September 11, 2025 • 48 mins
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In this episode of the Poultry Nerds Podcast, we celebrate a big milestone—earning an American, Oriental, and Spanish Gamefowl Judging Certificate—and dive into essential farm wisdom every chicken keeper needs. From choosing the right judging regalia (coat, apron, or vest?) to keeping your flock safe from common hazards, we cover it all.
Learn about chicken wire vs. hardware cloth, preventing injuries from pigs and cows, why heat lamps are dangerous, and how to protect your poultry from moldy feed, tangled strings, and poorly designed coops. We also discuss roost bar safety, ventilation myths, and the best way to prepare your chickens for a long, healthy life.
Whether you’re raising backyard chickens, show birds, or gamefowl, this episode is packed with tips, laughs, and real-life farm stories that will help you avoid mistakes and keep your birds thriving.
poultry podcast, chicken care, backyard chickens, gamefowl, American Poultry Association, poultry judging, chicken wire vs hardware cloth, chicken safety, poultry farming tips, flock management, farm life stories
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer (00:00):
So you did a thing this week.
(00:01):
So tell us about what you did,what you got.
So
Carey (00:05):
I actually did this back late August when I took my test.
But I got an American game fouljudging certificate.
So now I'm a licensed judge.
Jennifer (00:19):
So you gonna wear like a little white coat and have a
nerd pocket Ooh, nerd pocket.
Okay.
Carey (00:25):
So there there's a debate because you can get they will
pay for either a coat, an apron,or a vest.
So it's do I want the doctor'scoat with the logo of my name on
it?
My judge's number?
(00:47):
Do I just want like a apron?
What?
What do I don't know.
Like I haven't figured that outyet.
Jennifer (00:56):
So if you wear a coat and it's open, then the birds
can still poop on you when youpick'em up.
But if you had an apron on, youwouldn't have to carry around an
extra shirt.
True,
Carey (01:10):
but it can be practical.
And the coats are either whiteor like a Heather Gray color or
maybe a little lighter thanHeather Gray.
They're pretty light.
Jennifer (01:29):
Yeah.
They show poop.
Good.
Carey (01:31):
Yeah.
So that's why I'm like, I don'tknow, because I don't really
want to get the white jacket.
I was gonna, since I'm actuallythe one in charge of ordering
the regalia for theorganization.
I may accidentally order, likea.
Darker gray color,
Jennifer (01:52):
gray.
I guess you could always put aapron on underneath of it
anyway.
Carey (01:57):
Yeah, I could have, what if I had the white doctor's coat
with a, the logo and judge, andthen like a dark blue or black
apron with just my name on it?
Jennifer (02:12):
Yep.
Put big on the front to catchthe poop
Carey (02:16):
and that says that it is gonna be 10 million degrees.
Yep.
When I go to wear that.
Jennifer (02:23):
Or you could just have both.
So you could just decide thatday
Carey (02:28):
I could do that.
With the thing.
Jennifer (02:32):
Yep.
Congratulations.
Carey (02:35):
Thank you.
Jennifer (02:38):
So
Carey (02:38):
I also ordered, I have the book, so I got my new
standard of perfection from thea PA.
I got it this time I got onethat was spiral bound, so I
could lay it flat or fold itover and use it a lot.
They also have this poultryshowmanship manual.
(03:01):
So I figured, hey, I like doingstuff with kids and like being
involved and getting kidsinvolved in stuff.
So I gotta admit, when I saw youdoing the showmanship thing, I
got a little jelly.
So like I need to figure thatcrap out.
Jennifer (03:19):
All six kids that I judged, I don't, Hey, but it was
fun.
It was fun seeing what theylearned and what they know and
how they handle their birds andhow they can plop down on their
knees to chase their birds soreadily when as you get older,
you can't do,
Carey (03:37):
shoot.
At my age, if I plo down on myknees to chase a bird, I'm
feeling it for a couple days.
Jennifer (03:44):
Yeah.
I ain't saying
Carey (03:45):
that.
I ain't done it.
But it, I am saying that I didfeel it for a few days.
Jennifer (03:51):
It was fun.
It was it was interesting tosee, the kids and how much
effort they put into it ordidn't put into it.
And it, you could tell.
So
Carey (04:02):
I know that you're on TikTok.
Jennifer (04:04):
And,
Carey (04:04):
cause I see some of your videos that are awesome.
But do you watch the ones ofsome of the kids showing like
sheep or pigs or cows?
Jennifer (04:19):
I watched the one with the girl that does the pigs.
It just cracks me up.
Carey (04:24):
The young blonde-headed one.
Jennifer (04:27):
Is she blonde?
The one that's so serious?
Carey (04:30):
I do know that there is one like that.
Okay.
Like this kid is so serious.
You would think that she'smaking a$10 million business
deal.
Like when she gets older and shegoes to the bank to sit down and
buy her farm.
You know how number one, if youget intimidated, you lose.
(04:53):
And number two, the first onethat talks after the deal is
made Lose This chick's neverlosing.
Jennifer (04:59):
She needs
Carey (05:00):
to play in Vegas.
She's so serious.
I heard that reminds me of thatpicture of Brie that she posted
a while back when she had thething.
I don't even know what it'scalled.
I'll call it the thing, thestick in her hand.
I think it was a sheep orsomething like that.
I was like, I thought they justshaved them suckers to make
stuff, but it's intense and Ithink the original thing that
(05:26):
piqued my interest was a couplemonths ago.
About a month and a half ago Ihad a four H Club reach out and
they're doing some research onfeed and feed tags and stuff
like that, and the sponsor ofthat club was like, I wanted to
(05:49):
know if you would send possiblysome samples or something.
Because apparently she's beenreaching out to a lot of
companies trying to getsomething and they wouldn't send
her Jack.
I'm like, these kids are gonnabe buying your stuff one day.
You idiot.
Why don't you send it to'em?
So I told her, I was like, yeah,what do you need?
(06:11):
And she says I will takewhatever.
Okay, cool.
So I got five pound bags and Iput it in some that were
resealable so they could pop itup and smell it and seal it back
up.
And I put the feed tags on thatbag.
I sent her all those along withthe PDFs of the P tags so she
(06:32):
could print some out for thekids to draw on and make notes.
And a pretty good other bit ofliterature.
And she was like I didn'trealize who you were.
Like I'm just a guy fromAlabama, whatever.
She was like, no.
How, what?
(06:52):
Think about what it would taketo get you to come out here to
talk to the kids.
And I said, an invitation, maybelunch.
And so we're gonna try to workthat out where I can go out
there'cause.
I want to get more involved inthat kind of stuff.
You gotta teach today's kids'cause that's the poultry nerd
(07:15):
of tomorrow.
Yeah.
Jennifer (07:17):
Yep.
Today we are not gonna jabberfor an hour about ourselves.
We're gonna talk about how tokeep your birds safe.
All the stuff that's out therethat can hurt them, which they
will find if you're not careful.
Carey (07:35):
Chickens and goats, like they can find a way to break
something.
Themselves or whatever they'remessing with.
They can.
I'm sure some other animals arecapable too, but for them to be
so smart about some stuff,they're really stupid.
Out there when it comes to otherstuff,
Jennifer (07:55):
I had out a Drake, a young Drake, right now, I'm
gonna have to put him down andhe, his leg is just shattered.
He, the only thing I can thinkis they like to try to eat the
pig food before the pigs come,which is really a stupid call
because the ducks weigh whatabout six pounds, maybe gonna
(08:17):
pig
Carey (08:20):
hundred pig.
Jennifer (08:22):
So the only thing I can say like better fast is he
got stepped on, which is reallystupid on his part.
It makes, it happens.
Cuing, culling choices makesthem easier.
So pigs would be the first thingon the list to hurt your birds.
Carey (08:40):
Yeah and I've got, I don't even let mine near my
birds.
So far, none of my birds havebeen stupid enough to fly over
there with'em.
Jennifer (08:50):
I don't think the pigs intentionally are hurting'em.
I think they're just, no, butthey're
Carey (08:54):
monsters compared to the chicken.
Jennifer (08:57):
Exactly.
Carey (08:58):
I don't care if it's your 10 12 pound orpingtons or a
little three pound Bantamgainer.
Jennifer (09:07):
So I've got two Orpington hens who have decided
that the cow barn is the placeto be when I feed the cows and
the troughs have drain holes andI guess some of the sweet feed
falls through these drain holesand they eat the sweet feed that
falls through Nice will.
(09:28):
They are standing there, thechickens are standing there when
I go to feed the cows and thenthe cows come running.
They're seriously pregnant now,so their running is a lot slower
than it was a few months ago,but.
The chicken, one of thechickens.
As I reached over to pouranother scoop, she just goes
(09:49):
into Waylon and I looked down,of course, what am I supposed to
do?
It's a 1500 pound cow standingthere, and the cow is standing
on her foot and she can't gether foot loose.
So I took there was a rakesitting there, so I took a rake
and just reached over and pushedthe cow with it.
And during it, that chickendidn't run in a circle, and as
(10:13):
the cow shifted, her weightstepped on her again.
But the worst thing that I couldfind was it moved one of the
scales on her leg.
