The chart above is how I initially had it stuck in my head and I had such a hard time getting past that. I had a mental block and just couldn’t see it. However, after having read the information from inside the breeders academy and contemplating it all, I have a completely different understanding. I guess in this case, the thought is best to best or seeing a good trait pop up, only to have it disappear in the next generation. In this case, you are stuck in the seed fowl stage forever and are blind to the 2 nd stage, where you begin to consolidate the good traits and really start to move forward. It’s like taking a 100 or 1,000 years of genetic diversity and adding 4 more years to it. When really you are at that point in which you could use the same 100 or 1,000 years of genetic diversity and by applying your breeding methods(working tools), start establishing the good traits. Once you comprehend that, your whole mindset changes from, “I can’t wait to see what I get this year” to “ I need to raise x number of chicks from that hen and rooster over the next several years, in order to have x number of those kind to select from”. Boy, let me tell you, those two lines of thought are on different ends of Kenny’s bell shaped curve. With a little time, patience, and perseverance I may even have chickens that fit together with exact nicety, in all their parts.
Jason Ward
,@wardo
Jason Ward3
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I made a couple this year, that have 1/2” hardware cloth about 3 1/2” from the bottom for the floor. 3’ x 4’x30”tall and out of 3/4 inch plywood. The roof is flat and hinged, so I can open and reach down inside to feed/water. There is a sliding door on one end, about 12”x18”, which can be removed to allow chicks to range out on the ground. If you have a hen in there with them even better, you can butt one of those square meter pens up against the opening on the end of the brooder. It keeps the hen sort of confined and the chicks can come and go through the larger sized wire. It is kind of heavy, but works pretty well. I remove the sliding door in the morning and close it up at night. I do have a light in there plugged into a timer, so when weather was bad I left it closed all day, no problems. As far as ventilation, you can prop the roof open a couple inches with a piece of 2”x4” or scrap.
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The audio with Don Schrider is a good one to listen to. One part they were talking about commercial leghorn breeding in comparison to, I think buckeyes. The point was, how selection for different physical traits related to egg production, actually allowed for the increase in egg production to occur. I guess you can relate that to hauling eggs in your car. In one case you have a car with a trunk full of eggs, the next time you add a trailer so you can move more at one time. Then the next time you find a truck with an 8’ bed and a trailer. Now at this point you have too many eggs and you say the heck with it and hire a moving company with 18 wheelers. The owner of the 18 wheeler has lost touch with how it all began and can’t comprehend hauling eggs in your trunk and starts to dictate a lot of how the process works, to the point of cost, quality, etc.. Here, we begin the process all over again except we get to dictate what happens next. I think that was the point, maybe I just explained the commercialization of poultry. Short answer is that there is a lot of good info in this website.
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I have a few 3 x 4 pens set up to see what works best. One has sand and one with clean pea gravel. So far, I am leaning towards the pea gravel. I put an empty molasses tub, filled with used compost in a big pen and they tore that up. So, I plan on setting one of those 3 x 4’s with used compost, just to see how that works. I am guessing it would be similar to the way Kenny uses horse dung. Then there is regular dirt, but that gets messed up when it rains.
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