some can go farther, some can't.
Clean them up properly and gopretty far.
Carey (27:28):
All right, I have one last question.
And this is a question that Isee so much and it just makes me
cringe.
And, but I want your opinion onwhen should or how often, if at
all, Should you bring new bloodinto a program?
Kenny (27:50):
I want to hear what Jennifer says first, after the
way she just reacted.
Jennifer (27:55):
The only reason I think you need new blood is if
you're looking for a gene thatdoesn't exist, that you have to
bring in physically.
Other than that, you should beable to just do what you need to
do with what you have.
Carey (28:10):
I was going to say, if you're looking for that defect
that you accidentally culled,that, that should be the only
time you should even considerthat because, I would think, and
I may be wrong, but I wouldthink it'd be just like starting
all over.
Kenny (28:25):
You are starting over.
Okay.
If you have an establishedfamily, I want to say this with
a caveat.
I would never add outside blood.
Take a chance of screwing themup.
Okay.
If I thought I needed to dosomething like they're lacking
something or just not gettingthere for some reason, I would
never mess with the foundationline.
I would create a subline and doall my experimentation with that
(28:45):
line.
That line never touches theother line.
So I picked the best bird I canout of my foundation, breed it
to this new bird, create a wholeseparate line using the Founders
Program.
That's the way I would do it.
Using the Founders Program,create a whole separate line.
See where that goes.
And just keep breeding them,generate generation after
generation and see if they startshowing things, if they start
(29:08):
going in a bad direction, theystart getting sick, they start
showing defects, whatever it is.
And you can take the chanceeventually to bring that line
into the other one.
I don't recommend that though.
A lot of times what happens isthat subline usually doesn't pan
out like you thought it would.
And if it does, and it's betterthan the foundation, then that
becomes your new line and youget rid of the found, the.
(29:30):
The other foundation thatbecomes your new foundation.
Now, the only time I would eventhink about breed, breeding
hybrids or adding new blood isin the very beginning when
you're trying to either obtainyour seed foul or you're trying
to create your seed foul.
Now in the Breeders Academy, wehave a program called a gene
chopping program, basically.
(29:50):
And it's not exactly what itsounds like, but it's it does
bring in different birds fromdifferent places to acquire
different genes.
But there's a process to it.
Okay.
It's not a matter of because seewhat you have to do is you have
to manage those genes as you go,because if you don't manage
them, you're going to lose themas you go, because every time
you had new blood, it changesthem.
(30:12):
But I can tell you one thing.
If you had new blood, even ifit's better than your birds into
your foundation line, It's notgoing to improve them, it's just
going to change them, and youhave a chance of bringing in
genes that you didn't want,hidden recessives, deleterious
genes, detrimental defects.
And a lot of people think thatthey can take a bird and breed
(30:33):
it into their line to refresh.
You're not refreshing anything,you're changing them, forever.
16th infusion method.
So what happens, because whatthey think they're doing is
they're bringing in a bird toyour family, you breed it in,
and then you breed your birdsinto the offspring, each
generation, until you feel likeyou only have one eighth of it,
(30:55):
or something like that.
It doesn't work like that.
Genes don't work like that.
And if you look at the waymeiosis works, when you bring in
new blood into a family, in thecock and hens chromosomes,
Combine and they wrap aroundeach other and they will do two
divisions.
But when they separate in thefirst division, they actually
(31:18):
leave parts of each other oneach other.
They swap parts.
Okay.
Then they go throughrecombination and then they
divide again.
into four separate gametes,which makes them unique.
So now you've gotunpredictability.
You don't have repeatability.
You've lost uniformity andconsistency.
(31:40):
So you've changed the family.
Now you're dealing with hybridsand you're basically starting
all over.
Now, a lot of times when youbring birds that even match them
and have the same monogenictraits like dominant recessive,
you can almost get away with itbecause they're just genes.
But what about all the polygenicgenes?
All the polygenic traits, nowyou've got multiple genes you're
(32:02):
dealing with.
And whenever you changepolygenics, when you add new
blood, you change them.
Because the only way to improvepolygenics is from an
established family, inbredfamily.
And you breed to the highestintensity over many generations
to actually improve thatpolygenic trait.
So when you add new blood, youdisrupted the gene pool, the
(32:24):
genomes of those birds, and nowit's all over the place.
And now you're startingcompletely over.
And it's the polygenic traitsthat are more important than
even the monogenic traits.
Because polygenic traits areyour form and function traits,
okay?
And those don't happenovernight.
It takes many generations to, toimprove them, intensify them and
(32:46):
get into a point when they'rerepeatable.
Yeah, it's real important.
Jennifer (32:52):
That was a big answer,
Carey (32:54):
man.
I just, I love it.
That was the absolute bestexplanation of don't do it
because, a lot of people saydon't do it and they can't
accept.
Because it's going to you'restarting over.
It's going to mess up.
That was an in depth explanationas to why and it's very
(33:17):
important.
So that was very awesome.
I appreciate that.
Kenny (33:20):
Yeah, I hear all the time.
They think they can bring in newblood to infuse them and improve
on them.
Refresh them.
And he's just from, meiosisalone, we see it doesn't work.
Just the nature of polygenictraits, we know it doesn't work.
Don't want to change them,because now you're starting
over.
The fact that they're all uniquenow.
(33:42):
They're all different.
You gotta start, you gottafigure out the few that are
good, hopefully, and then createa whole new family from that.
And I've had so many memberscome up to me and say, this is a
family from my greatgrandfather, okay?
And I only infuse new bloodevery five years.
I go, they're not the family ofyour grandfather anymore.
They've changed quite a bit.
Trust me, I don't care how muchthey look like that family.
(34:04):
They're not the same thing, atall.
Jennifer (34:07):
Alright, I have one last question, since he got his.
So what about culling?
Can you be a breeder and notcull?
Kenny (34:16):
It's impossible to breed, create a strain, improve a
strain without culling.
It's just something you gottaget used to.
If you're not willing to culland cull hard, and sometimes it
can mean a lot of birds, thenyou're just not ready to be what
I would call a breeder.
Because if you're just puttingbirds together, producing
offspring, to me that's notbreeding.
That's just Mass production,that's a completely different
(34:38):
thing.
So I know some people are justso it's so hard for them to, and
I get it.
I don't want to call birds.
It's the worst.
I hate it.
I'll put the, I'll put it off.
Sometimes I'll stick them inanother pen and I'll keep
feeding them for two weeksbefore I finally call them
sometimes, because I don't likeit either.
