Feed, supplements and Carey's BIG announcement!

What should you feed your chickens, quail, and other poultry? Does protein really matter? Are expensive feeds worth the cost? And how much does nutrition impact hatchability, chick quality, and flock performance?

In this episode of the Poultry Nerds Podcast, Jennifer Bryant and Carey Blackmon tackle listener questions about poultry feed and nutrition. They discuss feed formulations, protein levels, breeder nutrition, common feeding mistakes, and how proper nutrition affects everything from egg production to hatch rates.

Whether you're raising a backyard flock, breeding exhibition birds, or trying to improve your hatch results, this episode is packed with practical information to help you make better feeding decisions.

Plus, congratulations to Carey and the Show Pro Feed team on the launch of their new storefront! Be sure to visit ShowProFarmSupply.com to learn more about their products and support a growing small business serving poultry keepers.

Resources mentioned in this episode:
• Download Carey's Poultry Feed Requirements Guide
• Learn more at PoultryNerdsPodcast.com
• Visit ShowProFarmSupply.com

Have a question for a future episode? Submit it through the Poultry Nerds website and it may be featured on an upcoming show.

Valley Hatchery is a proud sponsor of Poultry Nerds, find more at ValleyHatchery.com

Transcript

0:00

in celebration of opening the feed store, we decided to do a feed, podcast. I forgot what we do. I got sidetracked. We podcast, we have it on our website, Poultry Nerds podcast. You can actually go there and watch the video that we're recording right now, so you can see the PowerPoint presentations. A lot of times we make hand gestures to each other and talk about it in the podcast, and you wonder, "What are they doing? What's so funny?" are we talking about what to feed our birds today? We are, but because I selected this topic in lieu of your special occasion. So tell all of our listeners what is in store for you tonight, pun intended. Oh, wow, so we're just gonna talk about this right now?

Cedric 1:03

Show Pro is becoming a store, and that's gonna be my full-time thing. We're gonna have a feed store here in Hueytown, Alabama, and we'll also continue to make and ship and all that good stuff, from here as well.