She's still over there everymorning trying to eat sweet
feed.
Carey (10:28):
It is, it's like the same grains that they eat mixed with
a little bit of molasses, soit's no different than us eating
pancakes in the morning.
I guess though,
Jennifer (10:38):
my chickens are smart, they know my routine, and so
these.
I think there's three hens theyrun and it's pretty far distance
for them to run around to thecow barn and eat any sweet feed
that falls and then race me backto the barn in time for me to
(11:00):
feed them.
Carey (11:02):
So this is what I'm picturing.
I'm picturing early morninggarage door starts popping up
those three, start lookingaround.
They see the gator go over tothe cow barn.
Then they just take off.
Jennifer (11:18):
Oh yeah.
They'll, if I come out of thegarage on the gator and the cows
are usually in the back grazingat sunrise.
Yeah.
So they will raise their headsand they'll look to see if I
turn to go towards the barn toquail barn, or do I turn and go
towards the cowboy?
(11:38):
If I go towards the cow barn,it's stampede and everybody
better get outta the way.
If I go towards the quail barn,they'll continue grazing.
So if the goats are in the frontand I'm gonna go feed the cows,
I intentionally drive reallyslowly so the stampede doesn't
run over the goats because thegoats aren't as smart.
(12:01):
They're probably not the most.
Intelligent animals that I have,
Carey (12:06):
and I was gonna say goats.
Theirs are like mine.
They're.
They're pretty low on that totempole.
Jennifer (12:12):
Yours came from me, so Yeah, they're the same
intelligence level.
Carey (12:16):
They did,
Jennifer (12:18):
so they just run I don't know, it's, do you
remember that episode of Friendswhere Phoebe just runs, like
with her arms wailing andeverything and Yeah, that's how
the goats run.
Carey (12:29):
I was gonna say, if the goats didn't need the front ones
to run with, that's exactly howthey would run.
Jennifer (12:34):
Oh yeah.
Carey (12:35):
And they would make that loud squealing noise.
Yeah.
Jennifer (12:40):
So I try to drive the Gator in such a manner that
nobody gets crushed in stampedesjockeying for positions, but it
doesn't always happen.
So I guess the first order onour list here is just.
(13:01):
How your farm is set up.
Make sure that the other animalsare being respectful of your
birds as best you can,
Carey (13:11):
or also make sure you don't drive too fast and you're
side by side'cause.
We're talking about keeping youranimals safe.
And those das are run right infront of you.
Jennifer (13:24):
Oh, I have run over a rooster on Orpington.
He laid down though.
I didn't know he was there.
He is on the passenger side.
It was in the driveway.
And he just decided that's wherehe needed to take a nap.
Wow.
And I was like, shoulda havewoke up quicker.
Okay.
So yes, just, hazards of farmlife would be first on the list.
(13:47):
Next step would be chicken wireversus hardware cloth.
I feel like we cover this a lotin a lot of different locations,
but it comes up.
Over and I can get that.
People new to keeping chickenswouldn't understand, but chicken
wire is to keep chickens in
Carey (14:07):
right.
Jennifer (14:08):
And can keep, the good way to remember this is to keep
chickens in and contained soother animals can rip through it
to eat them easily
Carey (14:17):
And really the only thing chicken wire is good for is to
keep birds in or out.
Because if you use it over theroof of a run, a hawks won't fly
through it.
Jennifer (14:28):
Yeah.
If you can cut it with scissors,that's about
Carey (14:30):
it.
Jennifer (14:33):
Yeah.
If you can cut it with scissors,which you can chicken wire it is
not gonna keep anything with anykind of claws out.
Carey (14:42):
Nah, it won't.
Jennifer (14:44):
Now, I, not at this house, but the house before, we
had a Turkey pen out of a chainlink.
You know those storage bins theyput behind like gas stations to
hold all the cardboard.
I got one of those, it was like10 by 20 or something, and it
was like
Carey (15:01):
eight
Jennifer (15:02):
feet tall.
It was really nice.
That does sound nice.
Something.
We think it was a mink.
Actually peeled the chain linkdown and massacred all of my
turkeys.
So while chicken wires almostguaranteed not to save your
(15:23):
birds, there's really noguarantees.
If something wants in badenough, it's gonna get in.
Carey (15:30):
Yeah.
Where there's the will, there'sa way.
Jennifer (15:34):
So hardware cloth is the one that has the little
squares that we use a ton of itin the quail world.
So if you're not doing quail, ifyou're doing other birds you
wouldn't have such a haterelationship with it.
But if you get quail you'lllearn to hate hardware, cloth.
(15:55):
It's a necessary evil.
Carey (15:57):
Yeah.
And like.
When working with hardwarecloth, I gotta say and if you
could see my leg right now, itwould say it too.
Be careful with the stuff.
Even if it's a hundred degreesoutside, if you're working, if
you're gonna be like puttinghardware, cloth around the
bottom of your pen or your runto keep stuff out and in.
(16:21):
You might wanna wear pants.
Or your legs will look like yougot into a fight with a
squirrel.
One of mine does right now.
So the stuff's great.
It's handy, but you need to becareful with it too, because
those little pointy ends willscratch the crap out of you.
Jennifer (16:41):
And if you're using a lot of it a pair of dikes or
wire cutters, whatever you wannacall'em, they will wear your
handout pretty quickly.
They do make an attachment for adrill that you can zip right
through it and like butter andit's not very expensive.
Carey (16:58):
I was gonna say if you're gonna be working with hardware
claws, the attachment that she'stalking about, you can get it to
go into one of the little impactchucks.
Or a regular drill, chuck, Ithink they're less than 30, 40
bucks at the most.
If you get a really nice one,also side grinder, put your
(17:20):
cutting wheel on that thing.
Boom, works great using the 10snips and all those kind of
cutters.
That's gonna work once, but yourhands are going to get raw and
have blisters if you're buildinga cage or a pen.
Jennifer (17:38):
Yep.
Yep,
Carey (17:40):
do that.
Yep.
Jennifer (17:42):
Alright, next on our list is heat lamps.
People love to hate on mebecause I hate on them.
Heat lamps do not belong in adusty straw filled space, like a
barn burning barn sheds, coops,whatever you wanna call'em.
(18:07):
It does happen.
It happens regularly with heatlamps and I know people will
argue with us.
So go ahead and send in the heatmail, but heat lamps cause
Carey (18:18):
fires.
so@ultranerdpodcast.com andlook, I'll say this I will put
in this little caveat if youwant to get a true from a supply
house,$10 red heat lamp.
That is specifically designednot to explode, be all.
(18:45):
Now, if you want to get what youwill find at a lot of feed
stores or even box stores likeLowe's and Tractor Supply and
those type places, and I'm notknocking those'cause I love them
and spent a lot of money justthis past weekend at.
Both of those actually buyingstuff to build a pen.
(19:09):
But those two,$3 heat lamps,those things will blow up and
when they do best case scenario,your chicks are gonna want to go
see what the shiny stuff is.
It just hit the floor and couldprobably wind up ingesting some
(19:30):
of it.
Worst case scenario.
A barn catches on fire and theyall pass.
Jennifer (19:36):
And even if you don't even have it turned on, remove
it because we're talking aboutbirds.
Yeah.
They cannot tell the differencefrom standing on the ground
looking between a floppyelectrical cord or something to
land on.
So they'll try to jump up on it.
They'll play with it, they'llpick at it.
(19:59):
And we're not talking about justthe lamps, but.
Any electrical cords?
Carey (20:04):
No.
They're going a light on it,like it's a perch.
Jennifer (20:08):
Yeah, and I use brooder plates.
They try to perch on theelectrical cords for brooder
plates too.
It just is what it is.
They're inquisitive, they'rebird brains.
They're not gonna do that.
Okay.
Next on my list is feed bags.
The string.
You wouldn't think about thestring, but I go through at
least four bags a day.
(20:30):
So that's four strings that Iset in random places because I'm
horrible about it.
So the back of the Gator musthave a mile of them in there,
but I used to set them on top ofthe Quell cages.
One day I know.
(20:51):
There's just standing there andit's a place to set on.
I might as well just throw it onthe floor.
Be safer.
But anyway, then you gotta bend
Carey (20:58):
over to pick it up.
Jennifer (20:59):
I know one day I was moving some burbs around and I
grabbed this hen, and anotherone came with her, and I cannot
make this up.
These hens were tied together bya feed bag string, a quail in a
quail cage tied themselvestogether.
(21:21):
Yep.
Carey (21:22):
I can see that.
Jennifer (21:23):
So they eat them, it could impact their crop com.
Im impact compact their crop.
E
Carey (21:32):
either one actually
Jennifer (21:34):
tie themselves up like those two quail did.
Just, it's a chicken and they'regonna do stuff.
Carey (21:41):
And look, those of y'all that have had poultry for a hot
little minute.
You're like, oh yeah, nothingreally surprises me anymore.
And those of you that arethinking about getting into
poultry, you're like, no way.
But look, I promise after you'vehad Birch for that first year,
you're gonna be me.
(22:02):
But that second year afteryou've had birds for two years,
nothing to surprise you anymore.