It's the best thing you can dofor the family.
Overall.
(34:58):
The nice thing about us withchickens, we can eat our coals.
Dogs can't.
I know they have a bigger issuewith it, things like that.
But no, you gotta be willing tocall and you gotta be willing to
call hard.
And and any defects that areexpressed, if you're bringing to
them, if you're tolerating them,you're going to perpetuate them.
It's just going to make itworse.
(35:18):
And boy recessive, they can sureadd up.
They can sure.
It can duplicate and to thepoint when all your whole family
has that same defect.
I've went on people's farms andthey said, Hey, can you help me
select my brood fowl and set upmy brood pens?
Sure.
I'll come over.
It's what I do for my memberssometimes.
And I go over there and I'mlooking down, I'm talking to
him.
I see a bird with.
(35:39):
Duck foot.
I'm like, oh wow.
Okay walk over here.
I see a hen walk by me Oh, shehas duck foot both toes.
I go.
I told him to stop talking.
Let's just walk around Let melook at your birds.
I could not find a bird on thisfarm that didn't have duck foot
Jennifer (35:52):
How
Kenny (35:55):
do you fix a family when you can't find at least one bird
that doesn't have duck foot?
You have to bring in outsideblood to do it now.
We're going to change them Yeah,but it's also important to
understand that there's adifference between a monogenic
trait a monogenic defect versusa polygenic trait, or polygenic
defect.
Now if I have a monogenicdefect, Like a recessive trait,
(36:19):
let's say duck foot would be agood one.
Then I'm just going to, if I canI'm going to call it and just
not deal with it and breed tothe ones that don't have it now,
if I have a polygenic defectlet's say squirrel tail crooked
breastbone.
Now I don't like it.
But I'm going to try to find thebirds that have the best tail
and the best breastbone.
But if I don't have it, I can, Ihave some that do have it, but
(36:44):
some are better than others,then by bringing to the highest
intensity, I can improve thatover time to the point where I
don't see the duck, the squirreltail or the crooked breastbone.
So understanding which Defectsare detrimental and which are
just, problems I have to workwith is the difference because
some people, they look at themas the same thing and they're
(37:05):
not, so it's,
Jennifer (37:08):
and sometimes it works to your benefit to keep your
coals set aside for just alittle while now, I have a
larger farm and so as I'msorting out the younger males, I
look at them and I just throwthem out in the yard.
And just go eat bugs, make sureyour bones are good and solid,
so when I make bone broth later,you taste good, and, I have
these big giant birds and ittakes months and months for them
(37:31):
to mature, and I pulled up tothe barn, I don't know, maybe
about three weeks ago.
And I'm looking at this bird andhe had been out running free
for, I'm going to say, fourmonths or more, and I'm just
looking at him and looking athim, and dang it if I didn't put
him back in the breeder pen, Ididn't
Kenny (37:50):
give up.
Jennifer (37:51):
I was like, you have exactly what I was looking for.
Kenny (37:54):
That hurts.
Yeah.
A beat.
And I look at my birds soclosely, when I go from pen to
pen feeding them, I take thetime.
I don't just throw feed and walkby.
I look at that bird for a whileand I was like, why do I need to
keep you?
Show me why I should keep you,and I'm looking for problems
because I do not want to feedbirds that are, I'm not going to
breed to, and I'll be out thereand Nancy will walk up to me and
(38:16):
she'll start talking to me.
She looks down, hey, why is thatbird out duck toe?
What?
I've been feeding this thing formonths and you're telling me, no
oh my God, that makes you think,oh my God, what else am I
missing out here?
You know what I mean?
Like you said, sometimes I'llkeep birds.
Like I have a bunch of hens outthere that I'm seeing issues
with, could be color.
It's mostly color out thereright now.
(38:37):
And I'll mark them and I'll keepthem come getting eggs from
them.
So when they're done layingeggs, then I'll go ahead and
call them.
So I'll hold onto them until theend of that, until they're done
doing that, but roosters, if Isee a fault or I see a defect,
I'll call them.
I see any sick birds.
I'll call them as fast as I can.
I don't vaccinate.
I don't medicate.
(38:58):
I don't use, any aids.
I don't supplement them.
I don't do anything if theycan't live on my farm.
I don't want them.
They're not meant to be here.
I give them the best feed.
I can.
I've had a couple ofnutritionists.
Look at what I feed them.
We worked out of because what Iwant them to do is go to the
different feed stores and say,okay, this is what's available.
A lot of people can't go andhave their feed made by a
(39:20):
manufacturer or mill.
By what's on the shelf, what canI put together in its
proportions to develop a feedthat works great?
And I've been using this feedfor a long time.
So anybody I've given it to it'sworked for them and so I've been
doing that so I don't doanything extra if they Can't
survive on my farm with the feedI'm giving them.
(39:40):
They're not meant to be here.
That talk about strict callingThat's how strict I am.
You come down sick.
You're gone
Jennifer (39:47):
Preach into the choir here, so he calls me ruthless
because I just look at himsideways and you gotta go.
Kenny (39:54):
No, I think that's important.
I think it's important not totolerate anything,
Jennifer (39:58):
because epigenetics
Kenny (40:00):
is a funny thing.
It works in your favor andsometimes it can work against
you.
And the environment will allowsome genes to be expressed.
They weren't expressed onanother farm.
And if you select it to the,like I said, a lot of them are
polygenic.
select to the highest intensityfor that trait, then I'm going
to make that trait a permanentfeature of the, of that family.
(40:22):
Okay.
But I have to be careful whatI'm allowing to be expressed.
So another way to look at it isif I took birds and send it over
to Carrie.
I know he's like back eastsomewhere he's going to get
different traits out of my birdsthat I never saw here because of
the difference in environment.
The way he feeds them, the wayhe, the environment in general,
(40:44):
the weather his farm managementcan have an issue on it.
That's going to allow certaintraits to be expressed that I
wasn't seen here.
The histone modifications, theDNA methylation, they all take
effect.
One works like a knob.
One works as a switch, whichmeans it's going to either
change the intent intensity ofthat trait, or it's just going
to either block it or allow itto Show that wasn't showed
(41:07):
before.
So yeah, those are reallyimportant and feed feeds a big
issue with that too, But ifthey're not meant to be here, I
won't tolerate it.
They're gone
Jennifer (41:18):
Mm hmm.
We have greatly enjoyed ourconversation.
Kenny (41:22):
Yes, we really have awesome Yeah, anytime.
Let me know.
Jennifer (41:26):
Yes, you're welcome back anytime you want to
Kenny (41:28):
thank you.