1:18

The benefit of that is our lead times have gotten out of control, and I can only do so much from 3:00 till 10, 11:00 at night. So I am retiring from teaching. They found out last week, and it was okay, and I hope to have the store open next Monday. I think, I have to call it a soft opening cause it'll be pending a inspection from the fire department for a full-fledged business license to be done for the store retail location. But I've already talked to him. He's already looked through here, told me what needs to be done, what needs to be in place. Once I fill out the paperwork, gave me a cell phone number to call him, so we'll be good. Congratulations. Thanks. You need to be jumping up and down. So I don't really know what to think. I've been an entrepreneur for many years, and I got pulled back into a job some years back because somebody was having some problems and they needed it fixed, and I have a strong background in IT. People can still get your stuff mailed to them. You're not shutting down the e-commerce, right? Nope. And you're still running your routes, so I can still get my feed here. Yep. Are you expanding the routes at all? So I've got a lot of interest in, the Memphis, like out Corridor X towards that area. I've got a lot of interest down in Louisiana and a lot in northern Florida and central Georgia, so you know, basically every state around me. People want it in some, all, actually all the way out to Texas. I have one guy out in Texas And so I'm working on that 'cause, he even said, I got a place you can stay for y- turn around and go home." He's got an apartment there on his farm. So this is just, you call or get on your website, order feed, and then once a month you're gonna deliver it and they pick up, right? Yeah. So what I usually do is I have two drop points in Tennessee right now. One's your farm and one's Rather Farms, west from you. They're right up I-65. But I go there. Everybody that's picking up at Rather, which there's quite a few that pick up there, and they'll get theirs. I'll unload everything and I'll set it in piles whose is what. And then, they come by and pick it up. If they come by that day, I'll say, "Hey, look, it's gonna be dropped at the point by 2:00," and, they'll come afterwards. And I've already made arrangements with them to know that they're gonna be there. If you're not picking it up right then you need to coordinate with the drop person. And like at your location, you have this ginormous box out by your gate, and I just put it in there and they come by and get it. Don't bother you. It's, one of the people I've never even met. Yep. So that's like how Azure Standard works. Yeah. Just pick your drop points and drop it off. So I'm assuming, I don't wanna put you on the spot, but I'm assuming that if people are in the surrounding area and would like to be a drop point, then to contact you and maybe see about setting it up? Yeah. Carey@showprousa.com. Shoot me an email, let me know where you're at, because I have started a Excel sheet, I love Excel sheets, that's got people and locations that are interested and about how much feed they go through in a month. And I can put it together and, I got poultry feed, livestock feed. If it's on your farm, I can feed it. So well, awesome. And then if you're in the Birmingham or Central Alabama area, they can just come to your store now. Yeah. For a while I've had people that would, we would make arrangements and they'd meet here, and some of them I put a, use my forklift and put a pallet in the back of their truck or whatever. But, now as long as they come during business hours, somebody will be here that can load them up. One of the things I'm gonna do on the website is the store's gonna have its own website, and you'll be able to go there and place your order and pick the, select pickup, and it'll be ready for you to pick up the next day. Cause I'll pull all those orders before I go home and have them in the warehouse ready to go. You can pick them up. We'll load them up for you. Yep. It sounds good. And it's fun to grow the whole chicken business, yeah. I'm excited about that. And, we're gonna grow into a full out feed and seed store. I had started some plants, like corn and stuff like that. My wife was like, instead of you bringing them home and putting them somewhere and having to put a fence around it so the goats or the pigs don't destroy it, why don't you put a planter in front of your store?" Nothing really says farm store like a garden Hey, not only is she the doctor, but she's smart. But you have to have a feed trough of chicks too. Cheep. I gotta figure that out, because I actually found out that in the municipality of Hueytown, they do not allow two-legged furry friends. So they go beep. We will work around that, I'm sure. And this area is pretty quiet, so I feel once the inspection's done, as long as I'm paying my tax bill every month, literally nobody will show up. I'm pretty confident about that. So you never know what you might see in the store. Okay, sounds good. All right. So in, in celebration of opening the feed store, we decided to do a feed, podcast. I forgot what we do. I got sidetracked. We podcast, we have it on our website, Poultry Nerds podcast. You can actually go there and watch the video that we're recording right now, so you can see the PowerPoint presentations. A lot of times we make hand gestures to each other and talk about it in