Jennifer (22:07):
Nope.
Carey (22:07):
I
Jennifer (22:07):
had some chicks last week or the week before in the
barn.
The last of the orpington groutsis still in the barn and they
had found, one of them had foundsomething that was blue.
I still do not know what it was.
Maybe the size of a dollar bill,maybe if even that, but it was
bright blue.
(22:27):
Okay.
Running like lightning speedaround this.
What are those coops?
Like five by eight or something?
Carey (22:36):
Yeah, sounds right.
Just
Jennifer (22:38):
running.
So the other chicks couldn't getit and nobody else.
It was really funny.
I should have taken a video, butthe other chicks were just
looking at it like, why are yourunning?
We do not care about your littleblue thing.
But it was running, it reallythought it had something.
I don't know.
What did
Carey (22:55):
it have?
Jennifer (22:56):
It was just blue.
I didn't even stop.
I didn't even care.
Just let it have, its fun,whatever.
But they also eat the styrofoam.
They'll eat, they ate myinsulation, my blown insulation.
I paid so much for as high up asthey could off the wall.
They'll pretty much eatanything.
Yeah.
Carey (23:14):
I do know that for a fact.
Jennifer (23:16):
The next step is moldy feed,
Carey (23:19):
which is the one thing you don't want them to eat.
Jennifer (23:21):
And we actually did a podcast with Jeff about feed,
wet feed on the ground, blah,blah, blah.
Probably what, about four monthsago or so?
So you could somewhere
Carey (23:33):
in there.
Yeah.
Jennifer (23:33):
Yeah.
You could go back and referencethat, but then you're gonna get
botulism and all that otherstuff.
My, what's the one that startswith the m?
Carey (23:44):
So Mi mylas, microplasma?
Jennifer (23:49):
No, not that
Carey (23:50):
one.
Mycotoxins.
Jennifer (23:51):
There you go.
Mycotoxins.
Carey (23:52):
Yeah.
The mycotoxins are in the moldyfeed.
Jennifer (23:55):
Yep.
Carey (23:55):
And there's people that have had just little chunks of
feed that were moldy in a whole50 pound sack, and they actually
lost some birds that weren'tthat healthy.
That's a pretty huge thing.
That's one.
Probably the biggest reason whyit's so important to keep your
(24:16):
feed stored somewhere that's notoverly humid in a dry container
like a barrel or something witha lid.
And don't go buy six monthsworth of feed.
I buy one to two months at theabsolute most.
(24:36):
If you're buying store-boughtfeed, I would not buy more than
a month.
If you're buying a custom blendthat you know was milled like
within a week or so of yougetting it, then you could go
45, 60 days at the absolute max.
But yeah don't hang on to itforever.
Jennifer (24:58):
Next on the list would be rocks or other objects on the
ground, specifically items wherethey're jumping off of the
roost, that's where they'relanding.
You don't want them bruising thepads of their feet or breaking
their toes.
You could end up with bumblefootand lacerations.
(25:22):
Broken legs, slipped tendons.
You could theoretically loseyour bird on a slipped tendon.
I've lost one that way.
Carey (25:30):
Yeah.
And like some people, like ourfriends that have game foul,
they, they'll have roost 6, 7, 8feet high, but they also will
put anything from sand to pea,moss to straw on the bottom.
So when they do come down,they're not landing on the hard
(25:54):
ground.
Aside from that, if you're notmaking special precautions on
the ground to protect theirfeet, I would not recommend you
to have a roost more than two tothree feet high.
'cause, especially if it's a bigbird that you know that come
down on a rock.
(26:17):
Want you pretty bird.
Jennifer (26:19):
My highest roost are the turkeys.
And they're four feet.
Carey (26:23):
Yeah,
Jennifer (26:24):
all the chickens are 20 inches.
Carey (26:26):
But I'll also say folks, if her runs were freshly cleaned
out, I you could lay down andtake a nap there because she
mixes stall pellets, peat moss.
Like she has soft soil dirtwhere she is it's sandy, so
(26:49):
she's not getting bumblefoot.
Other places where you have thatclay-like soil that has them
small pointy rocks in it, that'snot good.
Gets you a little rotor tillerand till that stuff up while
you're at it, get some lime tokill bacteria and germs.
(27:09):
And some peat moss and throwthat in there and till it in and
mix it up and fluff the dirt up.
You'll be good to go.
Jennifer (27:16):
I love my new little tiller, by the way.
They're
Carey (27:19):
handy as crap.
I know.
Jennifer (27:22):
So next on the list, it's ventilation from wrapping
the coop.
Also something we'll get hatemail for.
We do live in the south, so weare not going to claim to
understand those who live in theArctic Circle, but.
It doesn't change the fact thata bird needs fresh air to
(27:45):
breathe.
Carey (27:46):
The people that we know that do live Vermont, Wisconsin,
Canada, they've got holes in thetops of their coops indoors to
let air flow.
Jennifer (27:59):
So if you want to wrap.
Your coop, while we are going toencourage you not to,
Carey (28:09):
but you do, you boo on your farm, your rules,
Jennifer (28:12):
something loose.
Like maybe instead of puttingpainters.
Plastic up and completely makinglike a greenhouse effect.
Maybe put tarps up so that theycan move with the breeze and
keep the air moving.
(28:33):
Yeah.
The idea here is to keep.
So when they breathe and it'scold, you know how when you go
outside and you breathe out andyou can see your breath?
That's moisture.
So if a bird is doing that allnight long and you've created a
greenhouse effect, then thatmoisture is gonna be in there.
It's gonna cause respiratoryproblems.
(28:55):
It's gonna maybe cause frostbiteon their combs or waddles.
It's just, it's a hazard to.
To their health.
Carey (29:04):
It's the same concept as, people tell you don't put a
water inside the house at nightbecause it adds humidity to it.
If you don't have ventilation,the they're what?
They're breathing out.
We'll do it.
Jennifer (29:25):
Yes.
Now I am on the other side ofthat.
I say do put water in the coop,but just that's
Carey (29:33):
because we're in, we ours are very well ventilated.
Jennifer (29:37):
If they're rail ventilated, put water in there,
say
Carey (29:40):
that twice.
Jennifer (29:40):
Do not put it in a slow cooker where it's
constantly steaming.
I see people do that on thechicken groups.
That's just putting steam insideof a coop.
Now if it's open where the aircan blow the steam out, that
would be okay.
But my reason for saying puttingwater inside the coop is.
(30:03):
What happens if, for whateverreason you can't get out there
to let them out, say you had anemergency in the middle of the
night and you are gone for 48hours and you don't let'em out,
then they're just gonna die fromdehydration.
So it's more of a emergency typesituation as far as I'm
concerned.
Carey (30:24):
Yeah, and like for me, my, my watering system.
For 90% of my birds and one ofmy weekend projects coming up
will get the rest of'em.
But it's all automated and I dothat because crap happens.
And I'm okay if a bird's feederis empty for a day.
(30:50):
I'm not okay if a bird has nowater.
Because they're, they're likehumans in the sense that they
can go a while, couple dayswithout feet, three, four even
happens all the time when youship'em.
But going without water, theycan't do that so long.
(31:11):
So keep that in mind.
Jennifer (31:14):
So
Carey (31:15):
it is better to have water in a coop.
That has airflow at the top innegative temperatures than it is
to have birds be freezing andthirsty.
Jennifer (31:33):
Correct.
I agree.
Roost bars, I personally useboards two by fours for the
chickens and two by sixes or twoby eights, whatever we got
laying around.
We don't go buy boards, we justhave stuff and we just use those
(31:54):
flat side up for the birds.
Make sure they're not metalbecause metal freezes and then
that could cause frostbite thatway.
Also make sure that they're bigenough, especially if you're in
a colder environment or evenhere, it drops to zero for a
couple weeks, it seems everyyear.
(32:16):
Because if it's a flat board andthen they roost down on top of
their feet, then their feet arecovered by their body heat.
Carey (32:26):
It keeps your toes nice and cozy.
Jennifer (32:28):
Yeah.
They are 108 degrees.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Toasty toes, just keep that inmind.
If you're giving them like acloset rod or something, then
their toes are gonna be curledaround it.
And then the on the bottom side,they're exposed to the cold
weather.
The other thing is I see peopleusing branches and stuff for
(32:49):
roosts and justify it by sayingthey used to roost in trees.
That is true.
They did use to roost in trees.
Growing up about a hundred.
Carey (32:59):
Years before we domesticated them.
Jennifer (33:02):
Growing up, my ch the chickens we had dad got game
foul after he got rid of thewhite rocks, but they lived in
the woods and roosted in thetrees.
The difference is they chose thebranch size from all the trees
in the whole forest.
They would choose what theyneeded in order to be safe, be
(33:24):
warm.
Be level, whatever.
They also
Carey (33:28):
have limbs and leaves and pine straw blocking wind for
them
Jennifer (33:34):
right
Carey (33:34):
when they're like that.
Jennifer (33:36):
So a crooked old branch might not be big enough
around in diameter to keep theirtoes from freezing.
That would be one concern.