Yeah, no problem
So today we have been able to get probably one of the
(00:06):
most knowledgeable breedersthere is out there.
We've got Kenny Troiano, did Isay that right?
Troiano, close enough.
I'm close.
Okay.
So we've got him here today andwe're going to talk about
different types of breeding.
And how all that stuff works.
If you don't mind, telleverybody how they can get in
(00:28):
touch with you and all that goodstuff.
Kenny (00:30):
I'm the owner and founder of The Breeders Academy.
And so I teach Breeders from allover the world, how to breed,
how to create strains, how toimprove their strains, how to
maintain them.
You can get ahold of me atwww.breedersacademy.com.
If you wanna message me and askme about, ask me a little more
about the website and everythingyou can go to my email address
(00:53):
breedersacademy@gmail.com.
So that's how you get ahold ofme.
Alright, cool.
Jennifer (00:59):
But, and you have your own podcast every Monday, right?
Kenny (01:02):
Yeah, actually the podcast itself is on Monday, and
then we do a live show onFridays.
And they're both called Bread toPerfection with my co host,
Frank Bradley and my wife,Nancy.
Jennifer (01:14):
Yeah.
How is Nancy?
She was in a boot, wasn't she?
Kenny (01:17):
Oh, that was last year.
That was maybe, actually thatwas like a year and a half ago.
She what'd she do?
She hurt, she did.
She hurt her her leg and sheended up in a boot for a few
months.
That was a horrible time.
Yeah.
But she's a major part of theshow.
She has always been a part ofthe show because Frank and I, We
tend to, we try to simplify asmuch as possible, and we tend to
(01:38):
miss some things because, thecurse of knowledge, we think
that everybody knows where we'reat, what we're talking about,
what we're trying to get across,and then Nancy's there to always
put us in our place, make surewe're getting the message out
properly, ask the questions thatthe, she thinks the followers
would want to know, so she'svital to our show.
I don't think we could do itwithout her.
She
Jennifer (01:58):
keeps you grounded.
She does.
I
Kenny (02:00):
mean,
Carey (02:00):
I've listened to several episodes and my brain would just
start to go.
And then she would ask thequestion that I was thinking and
I was like, yes.
Jennifer (02:10):
And then Kenny comes in there and he's you're messing
up my outline.
Quit boxing all around on myoutline.
Kenny (02:17):
Yeah, she tends to jump in and distract me in just a way
that, so I lose my train ofthought, but she's valuable and
we need her and it all worksout,
Jennifer (02:25):
yep.
It's the benefit of beingmarried for a long time, right?
43
Kenny (02:29):
years.
Jennifer (02:30):
43?
Kenny (02:31):
42, but we've been together for 43.
Carey (02:34):
Yeah.
Jennifer (02:34):
Awesome.
Carey (02:35):
Congratulations.
Yes.
Appreciate that.
People, my wife and I justcelebrated our 20th.
And people, it's sad that itblew their mind, but a lot of
people, they don't know peoplethat have been together that
long.
Kenny (02:49):
Yeah, I see that a lot, but pretty much everybody in my
family and her family has prettymuch stayed together.
It's not something we even thinkabout, so it's a, no, it's not
hard.
It's just, you got to compromiseand get along and understand
each other and talk, talk, wehave no problem doing that.
I'm Italian.
I can talk all day,
Jennifer (03:10):
to pick your brain and expose people to some breeding
methods, some myths and somegood points and just different
vocabulary.
Kenny (03:20):
Great.
Jennifer (03:21):
All right.
So where do you have apreference on where to start?
You want to start with all themyths we see out there, or do
you want to start withdefinitions?
Kenny (03:28):
Whatever questions you think your followers need to
know.
Just go wherever you want to go.
Absolutely.
Jennifer (03:35):
Can you breed a son to its mother?
Kenny (03:38):
Absolutely.
There's a number of ways to dothat, too, and there's a number
of reasons to do that.
For instance, like if you wantto, let's say you have a hen
that you bred to another cock,they're not related, so you're
producing hybrids, but you wantto make a family out of that.
And to get more, let's say they,they produce offspring, but the
(03:59):
offspring are not quite betterthan the parents.
So you would breed the son backto a mother to get more from the
mother.
And you would keep doing thatuntil you get offspring that are
better than the parents so youcan move forward.
And another reason would be in aline bringing situation where
you're trying to clone thatmother.
So you'd be bringing not only toher son, but to her grandson and
(04:22):
great grandson.
So a lot of people are afraid ofinbreeding and line breeding and
they go towards what we call inand inbreeding, breeding to
aunts and nephews and, uncles tonieces and cousin to cousin, I
can't talk all of a sudden,cousin to cousin, because
they're afraid of theinbreeding, afraid to create
deleterious genes anddetrimental defects.
(04:45):
And they're afraid of what it'sgoing to mean.
They're afraid they're going toget too close and have problems.
And to me, I want to get ashomozygous as I can.
I want to.
Get them as close as I can andthen weed out those problems as
I go.
But no I try to breathe as closeas I can to get that homozygous
state.
Jennifer (05:03):
How many generations do you think you can go before
you start running into problems?
Kenny (05:08):
It depends on the it depends on the birds you're
starting with.
Some can take it a little bitlonger.
Some have issues that you'regoing to have to deal with.
See, the one thing that we talkabout, like in the Breers
Academy, is that how do I wantto say this?
That you don't want to linebreed something that's not ready
to be line bred.
Because not every bird should beline bred.
(05:29):
Cause the whole idea is to clonethat bird.
And so there's a cleanup processwe use in the founders program
that actually gets them to apoint where you can start line
breeding them.
And as far as backcrossing, Ionly want to breed to the parent
until I get offsprings arebetter than the offspring.
Better than the parent.
So if I'm breeding that closeback to the parent and I start
(05:54):
seeing problems, that's when Istop.
Because I, I have no problempushing them to the limit to see
how far they'll go.
Once I hit that limit, I discardthat.
generation, and I go back one,and then I move on from there.
Jennifer (06:08):
So what if just Nancy down the road goes to Tractor
Supply, buys a bucket full ofchicks, and throws them out in
her backyard, and just lets themmultiply?
How many years can she do that,you think, before there'd be a
problem?
Kenny (06:22):
Along, you can go a long time that way.
Jennifer (06:24):
Like a whole lifetime?
Kenny (06:26):
The thing is if you're putting a lot of birds together
and you're basically flockmating them and you have a
number of roosters being bred toa number of hens, the chances of
them getting too close to wherethey're starting to see issues
would be longer than you'd everknow.