the podcast, and you wonder, "What are they doing? What's so funny?" Sometimes we're able to describe it, but not to a T. Now you can actually go to our website, watch it when it is- when it airs, and then, within a week we'll have the episode on our YouTube channel as well. So if YouTube is your thing, you can subscribe there, and every time it gets uploaded, you'll get a notification. Yep. And you are also going to make a downloadable that we are going to link in the show notes on the website so people can download what they need to look at their feed tags to see if it's a good quality feed, right? Yep. Put you on the spot. Nah, we can do that. Okay. All right. Let's see what you know. It's quiz time. Okay. Chicken chicks, what do they need? You got it right there on the screen. They need amino acids, probiotics, fat. A lot of people harp on protein. Protein is about number four, number five, probably number five in the level of importance on what all poultry needs. Lysine and methionine are two key amino acids that they need threonine is one that makes it all work together. And then you got vitamins A, D, and E. Those are very important not only for chick health, for your breeder birds, so when you hatch out the chicks, they're healthy, but it also is very important for the chicks to have high levels or appropriate levels of amino acids because that's like the building block of their entire skeletal and muscular everything systems. So those amino acids are key, and that's... that's why it's at the top of the list. And without fat, they're not gonna grow. That's energy, right? Yeah. They need that. So amino acids and protein levels are different things, or they're together? They're totally different. A lot of the reasons why a lot of people will say you need a higher protein is because typically feeds that are, have higher protein levels are gonna be your game bird feeds. And game bird feeds don't mean game fowl. That means quail turkeys. Because as chicks, they do need more protein, but they also need more of everything else than chickens. Not a lot, but they do need a little bit. Wait a minute. That's the next slide. See, the next slide was quail turkey chicks. Oh, okay. I was ahead of you. I knew it was there. I was... I don't know. That's okay. I need to get on the shot clock so I can hit the slides. Okay. But, quail and turkey chicks, their fat levels, if you really want to hit that peak genetic potential, you're gonna be a minimum of six and a half. Realistically, it's best if it's seven or eight. You really don't wanna go above nine because you're gonna wind up with Cornish Cross with toothpick legs, and that's not gonna be, that's not gonna be good because they won't live the six to eight weeks till maturity. They'll expire sooner. 'Cause it, again, it don't work the same way with turkeys as it does with chickens. So they need the same thing, but they need different levels of it. So what- Now on the protein side, anywhere between 24, 28, 29% 30's okay if you're not gonna use it for long, but 30 is kinda getting to the point of being too high if you're gonna do it the whole time. Cause I discovered this recently. There's people out there that feed their bird, 30% protein. This one guy told me that I was not right, that they need 30% protein all the time, so he fed that starter to his quail their entire lives And I asked him, I said how long you getting out of your birds?" He said they're like all quail. They usually expire nine, 10 months." I said, That, that's not all quail." They're like hitting their peak. No, you're, no you don't know. Okay. So what happens? Do they just get fat and then they can't reproduce and like- No, with a really high protein like that, they're, you're essentially taxing their internal organs, especially the kidneys, because it has to process it. So when you have chicks of any kind, whether it be quail, turkey, chicken, whatever, if the ammonia is so high that you can smell it, then you're feeding too much protein. Because their bodies are using it and expelling the rest. But when it gets to the point where you can smell ammonia, you're about 20 times the toxicity level for poultry. So if you can smell it, it's already too high. And them having to process all that with their kidneys shortens their life greatly. I know I didn't make a slide for it, so you're not missing it, but the button quail, we have discovered, you and I have worked together for a long time on the button quail, but they- Oh man, that was fun figuring that out they need high energy. Yep. So what did you do different to accommodate the buttons? So with the ShowPro line of Game Bird Starter, what we did was we've got the fat really high. It's well over 7%, almost to eight. And depending on where you are in the bag, it may be eight. But we've got that. We've got the protein about 28%, which is, in the middle of that recommended spot. But the vitamins, they're pretty high. Yeah. And the reason why we're incrementing up here is just their metabolism is so fast. Yeah. The... A lot of people don't realize that buttons have even higher metabolism than the coturnix. I don't remember the exact numbers 'cause I think we worked on that project a long time ago, and I don't remember yesterday. So- it's been a while, but, you know- they need it, and they need more because their bodies are so T-90, their metabolism's faster. Which you would think that if they were