A second concern would be ifthey're constantly roosting at
an angle, say they are in acrook or something.
Then they could get a crookedkeel bone.
(34:00):
Yeah.
Carey (34:00):
And people that have those, we're not saying, oh my
God, you did this so wrong.
A lot of people use tree limbsand stuff because they're
repurposing and they're takingadvantage of what they have, and
that's awesome.
What I actually have some treelimbs in some of my pens, but
what I did was I used a piece offive and a quarter deck board,
(34:24):
so it's a little more than threequarter it's about three
quarters of an inch thick.
It's not a one inch, and it'salmost six inches wide.
One by six if that's what youcan find.
And I cut sections and I justscrewed'em to poles.
Some of my breeding pens areactual dog kennels that have the
(34:45):
two by four wire in them.
So you know, you slide the twoby four up.
It's.
The small end is up.
And what I did was I took somefive and a quarter deck board,
stuck it in place.
A lot of times I would start, Icut'em a couple feet, whatever,
put'em on either side that wayand have to worry about the
(35:06):
roost pole sliding out.
'cause sometimes chickens get alittle rambunctious, especially
turkeys, but when turkeys are inthose, they get up there on that
five and a quarter, it's.
Anything is six eight incheswide.
They pop up, they land, and thenthey feel sturdy and they sit
down and they can actually relaxand be as stress-free as a bird
(35:32):
can.
Jennifer (35:34):
My first chicken coop as a adult, we used a C log.
It was big.
It wasn't like one inchdiameter, it was like eight
inches diameter
Carey (35:46):
but a log like that would be awesome because it being
cedar would also help keep mitesand pest away.
Exactly.
Smart thinking.
Jennifer (35:56):
Now my, my good friend that lives in Michigan, she
asked me what to use for roostwhen she was building her new
coop.
And I told her if I was startingover, I would do sawhorses.
And she asked why?
And I said when you go to cleaneverything, what's in your way?
And it's the roost.
I was always in your way.
You always have to dodge it togo.
(36:17):
Collect something or say, youcan either make them on the
Carey (36:20):
hands where you have to, pick'em up and tie'em.
Jennifer (36:22):
Do all
Carey (36:23):
that.
Or you get a sawhorse whereveryou go in there and take your
foot and slide it outta the way.
Jennifer (36:27):
Yep.
Or take it outside and wash it.
Carey (36:30):
Yeah.
Jennifer (36:30):
Or and everybody always has short pieces of
something laying around just tomake sawhorses around.
I have probably 10 sawhorses nowthat Dave has made me outta just
scrap wood that's probably 18inches tall.
They're, yeah.
And that's what I put in thebarn for the grow outs inside to
(36:53):
start playing on so that when Iput'em outside, they don't do
the mosh pit thing, theyactually start roosting.
Carey (37:00):
Yeah.
And side note, three, regularstud, 96 inch two by fours.
If you cut, outta two of'em, youcan get 6 32 inch length pieces.
(37:20):
All right, so you got the top,the middle bottom?
To make that eye beam.
Outta two of them.
And then you use the third oneand cut it to make the legs for
the other two.
So three, two by fours will makeyou two roost.
Because the first, like I, onetime I was at your house, I was
(37:40):
like, why?
Why in the crap do you have twofoot tall horses?
Yeah, they're all over.
David.
Is he making stuff now sittingon a bucket?
And when you told me that I waslike, that's smart.
And now I've got quite a few ofthem and actually bought some
two by fours the other day whenI was getting all the other crap
(38:01):
to make subar'cause.
When you put your roof polesbetween the wire from one side
to the other, yeah, it'sconvenient.
But like in a grow outsituation, I had a two by four
between two, I'd do that in thecorners and like them, son of a
(38:22):
guns would get on there, as manyas they could fit.
And I had one piece that was aone buy.
And my wife and I kept debatingon how long it would take for it
to either fall or break.
And when I finally replaced allof those in that pen with
(38:43):
sawhorses, that thing, like ifyou took the two sides that were
stuck through the fence, therewas a six seven inch drop.
From where they, like so many of'em had sat on it.
And I mean that, that couldn'tbe sturdy.
So they're trying to sleep andwiggling and balancing and stuff
(39:05):
like that.
So soft horses are easy.
And the next thing that we haveto talk about is using tarps for
roofs.
And I'll say this.
Even in the south, we get snow.
I had a chicken pen.
One of those neat ones that youcan get off of Amazon for 200
(39:27):
bucks.
It's a 10 by 20 nice littlepointy roof on it.
The wire that you need to throwaway to go around the whole
thing and.
I had over the top,'cause youknow it's pretty steep little
roof.
But I had used a tarp for theroof.
'cause in my mind, it's gonnaprovide shade, keep rain off
(39:50):
part of the run.
All those benefits.
Perfect.
Plenty of angle.
The one time we get rain thatsnows.
Hey, this thing's got likeseveral inches of snow gathered
up upon it.
I thought, man, it's cool.
And then the daylight came andthe underlayment started to
(40:12):
freeze.
And then the next night,chickens were all over the place
because it caved in.
And if I'd have had the, if I'dhad my roost built into it, I'd
have been out that too.
But nope, I.
Tossed my saw horses out of itas I dug through and collected
(40:36):
everything.
'cause I was not happy.
And that's one of the reasonswhy I love my Lummi coop.
'cause they don't break.
I had a freaking concrete blockland on one of them.
Didn't mess it up.
There's a scratch on the rubberand at the peak of the roof,
like three or four stitches cameundone.
(40:59):
When a concrete block landed onit.
So tarps like if you do those,you need to be extremely careful
for the roof.
Take precautions, poke holes init.
Like after, after it rains thatfirst time.
'cause I understand, you'rechicken in on the budget that
(41:22):
first time it rains.
If you need to take a knife boxcutter or something out there,
find the spots where itcollects.
Cut you a slip.
Otherwise it's gonna crash.
Jennifer (41:33):
We tell you funny,
Carey (41:34):
I love funnies,
Jennifer (41:36):
so I had a really good friend and she knew I was
looking for turkeys and foundsome and brought'em to me.
This is probably 10 years agonow.
Carey (41:45):
They were
Jennifer (41:46):
rural palms and.
I was not prepared, thank you.
I'm not ready for them.
So she dropped'em off.
There were six of them, and theywere probably about three months
old.
Okay.
We didn't know.
We didn't have anywhere to put'em.
They were too big to just gosomewhere.
And so we went out there and wehad woods on at that house, and
(42:08):
we just took some fencing thatwe had and made like a triangle
fence between three trees.
Just wrapped it around, soundsperfect.
Threw a tarp over the top of it.
It rained like 12, 15 inches itseemed like, and I didn't think
anything about it.
I went out there the next day tofeed'em and it had created a
(42:29):
bowl of water, and the sixturkeys were smashed up against
the fence between the tarp andthe fence.
Just looking at me like, really,this is how you're gonna treat.
I
Carey (42:40):
thought you looked like you're a nice lady now you got
squished up against this.
We would've been fine gettingwet.
Jennifer (42:47):
So those turkeys are the ones that ended up in the 10
by 20 chain link fence thatultimately got broken into by a
weasel or a mink or somethingand got eaten anyway.
So sometimes you just, you can'twin for losing sometimes it
seems
Carey (43:05):
And I'm gonna say this.
When it comes to puttingtogether facilities for your
birds don't cheap out.
And I say that because I know wewant to, because we want to get
chickens.
We want to have'em becausethey're cute, they're fun to
play with, they're nice to talkto.
(43:27):
They won't tell your secrets,whatever your reason is, but.
Learn from our mistakes.
That's the whole reason that wetalk about a lot of this random,
the, like this random crap we'vedone.
It is a lot of it's stuff we'vedone and I found out that you
(43:47):
can either do it cheap three orfour times over the course of
five years, or you can do itonce.
And not do it again.
And you know when we're gonnahave animals, regardless of
their purpose, you wanna be goodstewards of them and you want to
(44:08):
protect them and keep'em safebecause.
At the end of the day, you don'twant to weasel eating your
chicken.
You want to eat it.
If that's what it's for.
Or you don't want a snakegetting your eggs.
You want to get'em.
So do everything you can toprovide them the best housing
possible and take care of'em andlet'em have a good life while
(44:30):
they have it.
Because we raise beef cattle andthem sign guns are fed really
well.
Really good place to get out ofthe rain when the morons choose
to get out of the rain.
So take care of'em.
Keep'em safe so you can enjoy'emas long as you want to.
(44:53):
I actually saw and rip sent methis today and I was mind blown.
'cause we talk about how olderchickens get.
This, that and the other.
Probably no surprise, that'sactually a Guinness thing,
believe it or not, and theGuinness Book of World record
(45:19):
had a chicken.
Now I can't find it to save mylife, but I wanna say it was
like 18 years old.
Jennifer (45:29):
Remember when Jody Chicken was on talking about the
showmanship?
She said that they had a chickenthat lasted 18 or 19 years.
Carey (45:37):
Yeah, so I haves,
Jennifer (45:39):
I have two that are 11 or 12.
Carey (45:42):
I mean mine, my foundation, trio, rooster of one
of my game families that I haveis.