Okay?
You just wouldn't get there.
Because there's so much geneticdiversity.
The problem is you want to, whenyou're breeding or inbreeding or
(06:49):
line breeding or breeding close,like a close family.
The idea is to get close, to getthem homozygous, but knowing
when to stop is the importantpart, okay?
You'll get there sooner that waythan you would just breeding
crosses and mixed birds andthings like that,
Jennifer (07:04):
so the people that just want to hatch because
they're addicted to hatching andjust like all the pretty egg
killers and the pretty birds intheir yard, they don't really
have to worry about depressionand defects.
Kenny (07:15):
The only time they'd have to worry about that is if
they're Using or working from asmall number of birds.
Then you start to deal with whatthey call genetic drift.
That's when it gets tight, andthen it goes in a direction.
And it's, sometimes thatdirection works in your favor,
and sometimes it doesn't.
If you're dealing with a lot ofbirds, then I would never worry
(07:36):
about it.
I really wouldn't.
Jennifer (07:38):
Can you define genetic drift for me?
Yeah,
Kenny (07:41):
when you have, let's say you have a flock of birds, or
like my strain, my Maximus line.
And all of a sudden a disease orsomething comes in and wipes out
a good number of them.
And I'm only left with a small,let's say a couple pairs or
maybe a cock and a couple ofhens from that whole flock that
whole strain that forced me togo in a direction that I either
(08:01):
didn't want to go or where it'sgoing to, where it benefits me.
So what happens is you take,you're taking genes from a
larger family.
Condensing them into a few birdsand that's going to change the
direction where they'll go nowrather than where they were
going to go.
That's basically genetic drift.
It's that change of directiondue to a low number of birds
(08:24):
from a larger flock.
If I go to Kerry's farm and Ibuy a trio for him or a pair.
Now, if I am able to get areally good pair from him, then
I've got, and I got a reallygood sample of his flock, then
I'm going to go in a really gooddirection.
I'm going to create.
A great strain.
I could probably, I have theopportunity to make something
better than even what Kerry hason this farm because he's
(08:46):
dealing with a larger number ofbirds.
But if Kerry sends me a coupleof birds that are basically
crap, excuse my language, thenI'm going to go in a really poor
direction no matter what I dobecause of genetic drift.
Yeah it's taken birds from alarger flock, a small sample,
and then going in a, and thenstarting from there and going in
(09:08):
a, possibly in a differentdirection.
It either works for you oragainst you, depending on what
you're using and your skill as abreeder.
Jennifer (09:17):
Interesting.
Carey (09:18):
The important thing is a really solid foundation flock,
like where you're starting.
That's what I'm hearing is themost important thing about
keeping that clean and gettingtowards that homozygous bird
quicker, if you will, isstarting out with a really good
(09:40):
quality set of birds.
Kenny (09:42):
Starting with good seed fowl is priority, but if you
don't know how to select themand breed them.
and create a strain from thatand then it doesn't matter.
Yeah.
So it's, there's, it's startingwith the right birds, but having
the knowledge to know what to dowith them after that.
Because even from the bestbirds, they're going to show
variation.
They're going to show somegenetic diversity.
(10:04):
And if you don't understand whatto do about that or recognize
it, you're not gonna be able tocreate a strain.
Carey (10:11):
Got it.
And that makes
Kenny (10:13):
sense.
Jennifer (10:15):
What about sibling mating?
What's your thoughts on that?
Kenny (10:17):
Sure.
Yeah.
That's a great way to fixate theline, lock in the genes, clean
them up.
It's a, we don't think of it asa method.
We think of it as a tool.
It's a great tool.
We, it's one of the methods.
We have three phases of theFounders Program, six stages,
and that's one of them.
That's one of the stages and weuse that actually in the cleanup
(10:40):
process.
Jennifer (10:41):
It's a good way to find recessives, right?
Kenny (10:44):
It's a good here's what happens is when you breed two
birds together that are brotherand sister, you're going to
expose the good, the bad, andthe ugly.
Okay?
You're going to get good ones.
You're going to get somemediocre and you're going to get
some real bad ones.
That doesn't mean anything.
It's doing its job.
That's what you want to see.
And if you're hatching as manychicks you can manage and afford
from that.
(11:04):
Then you're going to have a goodselection and you can move
forward with what the ones wecall our standouts, you, if
you've done a coaching call,what you've done, listen to
enough of our shows, we talkabout that a lot is you usually
we them down to the top 10%.
And then from there you pick thestandouts and you move forward
with that.
Yeah, you're going to get someof the Bad recessive, not all
(11:26):
recessives are bad, but you'regoing to get some bad recessive.
You're going to get somedeleterious genes.
You're going to get somedetrimental defects.
You're going to get issues thatyou want to make sure you weed
out.
The one thing I would say, ifyou're thinking about breeding
from the sister is to make surethat the brother and sister are
good representatives of theirbreed.
That's important because if theyhave faults, you're going to
perpetuate the faults.
(11:46):
So they got to be as good asthey can be, otherwise I
wouldn't breed them.
You don't want to breed it,inbreed everything.
You want to inbreed the goodones, so you can clean them up
and move forward with them.
Jennifer (11:58):
Yeah, I think that's something that we forget is that
while we're picking out all thegood traits that we want to
Passed down that we also have tolook at their faults because
those are going to go to we tendto look at the positive And not
always think about thenegatives.
Kenny (12:17):
The thing is even from the best birds.
You're always breeding to Thestandouts and they're always, no
matter how good they are,they're going to show some
variation and you just got tounderstand which are good and
which are bad, which you want toexaggerate and what you want to
call out.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, it's just name of thegame, actually.
Jennifer (12:37):
Is clan mating and spiral mating the same thing?
Kenny (12:40):
It's basically, yeah, it is the same thing, just two
names for the same brainprogram.
That's an interesting one, whichI think is ingenious if used
properly.
A lot of people want to use itfor the wrong reasons.
They want to use it to create astrain or to improve a strain.
I think it's a great maintenanceprogram.
Because, What you're basicallydoing is you have at least three
(13:03):
clans.
You can have more, but you haveto have at least three, three
clans and Basically is whatyou're okay What you're doing is
you have the hens from each clanwhich stay in those clans and
then all the offspring from themstay in Those clans as well and
you're moving your best roostersover one clan each generation
It's a great way to maintaingenetic diversity, but only in a
(13:27):
family that's well establishedand don't have any issues And
they're already repeatingthemselves, they're uniform,
consistent, they haverepeatability, predictability,
and you're not getting anysurprises.