bigger, they would need a faster metabolism, but it's backwards- Yeah medically speaking. Makes sense. I've watched them. They never sit still, and the chickens, they'll just lay out in the sun for a while. Buttons don't do that. No, they wouldn't know what to do. All right, so this developer feed seems to be the most misunderstood feed that I think I come across. Why? What, starter versus developer? I think people think you just feed starter and you go to layer. There, there's no- a lot of people do that and live by that, but they're wasting a lot of money. Because starter is expensive, and when you look at the commercial world And I know we're not commercial people, but the commercial industry is the ones that spent double-digit millions, maybe more, on doing this research. When you look at it, typically you will divide a chicken's life, like what you're expecting for it to get mature, into four, and you'll feed the starter, the grower, the developer, and then a finisher. The commercial industry feeds a finishing ration to finish the bird out, and in the backyard, instead of a finisher, that would be when the hens or pullets that were hatched out at the same time start laying, when the little cockerels start, pumping their chest out and being like teenage boys on the playground. When that happens, that's when you need to switch them over. You don't feed a layer until they're laying. And now with a developer or a conditioner-type feed, there's a lot of people that when they hit maturity, they stop at that because the, yes, a rooster eat too much calcium, it can have a negative impact, but it's gonna take years for that to happen. It's a slow process, but when you pay for layer feed, you're paying for the extra calcium and other stuff too. So they'll get a good developer and conditioner feed. They'll feed that and then leave oyster shells free choice. And that works with chickens, game birds, about like quail, turkey. It works out really well with all of those. I have-- In my grow-out, I have mixed ages, so when it gets to that point, I'll feed the developer, and I have a half a gallon, cage cup that's got oyster shells in it. And in my big one where my turkeys are, I actually have a three-and-a-half-gallon bucket with, grit in it cause, when they get three, four months old, them suckers are like, really tall, so they can reach over and eat it straight out of the bucket. But the grit's really important too, because that's what helps break down what you're feeding them. If you're feeding them mash, the process has already started, so it's not as vital, but it's still important because in that mash there's still gonna be some whole grains that come through, and grains are expensive, so you want the bird to get all the benefit they can from it. But if you're feeding a pellet or a, something that's solid, like some of the game fowl mixes, they'll have whole soybeans in them, whole corn, whole peas, and if you're feeding all that to your birds and you're not giving them grit, then they're not getting the most out of it. They're not getting the nutrition that goes into the bag. So it's really important. And if you're, if you get one of the Show Pro lines of feed, except for the exhibition feed, like the starter, grower, developer, layer, breeder, those, they actually have 2% grit already in the bag, and, that's just an average of what they need that's been calculated out. So it's 20 pounds per ton. And sometimes in my layer house I'll have a bunch of rocks in the bottom of the trough, and sometimes I won't have any, and I don't empty it out. It, the, their trough is out of the weather. It don't matter if the rain is horizontal, it doesn't get in there, so I don't have a reason. They don't like roost on it because they have roosting places nearby, so I don't have to worry about them pooping in it, all right, so the developer feed, you have me f- feeding the starter till about eight weeks on the chickens. And then moving over to the developer, and th- mine are-- Now, these are my Orpingtons in the picture. I just want to s- tell everybody that last year I fed your Show Pro exclusively to the Orpingtons. They didn't get anything else. And this is the offspring from that next generation. Okay, so from the first generation, so this is the second generation. Yeah. And you've seen the Orpingtons that I chose out from last year, and the extra vitamins and minerals brought out They brought out, to me, what I noticed, and, I don't look at your birds as much as you do. I see them once, maybe twice a month. But what I noticed is, and you can see it in the picture their feathers are a lot more fluffier. They look more like fur and less like feathers. To me, that's because the feather's healthy because of the higher levels of methionine that they're getting. Gotcha. And they grow. You're already known for having ginormous Orpingtons, but, the ones in this picture are only how old? They're eight to nine weeks. And, they're already the size of a lot of people's normal chickens. Yeah, so that is, what, two by four wire they're standing next to, and that's- three foot, 12 inches tall right there. Yeah. It is working really well for yours. You I think this year You had a very hard time with the culling aspect. Because of all the improvements, because the ones that hatched out this year were bred from birds that had only ate the more nutritious food, and, they looked solid. And