He was like 13 and a half,almost 14 when he passed, and
he'd seen some tough times.
Jennifer (46:05):
Yeah.
Those old birds have livedthrough all of our mistakes and
kept on trucking.
Carey (46:11):
Yeah.
Jennifer (46:13):
All right.
This was just some of the stuffthat we've done and passing on
our wisdom so you don't have torepeat it.
Carey (46:19):
Yeah.
Jennifer (46:21):
See you next time.
Carey (46:23):
Take care y'all.
So you did a thing this week.
(00:01):
So tell us about what you did,what you got.
So
Carey (00:05):
I actually did this back late August when I took my test.
But I got an American game fouljudging certificate.
So now I'm a licensed judge.
Jennifer (00:19):
So you gonna wear like a little white coat and have a
nerd pocket Ooh, nerd pocket.
Okay.
Carey (00:25):
So there there's a debate because you can get they will
pay for either a coat, an apron,or a vest.
So it's do I want the doctor'scoat with the logo of my name on
it?
My judge's number?
(00:47):
Do I just want like a apron?
What?
What do I don't know.
Like I haven't figured that outyet.
Jennifer (00:56):
So if you wear a coat and it's open, then the birds
can still poop on you when youpick'em up.
But if you had an apron on, youwouldn't have to carry around an
extra shirt.
True,
Carey (01:10):
but it can be practical.
And the coats are either whiteor like a Heather Gray color or
maybe a little lighter thanHeather Gray.
They're pretty light.
Jennifer (01:29):
Yeah.
They show poop.
Good.
Carey (01:31):
Yeah.
So that's why I'm like, I don'tknow, because I don't really
want to get the white jacket.
I was gonna, since I'm actuallythe one in charge of ordering
the regalia for theorganization.
I may accidentally order, likea.
Darker gray color,
Jennifer (01:52):
gray.
I guess you could always put aapron on underneath of it
anyway.
Carey (01:57):
Yeah, I could have, what if I had the white doctor's coat
with a, the logo and judge, andthen like a dark blue or black
apron with just my name on it?
Jennifer (02:12):
Yep.
Put big on the front to catchthe poop
Carey (02:16):
and that says that it is gonna be 10 million degrees.
Yep.
When I go to wear that.
Jennifer (02:23):
Or you could just have both.
So you could just decide thatday
Carey (02:28):
I could do that.
With the thing.
Jennifer (02:32):
Yep.
Congratulations.
Carey (02:35):
Thank you.
Jennifer (02:38):
So
Carey (02:38):
I also ordered, I have the book, so I got my new
standard of perfection from thea PA.
I got it this time I got onethat was spiral bound, so I
could lay it flat or fold itover and use it a lot.
They also have this poultryshowmanship manual.
(03:01):
So I figured, hey, I like doingstuff with kids and like being
involved and getting kidsinvolved in stuff.
So I gotta admit, when I saw youdoing the showmanship thing, I
got a little jelly.
So like I need to figure thatcrap out.
Jennifer (03:19):
All six kids that I judged, I don't, Hey, but it was
fun.
It was fun seeing what theylearned and what they know and
how they handle their birds andhow they can plop down on their
knees to chase their birds soreadily when as you get older,
you can't do,
Carey (03:37):
shoot.
At my age, if I plo down on myknees to chase a bird, I'm
feeling it for a couple days.
Jennifer (03:44):
Yeah.
I ain't saying
Carey (03:45):
that.
I ain't done it.
But it, I am saying that I didfeel it for a few days.
Jennifer (03:51):
It was fun.
It was it was interesting tosee, the kids and how much
effort they put into it ordidn't put into it.
And it, you could tell.
So
Carey (04:02):
I know that you're on TikTok.
Jennifer (04:04):
And,
Carey (04:04):
cause I see some of your videos that are awesome.
But do you watch the ones ofsome of the kids showing like
sheep or pigs or cows?
Jennifer (04:19):
I watched the one with the girl that does the pigs.
It just cracks me up.
Carey (04:24):
The young blonde-headed one.
Jennifer (04:27):
Is she blonde?
The one that's so serious?
Carey (04:30):
I do know that there is one like that.
Okay.
Like this kid is so serious.
You would think that she'smaking a$10 million business
deal.
Like when she gets older and shegoes to the bank to sit down and
buy her farm.
You know how number one, if youget intimidated, you lose.
(04:53):
And number two, the first onethat talks after the deal is
made Lose This chick's neverlosing.
Jennifer (04:59):
She needs
Carey (05:00):
to play in Vegas.
She's so serious.
I heard that reminds me of thatpicture of Brie that she posted
a while back when she had thething.
I don't even know what it'scalled.
I'll call it the thing, thestick in her hand.
I think it was a sheep orsomething like that.
I was like, I thought they justshaved them suckers to make
stuff, but it's intense and Ithink the original thing that
(05:26):
piqued my interest was a couplemonths ago.
About a month and a half ago Ihad a four H Club reach out and
they're doing some research onfeed and feed tags and stuff
like that, and the sponsor ofthat club was like, I wanted to
(05:49):
know if you would send possiblysome samples or something.
Because apparently she's beenreaching out to a lot of
companies trying to getsomething and they wouldn't send
her Jack.
I'm like, these kids are gonnabe buying your stuff one day.
You idiot.
Why don't you send it to'em?
So I told her, I was like, yeah,what do you need?
(06:11):
And she says I will takewhatever.
Okay, cool.
So I got five pound bags and Iput it in some that were
resealable so they could pop itup and smell it and seal it back
up.
And I put the feed tags on thatbag.
I sent her all those along withthe PDFs of the P tags so she
(06:32):
could print some out for thekids to draw on and make notes.
And a pretty good other bit ofliterature.
And she was like I didn'trealize who you were.
Like I'm just a guy fromAlabama, whatever.
She was like, no.
How, what?
(06:52):
Think about what it would taketo get you to come out here to
talk to the kids.
And I said, an invitation, maybelunch.
And so we're gonna try to workthat out where I can go out
there'cause.
I want to get more involved inthat kind of stuff.
You gotta teach today's kids'cause that's the poultry nerd
(07:15):
of tomorrow.
Yeah.
Jennifer (07:17):
Yep.
Today we are not gonna jabberfor an hour about ourselves.
We're gonna talk about how tokeep your birds safe.
All the stuff that's out therethat can hurt them, which they
will find if you're not careful.
Carey (07:35):
Chickens and goats, like they can find a way to break
something.
Themselves or whatever they'remessing with.
They can.
I'm sure some other animals arecapable too, but for them to be
so smart about some stuff,they're really stupid.
Out there when it comes to otherstuff,
Jennifer (07:55):
I had out a Drake, a young Drake, right now, I'm
gonna have to put him down andhe, his leg is just shattered.
He, the only thing I can thinkis they like to try to eat the
pig food before the pigs come,which is really a stupid call
because the ducks weigh whatabout six pounds, maybe gonna
(08:17):
pig
Carey (08:20):
hundred pig.
Jennifer (08:22):
So the only thing I can say like better fast is he
got stepped on, which is reallystupid on his part.
It makes, it happens.
Cuing, culling choices makesthem easier.
So pigs would be the first thingon the list to hurt your birds.
Carey (08:40):
Yeah and I've got, I don't even let mine near my
birds.
So far, none of my birds havebeen stupid enough to fly over
there with'em.
Jennifer (08:50):
I don't think the pigs intentionally are hurting'em.
I think they're just, no, butthey're
Carey (08:54):
monsters compared to the chicken.
Jennifer (08:57):
Exactly.
Carey (08:58):
I don't care if it's your 10 12 pound orpingtons or a
little three pound Bantamgainer.
Jennifer (09:07):
So I've got two Orpington hens who have decided
that the cow barn is the placeto be when I feed the cows and
the troughs have drain holes andI guess some of the sweet feed
falls through these drain holesand they eat the sweet feed that
falls through Nice will.
(09:28):
They are standing there, thechickens are standing there when
I go to feed the cows and thenthe cows come running.
They're seriously pregnant now,so their running is a lot slower
than it was a few months ago,but.
The chicken, one of thechickens.
As I reached over to pouranother scoop, she just goes
(09:49):
into Waylon and I looked down,of course, what am I supposed to
do?
It's a 1500 pound cow standingthere, and the cow is standing
on her foot and she can't gether foot loose.
So I took there was a rakesitting there, so I took a rake
and just reached over and pushedthe cow with it.
And during it, that chickendidn't run in a circle, and as
(10:13):
the cow shifted, her weightstepped on her again.
But the worst thing that I couldfind was it moved one of the
scales on her leg.
She's still over there everymorning trying to eat sweet
feed.
Carey (10:28):
It is, it's like the same grains that they eat mixed with
a little bit of molasses, soit's no different than us eating
pancakes in the morning.
I guess though,
Jennifer (10:38):
my chickens are smart, they know my routine, and so
these.
I think there's three hens theyrun and it's pretty far distance
for them to run around to thecow barn and eat any sweet feed
that falls and then race me backto the barn in time for me to
(11:00):
feed them.
Carey (11:02):
So this is what I'm picturing.