If you're doing it to create astrain, it's the worst thing you
can do, because you're, you justnever get there.
Because you're actually, you'recreating more genetic diversity,
(13:51):
all you're doing is you'retrying to manage the variation
the best you can.
But what's happening is how do Iwant to say this?
Oh, I lost my train of thought.
Okay, it's all about the numberswith clan mating.
So let's say you want 12 hensper clan.
You have your main roosters,you're moving from clan to clan.
(14:11):
You keep some spare roosters onthe side just in case.
The only way you're improvingthem is by culling.
Because you have to keep thenumbers.
So you're keeping your best 10or 12 hands per clan, and then
you're culling out the worstones.
You don't make the progress youthink you're going to make from
that.
It's not very fast.
(14:31):
So I always tell people, ifyou're going to do a clan mating
system, that's fine with anestablished family, but you want
to keep another line on the sidefor your improvement program,
and then you move your best birdfrom your improvement program
into the clan mating system, andthat'll help improve that.
So a clan mating system has itsplace.
It is ingenious for what itdoes.
(14:52):
But it's terrible for creating astrain or improving a strain.
It's a great maintenanceprogram.
Jennifer (14:58):
I can see that because you're keeping all the hens and,
but you're really only keepingone male from each pen.
Kenny (15:05):
And that male is being rotated from pen to pen each
year.
Okay.
And you definitely don't want todo it with a mixed flock.
I think you're going to create astrain.
You want to have a, you want tohave a family.
You want to have, you want toestablish family.
We tell people in the found, inthe Breers Academy, when you're
using the Founders Program, thatonce you get to stage six, You
(15:27):
want to there is a rotationalprogram in that, and then you'll
start over.
You can also keep the clanmating family on the side where
you can keep a lot of extrabirds.
Okay.
You have your best birds foryour improvement program.
Use a clan mating as amaintenance program.
And then all your productioncomes from that program, not the
(15:48):
improvement program.
That makes sense.
Yeah,
Jennifer (15:51):
it just means more chicken math and more pins is
what it means.
Kenny (15:54):
More pens.
A lot of chickens live in forsomeone.
Do you really want to do that?
Are you really up to doing that?
You're really able to maintainthat many chickens, but it's a
great, it is a great method, buta lot of people don't understand
it and they use it for the wrongreasons.
They think it's the beginning,middle and end of a brain
program.
Of maintaining your strength.
A lot of people think of linebreeding the same way.
(16:16):
They think of it as its solething.
Like it is a breeding program.
Like it's middle, it's like thebeginning middle end of a
breeding program.
That's just the cloning process.
That's one method of a breedingprogram.
A great breeding program hasmultiple methods that represent
the whole program.
If you think an inbreeding is abreeding program, no.
(16:37):
You think line breeding is abreeding program?
It is not.
Clan mating?
No.
It's not a brain program.
It's a method for maintainingyour strength.
But it's, it will not, it's likewe say, you look at selection,
that's a, you select aprogressive strain, you cull to
maintain it.
That's the only way you canmaintain a clan mating system is
(16:59):
through culling the numbers,because you have to maintain the
numbers.
When you have that many numbers,some of those birds aren't going
to be as good as others.
How are you going to improve afamily when there's birds that
are not as good as others in thesame clan?
When you look at the FoundersProgram, we're only breeding to
the standouts.
It's the standouts that progressthe family, not the whole flock.
(17:22):
It's like when you breed a bunchof birds and you're trying to
create a family, you don't breedto all of them.
You breed to the best ones.
And that's usually a few ofthem.
At a time.
Jennifer (17:32):
Yep.
Kenny (17:33):
Yeah.
Jennifer (17:35):
What about double mating?
Can you explain that?
Kenny (17:39):
Double mating is a nightmare.
I don't agree with it.
I don't like it.
I know why some people use itfor people who show birds that
are all about the color andtrying to match.
their birds to the standard,it's a necessity.
I get it.
But when you're trying to createa family or improve a family,
it's the worst method you couldever use.
Matter of fact, if you'refollowing the standard of
(18:00):
perfection, which I have a bunchof them here and you're trying
to make it in the shows, youcan't help but double mate
because most of those breeds, tomaintain the colors that are,
they're listing in these, in thestandard, have to be double
mated.
They just do.
Not very many of them can bebred true just by breeding the
cock to the hen.
They all have to have a cock'sline, a stag line, a hen's line,
(18:22):
a pullet line to get the colorsthey want.
And you have to understand thatbreed.
You have to understand your fowlso that you know which cock and
hen to breed together to get thecolor you want.
Is
Jennifer (18:33):
it like a pattern thing?
Kenny (18:35):
It's not exactly a pattern thing.
It's more like some okay.
Here's a good example.
This happened to us.
We I raised American games forthe most part But we were
raising we wanted to raiseWelsumer because they have
there's a certain, the colorabout them There are certain
things that kind of represent itWhat the kind of things I like
(18:55):
that the same things I see inAmerican games when it comes to
color that party color and Ifinally got some birds and hands
were a beautiful partridgecolor.
The Cox had nice black breastswith the red hackle and
everything.
They're beautiful.
Birds had good station, goodcarriage, good body, good
confirmation, good type.
(19:18):
And then after a few years, Istart knowing the notice.
The coloring was getting awayfrom me.
And the hens were losing thepartridge color and going foxy
on me.
And I tried like hell to getthat color back because the
cocks were looking really good.
And I was culling all the cocksthat were showing mottling in
the breasts.
I finally talked to a friend ofmine who raises them, he said
(19:38):
they had to be double matedbecause it's the hen, the cocks
with the mottling in the breastswhich gives you the proper hens.
And when I found out that it hadto be double mated to maintain
that color, I just got rid ofthe whole bunch.
I was not going to do that.
That was not something I wasgoing to deal with.
I only know a handful of peoplethat can do double mating
properly, and they are reallygood at it.
(20:01):
Jack Dodd, he's a old Englishgame, Bantam breeder.
He really understands it likenobody I know.
And some people, they juststruggle with it.
And this was, according to BrianReeder, this was the big con, is
that a lot of breeders knewthat's what had to happen with
some of these breeds, and theydid it on purpose because they
(20:21):
knew which hens had to be bredto which cocks to get the color
they want, and they were winningall the shows.
Yeah.
Okay?
It's something that should'venever started, but now it's
there and there's nothing youcan do about it.
Red pile's one of those.