there was not many... I wouldn't have wanted to been in your place to really have to do that picking, because even when you had me look at them, I'm like- Well- Is any let's let them walk. Any of them walking funny? Any of them bob their head weird?" Trying to find something, and they're very consistent, these guys have had your feed since day one also, but they just came out of the hatcher ready to go. And they went out on grass at six weeks, which is early for me. I don't normally do that, but, the weather's been weird this year, so it was warm that week. But yeah, they've been out, and they're doing great. I've, I did have to separate them from the breasts. I do have some breasts. Of course, all of them are raised on your feed too, but the breasts are feed hogs. They're more like a Cornish when it comes to feed. They're, so I had to separate the Orpingtons so they had more feed space, 'cause they're so much more docile. They'll be like, "Okay, you wanna eat the food? It's okay." For me, I had a very similar issue. I put breasts in with Bourbon Reds, and I know people say, "Oh, don't mix turkeys and chickens. That's not good." Yeah. Mine get along just fine, but when they see me coming, when I open the gate with that trough, like I, I carry... They get a full five-gallon bucket in this pen. It's huge, and there's a lot of them in there, and when I hit the first trough, there's just white bolts going to it. Like they hadn't ate in a week. Yeah, they're a mess. And they ain't missed a meal. And then the turkeys, so I've got... I was at a antique shop. It's like one of those cool off the beaten path... actually, the name of this place is Off the Beaten Path, but I was at one of those, and I saw a heavy patina trough that I know was for chickens, but the thing's six feet long, and it just looked amazing. And when I went in, I was like, "Hey is this thing for sale out here?" Actually, yes. And the guy did not want a whole lot for it, so it came home. Huh. And it's been working for me for about four years pretty well. But, I feed in that, and then I have another one that's made out of a fi- I think a five-inch gutter section. It's five inches wide, but it's a full 10 feet long. I mounted it to a two-by-four and screwed it to a couple trees that's inside the pen. And the turkeys, they just hang out over there and br, come feed me." And I'll go and put the rest in there. But yeah. Okay, so my chickens s- stay on the starter till about eight weeks, then they go to developer, and they stay on that. I leave them till point of lay. So for the Orpingtons, that's almost a full year. Yeah. For the Breeds, that's about 16, 17 weeks. So I have some Breeds pullets right now. I got their first eggs just a couple days ago. Now, what I'm doing now is feeding them developer two out of three days, and then layer the third day. What do you think about that? You think I should be switching over? Anytime you're changing if you've got Obviously, all of your chickens aren't going to start laying on the same day. That would, it'd be really cool if it worked that way- It would and awful handy, but it's not happening. No. When you do that's good. Okay? Also, you're making a feed change. When you go from the developer to the layer, the texture's a little different, the things may be broke up a little different, although at that they're very similar, but they're different. And so anytime you make a feed change, if you do it cold turkey, you're gonna stress your birds out and you're not seeing... they will stop laying for a while, some longer than others, but it stresses them out or makes them mad, whatever you wanna call it. And so doing a slow transition period into that, like you, two, three days and then the layer and then, alternating that out, that's good because you're slowly introducing the different feed. And then by the time you get to where they're pretty comfortable with it, it's been a couple weeks and maybe by now all of them are laying, so it works out good. So when I should fully be over to layer is when they're laying period, or when they're laying full size eggs? No you need to do it when they start laying. Gotcha. Okay. Because every time cal- there's no way for them to get calcium back aside from eating, and the biggest difference in a layer feed is it's gonna have a calcium level anywhere from three and a quarter to three and a half, whereas with a developer you're gonna be one and a quarter, one and a half. Obviously that's two points different, and they need that calcium going back in their body constantly while they're laying. Now, if you've got some that come the winter months, if you're not a person that lights your birds or anything like that, and they just go all natural once they go on strike, don't spend the extra money for the layer. Go back to the developer. And if you get a egg every once in a while, that's fine. But when they start getting consistent again, go back to the layer feed. And, again, it's okay for the roosters. The... I've seen research that references anywhere from five to eight years is what it would take to make a difference. Some people argue that, and that's cool. You can argue all you want to. I usually go by my personal experience or science. I like to have some legit research with somebody that's got some acronyms or whatever at the end of their name those tend to be more legit. I don't know what you recommend. I think we've talked