I'm picturing early morninggarage door starts popping up
those three, start lookingaround.
They see the gator go over tothe cow barn.
Then they just take off.
Jennifer (11:18):
Oh yeah.
They'll, if I come out of thegarage on the gator and the cows
are usually in the back grazingat sunrise.
Yeah.
So they will raise their headsand they'll look to see if I
turn to go towards the barn toquail barn, or do I turn and go
towards the cowboy?
(11:38):
If I go towards the cow barn,it's stampede and everybody
better get outta the way.
If I go towards the quail barn,they'll continue grazing.
So if the goats are in the frontand I'm gonna go feed the cows,
I intentionally drive reallyslowly so the stampede doesn't
run over the goats because thegoats aren't as smart.
(12:01):
They're probably not the most.
Intelligent animals that I have,
Carey (12:06):
and I was gonna say goats.
Theirs are like mine.
They're.
They're pretty low on that totempole.
Jennifer (12:12):
Yours came from me, so Yeah, they're the same
intelligence level.
Carey (12:16):
They did,
Jennifer (12:18):
so they just run I don't know, it's, do you
remember that episode of Friendswhere Phoebe just runs, like
with her arms wailing andeverything and Yeah, that's how
the goats run.
Carey (12:29):
I was gonna say, if the goats didn't need the front ones
to run with, that's exactly howthey would run.
Jennifer (12:34):
Oh yeah.
Carey (12:35):
And they would make that loud squealing noise.
Yeah.
Jennifer (12:40):
So I try to drive the Gator in such a manner that
nobody gets crushed in stampedesjockeying for positions, but it
doesn't always happen.
So I guess the first order onour list here is just.
(13:01):
How your farm is set up.
Make sure that the other animalsare being respectful of your
birds as best you can,
Carey (13:11):
or also make sure you don't drive too fast and you're
side by side'cause.
We're talking about keeping youranimals safe.
And those das are run right infront of you.
Jennifer (13:24):
Oh, I have run over a rooster on Orpington.
He laid down though.
I didn't know he was there.
He is on the passenger side.
It was in the driveway.
And he just decided that's wherehe needed to take a nap.
Wow.
And I was like, shoulda havewoke up quicker.
Okay.
So yes, just, hazards of farmlife would be first on the list.
(13:47):
Next step would be chicken wireversus hardware cloth.
I feel like we cover this a lotin a lot of different locations,
but it comes up.
Over and I can get that.
People new to keeping chickenswouldn't understand, but chicken
wire is to keep chickens in
Carey (14:07):
right.
Jennifer (14:08):
And can keep, the good way to remember this is to keep
chickens in and contained soother animals can rip through it
to eat them easily
Carey (14:17):
And really the only thing chicken wire is good for is to
keep birds in or out.
Because if you use it over theroof of a run, a hawks won't fly
through it.
Jennifer (14:28):
Yeah.
If you can cut it with scissors,that's about
Carey (14:30):
it.
Jennifer (14:33):
Yeah.
If you can cut it with scissors,which you can chicken wire it is
not gonna keep anything with anykind of claws out.
Carey (14:42):
Nah, it won't.
Jennifer (14:44):
Now, I, not at this house, but the house before, we
had a Turkey pen out of a chainlink.
You know those storage bins theyput behind like gas stations to
hold all the cardboard.
I got one of those, it was like10 by 20 or something, and it
was like
Carey (15:01):
eight
Jennifer (15:02):
feet tall.
It was really nice.
That does sound nice.
Something.
We think it was a mink.
Actually peeled the chain linkdown and massacred all of my
turkeys.
So while chicken wires almostguaranteed not to save your
(15:23):
birds, there's really noguarantees.
If something wants in badenough, it's gonna get in.
Carey (15:30):
Yeah.
Where there's the will, there'sa way.
Jennifer (15:34):
So hardware cloth is the one that has the little
squares that we use a ton of itin the quail world.
So if you're not doing quail, ifyou're doing other birds you
wouldn't have such a haterelationship with it.
But if you get quail you'lllearn to hate hardware, cloth.
(15:55):
It's a necessary evil.
Carey (15:57):
Yeah.
And like.
When working with hardwarecloth, I gotta say and if you
could see my leg right now, itwould say it too.
Be careful with the stuff.
Even if it's a hundred degreesoutside, if you're working, if
you're gonna be like puttinghardware, cloth around the
bottom of your pen or your runto keep stuff out and in.
(16:21):
You might wanna wear pants.
Or your legs will look like yougot into a fight with a
squirrel.
One of mine does right now.
So the stuff's great.
It's handy, but you need to becareful with it too, because
those little pointy ends willscratch the crap out of you.
Jennifer (16:41):
And if you're using a lot of it a pair of dikes or
wire cutters, whatever you wannacall'em, they will wear your
handout pretty quickly.
They do make an attachment for adrill that you can zip right
through it and like butter andit's not very expensive.
Carey (16:58):
I was gonna say if you're gonna be working with hardware
claws, the attachment that she'stalking about, you can get it to
go into one of the little impactchucks.
Or a regular drill, chuck, Ithink they're less than 30, 40
bucks at the most.
If you get a really nice one,also side grinder, put your
(17:20):
cutting wheel on that thing.
Boom, works great using the 10snips and all those kind of
cutters.
That's gonna work once, but yourhands are going to get raw and
have blisters if you're buildinga cage or a pen.
Jennifer (17:38):
Yep.
Yep,
Carey (17:40):
do that.
Yep.
Jennifer (17:42):
Alright, next on our list is heat lamps.
People love to hate on mebecause I hate on them.
Heat lamps do not belong in adusty straw filled space, like a
barn burning barn sheds, coops,whatever you wanna call'em.
(18:07):
It does happen.
It happens regularly with heatlamps and I know people will
argue with us.
So go ahead and send in the heatmail, but heat lamps cause
Carey (18:18):
fires.
so@ultranerdpodcast.com andlook, I'll say this I will put
in this little caveat if youwant to get a true from a supply
house,$10 red heat lamp.
That is specifically designednot to explode, be all.
(18:45):
Now, if you want to get what youwill find at a lot of feed
stores or even box stores likeLowe's and Tractor Supply and
those type places, and I'm notknocking those'cause I love them
and spent a lot of money justthis past weekend at.
Both of those actually buyingstuff to build a pen.
(19:09):
But those two,$3 heat lamps,those things will blow up and
when they do best case scenario,your chicks are gonna want to go
see what the shiny stuff is.
It just hit the floor and couldprobably wind up ingesting some
(19:30):
of it.
Worst case scenario.
A barn catches on fire and theyall pass.
Jennifer (19:36):
And even if you don't even have it turned on, remove
it because we're talking aboutbirds.
Yeah.
They cannot tell the differencefrom standing on the ground
looking between a floppyelectrical cord or something to
land on.
So they'll try to jump up on it.
They'll play with it, they'llpick at it.
(19:59):
And we're not talking about justthe lamps, but.
Any electrical cords?
Carey (20:04):
No.
They're going a light on it,like it's a perch.
Jennifer (20:08):
Yeah, and I use brooder plates.
They try to perch on theelectrical cords for brooder
plates too.
It just is what it is.
They're inquisitive, they'rebird brains.
They're not gonna do that.
Okay.
Next on my list is feed bags.
The string.
You wouldn't think about thestring, but I go through at
least four bags a day.
(20:30):
So that's four strings that Iset in random places because I'm
horrible about it.
So the back of the Gator musthave a mile of them in there,
but I used to set them on top ofthe Quell cages.
One day I know.
(20:51):
There's just standing there andit's a place to set on.
I might as well just throw it onthe floor.
Be safer.
But anyway, then you gotta bend
Carey (20:58):
over to pick it up.
Jennifer (20:59):
I know one day I was moving some burbs around and I
grabbed this hen, and anotherone came with her, and I cannot
make this up.
These hens were tied together bya feed bag string, a quail in a
quail cage tied themselvestogether.
(21:21):
Yep.
Carey (21:22):
I can see that.
Jennifer (21:23):
So they eat them, it could impact their crop com.
Im impact compact their crop.
E
Carey (21:32):
either one actually
Jennifer (21:34):
tie themselves up like those two quail did.
Just, it's a chicken and they'regonna do stuff.
Carey (21:41):
And look, those of y'all that have had poultry for a hot
little minute.
You're like, oh yeah, nothingreally surprises me anymore.
And those of you that arethinking about getting into
poultry, you're like, no way.
But look, I promise after you'vehad Birch for that first year,
you're gonna be me.
(22:02):
But that second year afteryou've had birds for two years,
nothing to surprise you anymore.
Jennifer (22:07):
Nope.
Carey (22:07):
I
Jennifer (22:07):
had some chicks last week or the week before in the
barn.
The last of the orpington groutsis still in the barn and they
had found, one of them had foundsomething that was blue.
I still do not know what it was.
Maybe the size of a dollar bill,maybe if even that, but it was
bright blue.
(22:27):
Okay.
Running like lightning speedaround this.
What are those coops?
Like five by eight or something?
Carey (22:36):
Yeah, sounds right.
Just
Jennifer (22:38):
running.