It's a, if it's a blood pile,they breed true, but a normal
(20:42):
red pile is the, it's frombreeding a dominant white to a
light red cock.
And you get that pile color inthe cocks and you get white hens
with some salmon in the breasts.
Okay unless you're holding on tosome reds on the side and some
whites on the side to managethat color, eventually the hens
(21:02):
are going to lose that salmon inthe breasts and even the cocks
are going to get lighter andlighter.
So you have to double mate themevery now and then to bring the
color back.
To me, that's just a nightmare.
I won't do it.
I'm sorry.
Jennifer (21:15):
I'm no expert on the blue black splash, but would
that be A way of double matingwhere they have to keep putting
the black back in to keep theblue true I don't fully
understand blue.
I don't
Kenny (21:25):
know that breed that and i'd probably have to refer to
brian reader on that one Matterof fact, there's some colors.
I know american games like theback of my hand for the most
part A lot of the domesticchickens.
They are difficult They'recomplicated, and Brian has a
great handle on that, and himand I are, he's working with me
on that, which is helping, andI'm getting a handle on some of
(21:45):
them, but I don't know them all,if that's what they're doing to
maintain the color, it soundslike double mating to me.
Jennifer (21:51):
Okay, so back to the Wellsummers, because everybody
likes the Wellsummers for thosedark eggs.
To keep the hens, the partridgecolor, they have to basically
create this pen over here to getthe pretty girls.
And then to keep the boys howthey're supposed to look, they
have another pen over here justto breed boys out of.
(22:12):
But you never really mix thetwo.
Kenny (22:15):
It's not so much that, it's knowing what colors that
are produced produce the othercolor.
Like I was saying, I had noproblem getting the black
breast, black breasted summersthat I wanted and got them going
good.
I was losing the hens and hetold me to get the hens right.
I needed to breed them to a cockwith modeling in the breast.
(22:37):
The red modeling they showsometimes, which I thought was
ugly.
And that he said, that will giveyou the partridge in the hens.
So yeah.
It's not about keeping a pen ofthis and a pen of that.
It's just knowing what'sproduced is that this color, who
actually looks ugly, doesn'trepresent, represents his breed,
(22:58):
bred to the right one.
We'll give you the color and thecocks that you want, you know
what I'm saying?
It's just a, it's a game andit's a magic trick that you use
to get the cocks.
And there's a magic trick thatyou get to get the hands, but
you can't bring them together.
I think you've got the right
Carey (23:12):
colors.
I think it's knowing whichdefect offsets which to create
the desired outcome.
That's probably the biggestchallenge in all of that.
Kenny (23:24):
That's a good way.
Look at that.
Actually.
Yeah, I would call all thosebirds, but then I'd be shooting
myself in the foot.
Yeah.
Carey (23:31):
You'd call them all and then you'd be like, that's what
I did too.
I needed that bird.
Cause that would offset this,which would give me that.
And then you're back to eitherscrapping the project or trying
to figure out how to get thoseagain.
Yeah.
That's a nightmare.
Kenny (23:50):
Sounds like one to me.
I won't go that direction.
I don't really teach it.
I don't think you can.
How do you, how can you create astrain that can't repeat itself?
How can you create a strainthat's uniform, that's not
uniform, consistent, andrepeatable?
To me that's not a strain.
That's not a pure family.
To me the definition of a purefamily is one that is uniform,
(24:10):
consistent, repeat, it repeatsitself, and it's predictable.
You don't have that, you don'thave a pure family.
How are you going to get thatwith a family you have to double
mate?
That's just my opinion.
I'm not fond of it.
You know what I mean?
I get it.
Okay,
Jennifer (24:23):
so what about single mating?
Kenny (24:26):
Single mating I think is important when you're creating a
strain because you need to knowwho the parents are.
Okay, group mating is great forjust producing a lot of birds.
That's what we do when we'reclan mating.
Okay, but when we want to knowwho exactly who is the mother
and father of that particularOffspring and I want to know
that for every bird on my farm,then I will single mate
everything I can move the cockaround but as long as I'm
(24:49):
keeping records of who he's bredto And I know exactly who the
mother and father is of everyegg on that in those boxes, then
I'm good to go You know, you
Jennifer (24:59):
move the male around
Kenny (25:00):
If I need to, depending on my brain program and
depending on my lines, like Ihave three lines of the Max's
line and I've got three lines ofthe black pearls, and then I've
got a couple of the single rail.
So those are all specializedfamilies.
It's a program I use thefounder's program.
But they're all single made it.
Yeah.
Carey (25:20):
See, that's why I think trap nest should be a more
common thing than what it is.
Because if you put one roosterin to a pen with a few different
hens, you obviously know who thefather is.
And if you have trap nest,you'll know who the mom is
because you take the egg out andlabel it with whatever the leg
(25:42):
bands are.
You're good.
Kenny (25:43):
It's true, but it doesn't come.
It doesn't go without anyproblems.
I've,
Carey (25:48):
I've used them.
I've used other
Kenny (25:49):
people, broken eggs, stressed out hens and you don't
get out there in time.
They die because of the heat.
It's a mess.
So although it's a good way todo it, if you can manage it and
you're good about getting outthere often to collect the eggs
and mark them and stuff, andyou're using incubator fine, but
then you got to find a way toseparate them inside the
incubator too.
So there's issues with it.
Carey (26:10):
There's a lot of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's an option.
Yeah, pros and cons toeverything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jennifer (26:18):
Yep.
Carey (26:18):
So tell me this with lime breeding specifically, if you do
it correctly, How manygenerations can you get out of
that?
Again,
Kenny (26:29):
it depends on the quality of the birds that you're line
breeding.
That's why we have a cleanupprocess in the Founders Program,
because it does get you to apoint where you have birds that
are what we call worthy ofcloning.
And that's the key.
Do they represent their breed?
Are they free of defects?
Are they healthy?
Do they have the right typeconfirmation color?
So if they're, if they haveeverything you're looking for,
(26:51):
and they're a good quality bird,you can go pretty far.
I'll push them as far as I can.
Usually I tell people try to getthem to 7, 8 or 15, 16.
That's your goal.
Now every now and then you mightcome short of that.
You might get to three quarter.
But if you can go even furtherthan that, great.
Because again, I want to getthem as close as I can.
As soon as I run into problemsand every bird is different, you
(27:12):
never know what that's going tobe.
That's when I stop.
I call those birds, go back onegeneration, then I move forward.
So it's not something, there'sno set line.
Every bird is different.
Some can go farther, some can't.
Clean them up properly and gopretty far.
