I am happy to announce my guest appearance on a great show, called “Pastured Poultry Talk with Mike Badger.” If you have not yet listened to this show, I would like to encourage you to check it out. You can learn a lot about raising chickens here, and he has some very knowledgeable guest as well.
I’ve known Mike Badger for quite a few years now. We both taught at The Sustainable Poultry Network (SPN). We traveled to various places throughout the United States giving seminars. I had a great time, and would like to do more seminars. I really enjoy that face-to-face interaction with my students, and the feedback that you get from these settings.
If fact, a number of Mikes guests were either teachers of SPN or its students?
- Harvey Ussery
- Erin Angulo
- Jim Adkins
- Jeff Mattocks
- Pat Foreman
- Pat Whitaker
- Bland
- And, Mike Badger
- And many more!
In this episode of Bred to Perfection, we are playing, with Mikes permission, my guest spot on Mikes show, which aired in August of 2019. This is episode 93 of Pastured Poultry Talk.
Here are the Links:
Pastured Poultry Talk website:
https://pasturedpoultrytalk.com
Episode 93 show notes:
https://pasturedpoultrytalk.com/2019/08/27/dangerous-breeder/
Pastured Poultry Talk Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PasturedPoultryTalk/
Apple Podcast page:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pastured-poultry-talk/id991326564?mt=2
Spotify page
https://open.spotify.com/show/4yTlHCLYUfPsy7oLcDVnyW?si=pXLZhMQHRdeAsC2idqUumg
Google Podcast page
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL3Bhc3R1cmVkcG91bHRyeXRhbGsubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M%3D
We talk about various subjects on breeding, but this episode is Titled “How to Avoid Being a Dangerous Chicken Breeder.” I believe it was inspired by one of our episodes of “Bred to Perfection,” titled “The 3 Most Dangerous Breeders – Which one are you?”
If you are interested in listening to this episode, go to Bred to Perfection – Ep19.
You can find it on our website – www.breedersacademy.com
- YouTube, Spotify
- Apple Podcast
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Luminary
- Overcast
- or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Ep19 – The 3 Most Dangerous Breeders link:
https://www.breedersacademy.com/the-three-most-dangerous-breeders-2/
Make sure to listen all the way to the end. The special offer is still available to Mike’s Listeners. But act fast, the rates will increase soon. In this episode, I will lay out a foundation that all serious breeders should follow so that your efforts are not wasted and time is lost.
If you want to create, maintain or improve your strain, then you will need to acknowledge that your effort goes way beyond mating a rooster and a hen just to produce a batch of chicks.
I also noticed that when I talked about the show – Bred to Perfection, I mentioned that we were only on YouTube at the time. We are now on all the Podcasting Directories, such as
- Spotify,
- Apple Podcast,
- iTunes,
- Google Podcast,
- Luminary,
- Overcast,
- or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
I also mentioned the episodes with Jeff Maddocks (Nutritionist) and Don Schrider (Master Breeder). You can find these episodes on www.breedersacademy.com Website.
Jeff Mattocks: https://www.breedersacademy.com/ep35-interview-with-jeff-mattocks-about-poultry-nutrition-part-1/
Don Schrider: https://www.breedersacademy.com/bred-to-perfection-ep30-interview-with-don-schrider-part-1/
Subjects that we cover, include:
- I introduce myself, and talk about how I got into writing articles and books, and how I came up with the idea of creating and running an online Membership Website all about breeding.
- What constitutes a Master Breeder?
- What are American Games, and how they differ from the Domestic Chicken?
- The important role that Gamefowl play in the creation of the domestic chicken and their survival for future generations.
- What the Commercial Poultry Breeders have done right?
- What are they doing wrong, where is the Commercial poultry industry failing?
- Where are the opportunities for the average backyard breeder?
- The problems most backyard breeders are facing.
- What makes a Dangerous Breeder?
- What you need to do to become a great breeder?
- What constitutes and family?
- The disadvantages of crossing breeds when creating a new strain?
- My Welsummer Story – a great lesson for all of us!
- Why avoiding Outcrossing is best.
- How much progress can be made through selection?
- Why selecting the top 10% is not good enough?
- Why purchasing a breeding trio is better than day old chicks?
- The pros and cons of using a rotational breeding program, such as Clan Mating (spiral breeding).
- Why it’s good to produce a large number of chicks when selecting future breeding stock?
- Why the offspring must always be better than the parents?
- How to use Recumbent Reciprocal Selection to create your own line of Hybrid birds.
What should the breeder know or learn before beginning the breeding process of creating a strain?
- Learn the origins and history of your chosen breed.
- Learn about defects and their effects. If you see a defect, don’t buy the bird. Defects are recessive, and if you breed two birds with the same defect, all offspring will be affected.
- Every breeder should know what their common defect is. Hint: If you’re buying breeding stock, ask what the common defect is!
- Understand how to cull properly.
- You will see huge variations when breeding hybrids, such as variability in size, color, shape, etc.
- Always select offspring that’s better than the parents.
- When selecting birds, go beyond the top 10%. Look for the standouts that have the ability to take the family to the next level, whether that’s one or a handful.
- Find a breeding trio to establish your program so you can see exactly what the birds are.
- Hatching chicks as a way to establish your family is often problematic and disappointing.
- Set Up a clan mating system (also called spiral mating system), which is three groups of birds. The clan mating system is a good maintenance system and helps ensure genetic diversity.
- Understand that clan mating is only one type of breeding program.
- Other programs used in parallel with Clan Mating is Line-breeding.
- Never mix breeding birds with production birds.
- Only breed birds that have the potential to advance the family by selecting offspring better than the parents.
- Hatch has many offspring as you can manage and afford.
- Learn and understand the value of genetics.
- Get a mentor, and hang out with people smarter than you!
Advance your knowledge of breeding by studying these topics:
- Evolutionary Biology (Darwin)
- Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment
- Mendel’s Law of Segregation
- Thomas Hunt Morgan’s discoveries – known as Advanced Genetics, such as Sex-linked traits and Polygenic traits (quantitative characteristics)
- Mutation theory
- Punnett Square
What was my biggest failure? I give two:
- the use of medications
- and having too many strains.