So the other chicks couldn't getit and nobody else.
It was really funny.
I should have taken a video, butthe other chicks were just
looking at it like, why are yourunning?
We do not care about your littleblue thing.
But it was running, it reallythought it had something.
I don't know.
What did
Carey (22:55):
it have?
Jennifer (22:56):
It was just blue.
I didn't even stop.
I didn't even care.
Just let it have, its fun,whatever.
But they also eat the styrofoam.
They'll eat, they ate myinsulation, my blown insulation.
I paid so much for as high up asthey could off the wall.
They'll pretty much eatanything.
Yeah.
Carey (23:14):
I do know that for a fact.
Jennifer (23:16):
The next step is moldy feed,
Carey (23:19):
which is the one thing you don't want them to eat.
Jennifer (23:21):
And we actually did a podcast with Jeff about feed,
wet feed on the ground, blah,blah, blah.
Probably what, about four monthsago or so?
So you could somewhere
Carey (23:33):
in there.
Yeah.
Jennifer (23:33):
Yeah.
You could go back and referencethat, but then you're gonna get
botulism and all that otherstuff.
My, what's the one that startswith the m?
Carey (23:44):
So Mi mylas, microplasma?
Jennifer (23:49):
No, not that
Carey (23:50):
one.
Mycotoxins.
Jennifer (23:51):
There you go.
Mycotoxins.
Carey (23:52):
Yeah.
The mycotoxins are in the moldyfeed.
Jennifer (23:55):
Yep.
Carey (23:55):
And there's people that have had just little chunks of
feed that were moldy in a whole50 pound sack, and they actually
lost some birds that weren'tthat healthy.
That's a pretty huge thing.
That's one.
Probably the biggest reason whyit's so important to keep your
(24:16):
feed stored somewhere that's notoverly humid in a dry container
like a barrel or something witha lid.
And don't go buy six monthsworth of feed.
I buy one to two months at theabsolute most.
(24:36):
If you're buying store-boughtfeed, I would not buy more than
a month.
If you're buying a custom blendthat you know was milled like
within a week or so of yougetting it, then you could go
45, 60 days at the absolute max.
But yeah don't hang on to itforever.
Jennifer (24:58):
Next on the list would be rocks or other objects on the
ground, specifically items wherethey're jumping off of the
roost, that's where they'relanding.
You don't want them bruising thepads of their feet or breaking
their toes.
You could end up with bumblefootand lacerations.
(25:22):
Broken legs, slipped tendons.
You could theoretically loseyour bird on a slipped tendon.
I've lost one that way.
Carey (25:30):
Yeah.
And like some people, like ourfriends that have game foul,
they, they'll have roost 6, 7, 8feet high, but they also will
put anything from sand to pea,moss to straw on the bottom.
So when they do come down,they're not landing on the hard
(25:54):
ground.
Aside from that, if you're notmaking special precautions on
the ground to protect theirfeet, I would not recommend you
to have a roost more than two tothree feet high.
'cause, especially if it's a bigbird that you know that come
down on a rock.
(26:17):
Want you pretty bird.
Jennifer (26:19):
My highest roost are the turkeys.
And they're four feet.
Carey (26:23):
Yeah,
Jennifer (26:24):
all the chickens are 20 inches.
Carey (26:26):
But I'll also say folks, if her runs were freshly cleaned
out, I you could lay down andtake a nap there because she
mixes stall pellets, peat moss.
Like she has soft soil dirtwhere she is it's sandy, so
(26:49):
she's not getting bumblefoot.
Other places where you have thatclay-like soil that has them
small pointy rocks in it, that'snot good.
Gets you a little rotor tillerand till that stuff up while
you're at it, get some lime tokill bacteria and germs.
(27:09):
And some peat moss and throwthat in there and till it in and
mix it up and fluff the dirt up.
You'll be good to go.
Jennifer (27:16):
I love my new little tiller, by the way.
They're
Carey (27:19):
handy as crap.
I know.
Jennifer (27:22):
So next on the list, it's ventilation from wrapping
the coop.
Also something we'll get hatemail for.
We do live in the south, so weare not going to claim to
understand those who live in theArctic Circle, but.
It doesn't change the fact thata bird needs fresh air to
(27:45):
breathe.
Carey (27:46):
The people that we know that do live Vermont, Wisconsin,
Canada, they've got holes in thetops of their coops indoors to
let air flow.
Jennifer (27:59):
So if you want to wrap.
Your coop, while we are going toencourage you not to,
Carey (28:09):
but you do, you boo on your farm, your rules,
Jennifer (28:12):
something loose.
Like maybe instead of puttingpainters.
Plastic up and completely makinglike a greenhouse effect.
Maybe put tarps up so that theycan move with the breeze and
keep the air moving.
(28:33):
Yeah.
The idea here is to keep.
So when they breathe and it'scold, you know how when you go
outside and you breathe out andyou can see your breath?
That's moisture.
So if a bird is doing that allnight long and you've created a
greenhouse effect, then thatmoisture is gonna be in there.
It's gonna cause respiratoryproblems.
(28:55):
It's gonna maybe cause frostbiteon their combs or waddles.
It's just, it's a hazard to.
To their health.
Carey (29:04):
It's the same concept as, people tell you don't put a
water inside the house at nightbecause it adds humidity to it.
If you don't have ventilation,the they're what?
They're breathing out.
We'll do it.
Jennifer (29:25):
Yes.
Now I am on the other side ofthat.
I say do put water in the coop,but just that's
Carey (29:33):
because we're in, we ours are very well ventilated.
Jennifer (29:37):
If they're rail ventilated, put water in there,
say
Carey (29:40):
that twice.
Jennifer (29:40):
Do not put it in a slow cooker where it's
constantly steaming.
I see people do that on thechicken groups.
That's just putting steam insideof a coop.
Now if it's open where the aircan blow the steam out, that
would be okay.
But my reason for saying puttingwater inside the coop is.
(30:03):
What happens if, for whateverreason you can't get out there
to let them out, say you had anemergency in the middle of the
night and you are gone for 48hours and you don't let'em out,
then they're just gonna die fromdehydration.
So it's more of a emergency typesituation as far as I'm
concerned.
Carey (30:24):
Yeah, and like for me, my, my watering system.
For 90% of my birds and one ofmy weekend projects coming up
will get the rest of'em.
But it's all automated and I dothat because crap happens.
And I'm okay if a bird's feederis empty for a day.
(30:50):
I'm not okay if a bird has nowater.
Because they're, they're likehumans in the sense that they
can go a while, couple dayswithout feet, three, four even
happens all the time when youship'em.
But going without water, theycan't do that so long.
(31:11):
So keep that in mind.
Jennifer (31:14):
So
Carey (31:15):
it is better to have water in a coop.
That has airflow at the top innegative temperatures than it is
to have birds be freezing andthirsty.
Jennifer (31:33):
Correct.
I agree.
Roost bars, I personally useboards two by fours for the
chickens and two by sixes or twoby eights, whatever we got
laying around.
We don't go buy boards, we justhave stuff and we just use those
(31:54):
flat side up for the birds.
Make sure they're not metalbecause metal freezes and then
that could cause frostbite thatway.
Also make sure that they're bigenough, especially if you're in
a colder environment or evenhere, it drops to zero for a
couple weeks, it seems everyyear.
(32:16):
Because if it's a flat board andthen they roost down on top of
their feet, then their feet arecovered by their body heat.
Carey (32:26):
It keeps your toes nice and cozy.
Jennifer (32:28):
Yeah.
They are 108 degrees.
Yeah.
So yeah.
Toasty toes, just keep that inmind.
If you're giving them like acloset rod or something, then
their toes are gonna be curledaround it.
And then the on the bottom side,they're exposed to the cold
weather.
The other thing is I see peopleusing branches and stuff for
(32:49):
roosts and justify it by sayingthey used to roost in trees.
That is true.
They did use to roost in trees.
Growing up about a hundred.
Carey (32:59):
Years before we domesticated them.
Jennifer (33:02):
Growing up, my ch the chickens we had dad got game
foul after he got rid of thewhite rocks, but they lived in
the woods and roosted in thetrees.
The difference is they chose thebranch size from all the trees
in the whole forest.
They would choose what theyneeded in order to be safe, be
(33:24):
warm.
Be level, whatever.
They also
Carey (33:28):
have limbs and leaves and pine straw blocking wind for
them
Jennifer (33:34):
right
Carey (33:34):
when they're like that.
Jennifer (33:36):
So a crooked old branch might not be big enough
around in diameter to keep theirtoes from freezing.
That would be one concern.
A second concern would be ifthey're constantly roosting at
an angle, say they are in acrook or something.
Then they could get a crookedkeel bone.
(34:00):
Yeah.
Carey (34:00):
And people that have those, we're not saying, oh my
God, you did this so wrong.
A lot of people use tree limbsand stuff because they're
repurposing and they're takingadvantage of what they have, and
that's awesome.
What I actually have some treelimbs in some of my pens, but
what I did was I used a piece offive and a quarter deck board,
(34:24):
so it's a little more than threequarter it's about three
quarters of an inch thick.