Carey (27:28):
All right, I have one last question.
And this is a question that Isee so much and it just makes me
cringe.
And, but I want your opinion onwhen should or how often, if at
all, Should you bring new bloodinto a program?
Kenny (27:50):
I want to hear what Jennifer says first, after the
way she just reacted.
Jennifer (27:55):
The only reason I think you need new blood is if
you're looking for a gene thatdoesn't exist, that you have to
bring in physically.
Other than that, you should beable to just do what you need to
do with what you have.
Carey (28:10):
I was going to say, if you're looking for that defect
that you accidentally culled,that, that should be the only
time you should even considerthat because, I would think, and
I may be wrong, but I wouldthink it'd be just like starting
all over.
Kenny (28:25):
You are starting over.
Okay.
If you have an establishedfamily, I want to say this with
a caveat.
I would never add outside blood.
Take a chance of screwing themup.
Okay.
If I thought I needed to dosomething like they're lacking
something or just not gettingthere for some reason, I would
never mess with the foundationline.
I would create a subline and doall my experimentation with that
(28:45):
line.
That line never touches theother line.
So I picked the best bird I canout of my foundation, breed it
to this new bird, create a wholeseparate line using the Founders
Program.
That's the way I would do it.
Using the Founders Program,create a whole separate line.
See where that goes.
And just keep breeding them,generate generation after
generation and see if they startshowing things, if they start
(29:08):
going in a bad direction, theystart getting sick, they start
showing defects, whatever it is.
And you can take the chanceeventually to bring that line
into the other one.
I don't recommend that though.
A lot of times what happens isthat subline usually doesn't pan
out like you thought it would.
And if it does, and it's betterthan the foundation, then that
becomes your new line and youget rid of the found, the.
(29:30):
The other foundation thatbecomes your new foundation.
Now, the only time I would eventhink about breed, breeding
hybrids or adding new blood isin the very beginning when
you're trying to either obtainyour seed foul or you're trying
to create your seed foul.
Now in the Breeders Academy, wehave a program called a gene
chopping program, basically.
(29:50):
And it's not exactly what itsounds like, but it's it does
bring in different birds fromdifferent places to acquire
different genes.
But there's a process to it.
Okay.
It's not a matter of because seewhat you have to do is you have
to manage those genes as you go,because if you don't manage
them, you're going to lose themas you go, because every time
you had new blood, it changesthem.
(30:12):
But I can tell you one thing.
If you had new blood, even ifit's better than your birds into
your foundation line, It's notgoing to improve them, it's just
going to change them, and youhave a chance of bringing in
genes that you didn't want,hidden recessives, deleterious
genes, detrimental defects.
And a lot of people think thatthey can take a bird and breed
(30:33):
it into their line to refresh.
You're not refreshing anything,you're changing them, forever.
16th infusion method.
So what happens, because whatthey think they're doing is
they're bringing in a bird toyour family, you breed it in,
and then you breed your birdsinto the offspring, each
generation, until you feel likeyou only have one eighth of it,
(30:55):
or something like that.
It doesn't work like that.
Genes don't work like that.
And if you look at the waymeiosis works, when you bring in
new blood into a family, in thecock and hens chromosomes,
Combine and they wrap aroundeach other and they will do two
divisions.
But when they separate in thefirst division, they actually
(31:18):
leave parts of each other oneach other.
They swap parts.
Okay.
Then they go throughrecombination and then they
divide again.
into four separate gametes,which makes them unique.
So now you've gotunpredictability.
You don't have repeatability.
You've lost uniformity andconsistency.
(31:40):
So you've changed the family.
Now you're dealing with hybridsand you're basically starting
all over.
Now, a lot of times when youbring birds that even match them
and have the same monogenictraits like dominant recessive,
you can almost get away with itbecause they're just genes.
But what about all the polygenicgenes?
All the polygenic traits, nowyou've got multiple genes you're
(32:02):
dealing with.
And whenever you changepolygenics, when you add new
blood, you change them.
Because the only way to improvepolygenics is from an
established family, inbredfamily.
And you breed to the highestintensity over many generations
to actually improve thatpolygenic trait.
So when you add new blood, youdisrupted the gene pool, the
(32:24):
genomes of those birds, and nowit's all over the place.
And now you're startingcompletely over.
And it's the polygenic traitsthat are more important than
even the monogenic traits.
Because polygenic traits areyour form and function traits,
okay?
And those don't happenovernight.
It takes many generations to, toimprove them, intensify them and
(32:46):
get into a point when they'rerepeatable.
Yeah, it's real important.
Jennifer (32:52):
That was a big answer,
Carey (32:54):
man.
I just, I love it.
That was the absolute bestexplanation of don't do it
because, a lot of people saydon't do it and they can't
accept.
Because it's going to you'restarting over.
It's going to mess up.
That was an in depth explanationas to why and it's very
(33:17):
important.
So that was very awesome.
I appreciate that.
Kenny (33:20):
Yeah, I hear all the time.
They think they can bring in newblood to infuse them and improve
on them.
Refresh them.
And he's just from, meiosisalone, we see it doesn't work.
Just the nature of polygenictraits, we know it doesn't work.
Don't want to change them,because now you're starting
over.
The fact that they're all uniquenow.
(33:42):
They're all different.
You gotta start, you gottafigure out the few that are
good, hopefully, and then createa whole new family from that.
And I've had so many memberscome up to me and say, this is a
family from my greatgrandfather, okay?
And I only infuse new bloodevery five years.
I go, they're not the family ofyour grandfather anymore.
They've changed quite a bit.
Trust me, I don't care how muchthey look like that family.
(34:04):
They're not the same thing, atall.
Jennifer (34:07):
Alright, I have one last question, since he got his.
So what about culling?
Can you be a breeder and notcull?
Kenny (34:16):
It's impossible to breed, create a strain, improve a
strain without culling.
It's just something you gottaget used to.
If you're not willing to culland cull hard, and sometimes it
can mean a lot of birds, thenyou're just not ready to be what
I would call a breeder.
Because if you're just puttingbirds together, producing
offspring, to me that's notbreeding.
That's just Mass production,that's a completely different
(34:38):
thing.
So I know some people are justso it's so hard for them to, and
I get it.
I don't want to call birds.
It's the worst.
I hate it.
I'll put the, I'll put it off.
Sometimes I'll stick them inanother pen and I'll keep
feeding them for two weeksbefore I finally call them
sometimes, because I don't likeit either.
It's the best thing you can dofor the family.
Overall.