about it before, but I don't remember what you said, But the birds, the older birds- mine don't stay on layer year round. Mine only stay on layer when they're laying, and then I put them back on some kind of a developer or an off flock. And you should. In the wintertime. If they're not... you don't light most of your birds in the wintertime. I think, I know you do your quail, and if you got some kind of mad scientist project that you're working on, you got a couple coops that you can light. Yeah. We all got our projects. But, when they stop laying, then yeah save the money and go back to the developer, because, layer feed has more stuff, more vitamins and more amino acids and more calcium, more minerals, so it costs more. So definitely go back to the other. So I, my, my older laying flock in the back, I just put them back on, Kalmbach All Flock, which we have a feed tag here in just a minute, so we'll talk about that. Okay, so let's motor on here. All right, supplements. Why would you put a supplement in your feed? The biggest reason is because you will not find a commercial feed that's widely available everywhere that meets the nutritional values that birds need Like the numbers just aren't there. So this supplements and brings it up to where it should be? Yes. So when this product was developed, we looked at feed tags from basically the Nutrenas, the Tuckers, the Komboks, and calculated all that out to get an average. And then once we had that number, we worked out the math to figure out what was needed at a small amount to get the numbers up to where it should be. Cause, like with the one you have in the picture here, a teaspoon a day per bird is all it takes. And, you can calculate that out to roughly a heaping tablespoon per pound of feed, or a cup per half a five gallon bucket. Should be about 12 and a half pounds and should feed 50 birds. So it's easily calculatable, and that's what it takes to get the average feed up to the levels. Now, if you use one of the better feeds out there and add this to it, it's not gonna overdo it, so you're not harming your birds. What happens there is, everybody knows that the average chicken eats four ounces a day. When you're feeding a higher quality feed- You're meeting that nutritional value, you'll start noticing that there's feed left. If you're a person that feeds every day and you're, feeding them four ounces, whether you dump it all out in a trough and they all hit it at the same time or what, if there's, a good bit of feed left over, or if your birds start getting essentially fat, then cut back. My birds I have birds that some of them just don't play well with others, but they're pretty and I like them, so I feed them, and I take them out and I pet them and look at them and talk to them and enjoy them. Chicken people are no different than cat people. So people could email you and say, "Hey, I'm feeding this bag and this bag to this kind of bird," because that's important. Yeah. What supplement should I add to it?" So- And you can calculate it? Yeah so I have an Excel sheet. Again, Excel I like. But it's set up to where I can put up to five different feeds in it, 'cause people mix their stuff differently. Some of them will do just a straight feed. So I can put all that in there based on how you make it, and put the supplement in with it, too, and work the numbers. Because some people, I went back and said, "Hey, look, don't do a heaping tablespoon if you're gonna keep feeding this amount," because they like... they're feeding grow-outs or whatever, so it's free choice. Cut back a little bit, and I'll tell them what to cut back, too, based on what they're using. And, sadly, sometimes people like their mix of pellets and scratch and that kind of stuff, and when you start doing that, it really trashes the nutritional value, so they may need a little extra. Yep. Okay, changing gears for just a second here. Okay. So we have talked about Save A Chick, I think, on a previous podcast, not too- Oh, yeah long ago, actually. But we did not have the guaranteed analysis when we talked about it before, and I remember saying it was basically salt and sugar. So I have added the guaranteed analysis here, and sure enough, it is salt, and sugar. Yeah. That's what it is. And that's why it looks like that, and that's not good for a bird. So there's some people that'll put it in their water every day, and that's like you think about your grandparents and they stop drinking sodas because they're, they have to take these water pills to have them running. That's 'cause they're drinking too much salt and their body's not processing it. So you can do the same thing to a chicken, and when they get that point, I've had people with chickens that I'd go feel them and, I hear a little rattle and I start thinking, "Okay, what kind of disease does this thing got?" And I need to take a shower and burn my clothes before I go see my chickens. But then I'll turn the bird over and, let it hang hor- vertically with his head down, and a lot of water will come out of it. And I ask them, I'm like, what are you putting in the water for your birds?" I give them electrolytes every day." Yeah, that, the water- I like your hillbilly accent. the water that just came out shows that that's, that they're not sick. They're... they are sick, but it's not like some kind of disease. They're retaining too much water, and you need to stop giving them electrolytes 