It's not a one inch, and it'salmost six inches wide.
One by six if that's what youcan find.
And I cut sections and I justscrewed'em to poles.
Some of my breeding pens areactual dog kennels that have the
(34:45):
two by four wire in them.
So you know, you slide the twoby four up.
It's.
The small end is up.
And what I did was I took somefive and a quarter deck board,
stuck it in place.
A lot of times I would start, Icut'em a couple feet, whatever,
put'em on either side that wayand have to worry about the
(35:06):
roost pole sliding out.
'cause sometimes chickens get alittle rambunctious, especially
turkeys, but when turkeys are inthose, they get up there on that
five and a quarter, it's.
Anything is six eight incheswide.
They pop up, they land, and thenthey feel sturdy and they sit
down and they can actually relaxand be as stress-free as a bird
(35:32):
can.
Jennifer (35:34):
My first chicken coop as a adult, we used a C log.
It was big.
It wasn't like one inchdiameter, it was like eight
inches diameter
Carey (35:46):
but a log like that would be awesome because it being
cedar would also help keep mitesand pest away.
Exactly.
Smart thinking.
Jennifer (35:56):
Now my, my good friend that lives in Michigan, she
asked me what to use for roostwhen she was building her new
coop.
And I told her if I was startingover, I would do sawhorses.
And she asked why?
And I said when you go to cleaneverything, what's in your way?
And it's the roost.
I was always in your way.
You always have to dodge it togo.
(36:17):
Collect something or say, youcan either make them on the
Carey (36:20):
hands where you have to, pick'em up and tie'em.
Jennifer (36:22):
Do all
Carey (36:23):
that.
Or you get a sawhorse whereveryou go in there and take your
foot and slide it outta the way.
Jennifer (36:27):
Yep.
Or take it outside and wash it.
Carey (36:30):
Yeah.
Jennifer (36:30):
Or and everybody always has short pieces of
something laying around just tomake sawhorses around.
I have probably 10 sawhorses nowthat Dave has made me outta just
scrap wood that's probably 18inches tall.
They're, yeah.
And that's what I put in thebarn for the grow outs inside to
(36:53):
start playing on so that when Iput'em outside, they don't do
the mosh pit thing, theyactually start roosting.
Carey (37:00):
Yeah.
And side note, three, regularstud, 96 inch two by fours.
If you cut, outta two of'em, youcan get 6 32 inch length pieces.
(37:20):
All right, so you got the top,the middle bottom?
To make that eye beam.
Outta two of them.
And then you use the third oneand cut it to make the legs for
the other two.
So three, two by fours will makeyou two roost.
Because the first, like I, onetime I was at your house, I was
(37:40):
like, why?
Why in the crap do you have twofoot tall horses?
Yeah, they're all over.
David.
Is he making stuff now sittingon a bucket?
And when you told me that I waslike, that's smart.
And now I've got quite a few ofthem and actually bought some
two by fours the other day whenI was getting all the other crap
(38:01):
to make subar'cause.
When you put your roof polesbetween the wire from one side
to the other, yeah, it'sconvenient.
But like in a grow outsituation, I had a two by four
between two, I'd do that in thecorners and like them, son of a
(38:22):
guns would get on there, as manyas they could fit.
And I had one piece that was aone buy.
And my wife and I kept debatingon how long it would take for it
to either fall or break.
And when I finally replaced allof those in that pen with
(38:43):
sawhorses, that thing, like ifyou took the two sides that were
stuck through the fence, therewas a six seven inch drop.
From where they, like so many of'em had sat on it.
And I mean that, that couldn'tbe sturdy.
So they're trying to sleep andwiggling and balancing and stuff
(39:05):
like that.
So soft horses are easy.
And the next thing that we haveto talk about is using tarps for
roofs.
And I'll say this.
Even in the south, we get snow.
I had a chicken pen.
One of those neat ones that youcan get off of Amazon for 200
(39:27):
bucks.
It's a 10 by 20 nice littlepointy roof on it.
The wire that you need to throwaway to go around the whole
thing and.
I had over the top,'cause youknow it's pretty steep little
roof.
But I had used a tarp for theroof.
'cause in my mind, it's gonnaprovide shade, keep rain off
(39:50):
part of the run.
All those benefits.
Perfect.
Plenty of angle.
The one time we get rain thatsnows.
Hey, this thing's got likeseveral inches of snow gathered
up upon it.
I thought, man, it's cool.
And then the daylight came andthe underlayment started to
(40:12):
freeze.
And then the next night,chickens were all over the place
because it caved in.
And if I'd have had the, if I'dhad my roost built into it, I'd
have been out that too.
But nope, I.
Tossed my saw horses out of itas I dug through and collected
(40:36):
everything.
'cause I was not happy.
And that's one of the reasonswhy I love my Lummi coop.
'cause they don't break.
I had a freaking concrete blockland on one of them.
Didn't mess it up.
There's a scratch on the rubberand at the peak of the roof,
like three or four stitches cameundone.
(40:59):
When a concrete block landed onit.
So tarps like if you do those,you need to be extremely careful
for the roof.
Take precautions, poke holes init.
Like after, after it rains thatfirst time.
'cause I understand, you'rechicken in on the budget that
(41:22):
first time it rains.
If you need to take a knife boxcutter or something out there,
find the spots where itcollects.
Cut you a slip.
Otherwise it's gonna crash.
Jennifer (41:33):
We tell you funny,
Carey (41:34):
I love funnies,
Jennifer (41:36):
so I had a really good friend and she knew I was
looking for turkeys and foundsome and brought'em to me.
This is probably 10 years agonow.
Carey (41:45):
They were
Jennifer (41:46):
rural palms and.
I was not prepared, thank you.
I'm not ready for them.
So she dropped'em off.
There were six of them, and theywere probably about three months
old.
Okay.
We didn't know.
We didn't have anywhere to put'em.
They were too big to just gosomewhere.
And so we went out there and wehad woods on at that house, and
(42:08):
we just took some fencing thatwe had and made like a triangle
fence between three trees.
Just wrapped it around, soundsperfect.
Threw a tarp over the top of it.
It rained like 12, 15 inches itseemed like, and I didn't think
anything about it.
I went out there the next day tofeed'em and it had created a
(42:29):
bowl of water, and the sixturkeys were smashed up against
the fence between the tarp andthe fence.
Just looking at me like, really,this is how you're gonna treat.
I
Carey (42:40):
thought you looked like you're a nice lady now you got
squished up against this.
We would've been fine gettingwet.
Jennifer (42:47):
So those turkeys are the ones that ended up in the 10
by 20 chain link fence thatultimately got broken into by a
weasel or a mink or somethingand got eaten anyway.
So sometimes you just, you can'twin for losing sometimes it
seems
Carey (43:05):
And I'm gonna say this.
When it comes to puttingtogether facilities for your
birds don't cheap out.
And I say that because I know wewant to, because we want to get
chickens.
We want to have'em becausethey're cute, they're fun to
play with, they're nice to talkto.
(43:27):
They won't tell your secrets,whatever your reason is, but.
Learn from our mistakes.
That's the whole reason that wetalk about a lot of this random,
the, like this random crap we'vedone.
It is a lot of it's stuff we'vedone and I found out that you
(43:47):
can either do it cheap three orfour times over the course of
five years, or you can do itonce.
And not do it again.
And you know when we're gonnahave animals, regardless of
their purpose, you wanna be goodstewards of them and you want to
(44:08):
protect them and keep'em safebecause.
At the end of the day, you don'twant to weasel eating your
chicken.
You want to eat it.
If that's what it's for.
Or you don't want a snakegetting your eggs.
You want to get'em.
So do everything you can toprovide them the best housing
possible and take care of'em andlet'em have a good life while
(44:30):
they have it.
Because we raise beef cattle andthem sign guns are fed really
well.
Really good place to get out ofthe rain when the morons choose
to get out of the rain.
So take care of'em.
Keep'em safe so you can enjoy'emas long as you want to.
(44:53):
I actually saw and rip sent methis today and I was mind blown.
'cause we talk about how olderchickens get.
This, that and the other.
Probably no surprise, that'sactually a Guinness thing,
believe it or not, and theGuinness Book of World record
(45:19):
had a chicken.
Now I can't find it to save mylife, but I wanna say it was
like 18 years old.
Jennifer (45:29):
Remember when Jody Chicken was on talking about the
showmanship?
She said that they had a chickenthat lasted 18 or 19 years.
Carey (45:37):
Yeah, so I haves,
Jennifer (45:39):
I have two that are 11 or 12.
Carey (45:42):
I mean mine, my foundation, trio, rooster of one
of my game families that I haveis.
He was like 13 and a half,almost 14 when he passed, and
he'd seen some tough times.
Jennifer (46:05):
Yeah.
Those old birds have livedthrough all of our mistakes and
kept on trucking.
Carey (46:11):
Yeah.
Jennifer (46:13):
All right.
This was just some of the stuffthat we've done and passing on
our wisdom so you don't have torepeat it.
Carey (46:19):
Yeah.
Jennifer (46:21):
See you next time.
Carey (46:23):
Take care y'all.
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