(34:58):
The nice thing about us withchickens, we can eat our coals.
Dogs can't.
I know they have a bigger issuewith it, things like that.
But no, you gotta be willing tocall and you gotta be willing to
call hard.
And and any defects that areexpressed, if you're bringing to
them, if you're tolerating them,you're going to perpetuate them.
It's just going to make itworse.
(35:18):
And boy recessive, they can sureadd up.
They can sure.
It can duplicate and to thepoint when all your whole family
has that same defect.
I've went on people's farms andthey said, Hey, can you help me
select my brood fowl and set upmy brood pens?
Sure.
I'll come over.
It's what I do for my memberssometimes.
And I go over there and I'mlooking down, I'm talking to
him.
I see a bird with.
(35:39):
Duck foot.
I'm like, oh wow.
Okay walk over here.
I see a hen walk by me Oh, shehas duck foot both toes.
I go.
I told him to stop talking.
Let's just walk around Let melook at your birds.
I could not find a bird on thisfarm that didn't have duck foot
Jennifer (35:52):
How
Kenny (35:55):
do you fix a family when you can't find at least one bird
that doesn't have duck foot?
You have to bring in outsideblood to do it now.
We're going to change them Yeah,but it's also important to
understand that there's adifference between a monogenic
trait a monogenic defect versusa polygenic trait, or polygenic
defect.
Now if I have a monogenicdefect, Like a recessive trait,
(36:19):
let's say duck foot would be agood one.
Then I'm just going to, if I canI'm going to call it and just
not deal with it and breed tothe ones that don't have it now,
if I have a polygenic defectlet's say squirrel tail crooked
breastbone.
Now I don't like it.
But I'm going to try to find thebirds that have the best tail
and the best breastbone.
But if I don't have it, I can, Ihave some that do have it, but
(36:44):
some are better than others,then by bringing to the highest
intensity, I can improve thatover time to the point where I
don't see the duck, the squirreltail or the crooked breastbone.
So understanding which Defectsare detrimental and which are
just, problems I have to workwith is the difference because
some people, they look at themas the same thing and they're
(37:05):
not, so it's,
Jennifer (37:08):
and sometimes it works to your benefit to keep your
coals set aside for just alittle while now, I have a
larger farm and so as I'msorting out the younger males, I
look at them and I just throwthem out in the yard.
And just go eat bugs, make sureyour bones are good and solid,
so when I make bone broth later,you taste good, and, I have
these big giant birds and ittakes months and months for them
(37:31):
to mature, and I pulled up tothe barn, I don't know, maybe
about three weeks ago.
And I'm looking at this bird andhe had been out running free
for, I'm going to say, fourmonths or more, and I'm just
looking at him and looking athim, and dang it if I didn't put
him back in the breeder pen, Ididn't
Kenny (37:50):
give up.
Jennifer (37:51):
I was like, you have exactly what I was looking for.
Kenny (37:54):
That hurts.
Yeah.
A beat.
And I look at my birds soclosely, when I go from pen to
pen feeding them, I take thetime.
I don't just throw feed and walkby.
I look at that bird for a whileand I was like, why do I need to
keep you?
Show me why I should keep you,and I'm looking for problems
because I do not want to feedbirds that are, I'm not going to
breed to, and I'll be out thereand Nancy will walk up to me and
(38:16):
she'll start talking to me.
She looks down, hey, why is thatbird out duck toe?
What?
I've been feeding this thing formonths and you're telling me, no
oh my God, that makes you think,oh my God, what else am I
missing out here?
You know what I mean?
Like you said, sometimes I'llkeep birds.
Like I have a bunch of hens outthere that I'm seeing issues
with, could be color.
It's mostly color out thereright now.
(38:37):
And I'll mark them and I'll keepthem come getting eggs from
them.
So when they're done layingeggs, then I'll go ahead and
call them.
So I'll hold onto them until theend of that, until they're done
doing that, but roosters, if Isee a fault or I see a defect,
I'll call them.
I see any sick birds.
I'll call them as fast as I can.
I don't vaccinate.
I don't medicate.
(38:58):
I don't use, any aids.
I don't supplement them.
I don't do anything if theycan't live on my farm.
I don't want them.
They're not meant to be here.
I give them the best feed.
I can.
I've had a couple ofnutritionists.
Look at what I feed them.
We worked out of because what Iwant them to do is go to the
different feed stores and say,okay, this is what's available.
A lot of people can't go andhave their feed made by a
(39:20):
manufacturer or mill.
By what's on the shelf, what canI put together in its
proportions to develop a feedthat works great?
And I've been using this feedfor a long time.
So anybody I've given it to it'sworked for them and so I've been
doing that so I don't doanything extra if they Can't
survive on my farm with the feedI'm giving them.
(39:40):
They're not meant to be here.
That talk about strict callingThat's how strict I am.
You come down sick.
You're gone
Jennifer (39:47):
Preach into the choir here, so he calls me ruthless
because I just look at himsideways and you gotta go.
Kenny (39:54):
No, I think that's important.
I think it's important not totolerate anything,
Jennifer (39:58):
because epigenetics
Kenny (40:00):
is a funny thing.
It works in your favor andsometimes it can work against
you.
And the environment will allowsome genes to be expressed.
They weren't expressed onanother farm.
And if you select it to the,like I said, a lot of them are
polygenic.
select to the highest intensityfor that trait, then I'm going
to make that trait a permanentfeature of the, of that family.
(40:22):
Okay.
But I have to be careful whatI'm allowing to be expressed.
So another way to look at it isif I took birds and send it over
to Carrie.
I know he's like back eastsomewhere he's going to get
different traits out of my birdsthat I never saw here because of
the difference in environment.
The way he feeds them, the wayhe, the environment in general,
(40:44):
the weather his farm managementcan have an issue on it.
That's going to allow certaintraits to be expressed that I
wasn't seen here.
The histone modifications, theDNA methylation, they all take
effect.
One works like a knob.
One works as a switch, whichmeans it's going to either
change the intent intensity ofthat trait, or it's just going
to either block it or allow itto Show that wasn't showed
(41:07):
before.
So yeah, those are reallyimportant and feed feeds a big
issue with that too, But ifthey're not meant to be here, I
won't tolerate it.
They're gone
Jennifer (41:18):
Mm hmm.
We have greatly enjoyed ourconversation.
Kenny (41:22):
Yes, we really have awesome Yeah, anytime.
Let me know.
Jennifer (41:26):
Yes, you're welcome back anytime you want to
Kenny (41:28):
thank you.
Yeah, no problem
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