'cause most of the time just straight up clean water is good. That's all they need. If you can especially get the pH around five and a half to six, when you do that, that also makes it to where their bodies can absorb more of the nutrients in their feed, and you can make your feed more economical, stretch it and, 'cause they're not eating as much and, they're able to use more of what they are eating. Like for me, example, the water that my birds eat comes from a reservoir. I have a garden hose going into it and yes, it is one for drinking water. But coming off of my hose, I go into a filter, then out of the filter into a fertiliz- inline f- liquid fertilizer thing, and that's a two-gallon tank that I fill up with apple cider vinegar And then on the other side of that, I calibrate it to where when it flows, it's putting enough of the apple cider vinegar into the water to keep the pH as it flows between five and a half and six, which sounds really aggravating and a pain in the butt, but it's really not that hard to do. And so once I have that, it goes to a reservoir, and then in the reservoir it sits. And I've got some copper pipe in there to, make sure no funky stuff grows. But the thing I like about it sitting in the tank is it off-gases the chlorine, because I am on city water, and obviously they use bleach to purify the water. So I like to let that off-gas so my birds aren't drinking, 'cause I don't drink the crap that comes out of the tap at my house. I've looked at their water reports and it ain't good. So I do that, and it sits in there, and then I have a pump that pumps it through a complete system that's got their bale waters, water cups, troughs, whatever on it. And you know when one of the valves opens it fills up and it comes off of that circulating loop, and it works. Because it's circulating all the time, the lines don't freeze up, which is cool in the wintertime. I- it's good in the wintertime, not cool. Because I also have an aquarium heater in the reservoir to keep the water to 60 degrees when it goes down below that. And when it's really cold outside, I have seen in a couple different pens, a bird with his foot in the water. I'm like, "What the crap?" And these are little pecker cups that have the little yellow thing in them that they have to peck to get the water to come out, because I don't want the bowl to freeze. But he's letting the water run through there, and then when it gets warm, because, it's gotta come through the tube that's not circulating, then he drinks It's smart And I'm like, people talk about, I've talked about the dumb stuff that chickens do, but that's one of the smartest things I've ever seen one do. So it's crazy, but it's a real- it's been a really good system, and I'm able to have less birds and do more with them by controlling the quality like that. Do you ha- you have a video on your water system, don't you? Yeah, but it's not a great one. I need to do another one. Yeah. We'll link that in the website, too. We'll make you do one. Okay. All right. So on the right side of this picture, we, I put it in here and put you on the spot, but this is your new- You're really doing great at that today. Yeah, I know. So this is your new product that's debuting here soon. Yeah. When we first started the recording, you were laughing and giggling a lot. And I'm like, "Man, what is she up to?" Now I know. Yeah, so- Tell us about First Peck. First Peck. So what that is a mix of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that you can either suspend in their water or put over their feed. I am a big put-it-on-your-feed person, because chickens of all ages will mess up their water. I don't know why, but they will... sometimes I wonder if they back up to it and poop just to see how quick you'll clean it. So I don't like that, because, if you spend money on something and you mix it in their water, if you've got birds that have, 32-ounce or half-gallon water cups, and you're cleaning that out every day and swapping it out, so it doesn't get green, they're not drinking all of what you gave them. So you're wasting money. But you know how much feed they consume, and you can tell when it's gone, so it works I, I like that 'cause then I know if they're eating it all or not. So to me that's my preferred. Why do you want to put, why do you want to put this first back on the new hatched chicks' food? Again, because nothing you get from the store is gonna have everything they need at the levels that they need it at. Can you feed them just this or do you have to put it in with food? Maybe like for the first 20 or 30 minutes. If you got birds that were shipped to you, like you ordered some chicks from one of the hatcheries, we've got a hatchery that's one of our sponsors of the show, and they're a really good facility. But if you get birds from them, the postal service is the only place that ships those except for private couriers, and they're not overly prompt. And so to avoid waste inside the box, they might get some grow gel in there, but they're not getting any feed. You- it's against the law to put food or water inside there. So they're not getting it. They're, they come straight out of the hatcher. They go in a box with a heat pad, maybe some grow gel, and then they ship for days. So when you get them, it's extremely important to get as much nutrition in them as quickly as possible. You wanna pour out a little line of this stuff. I'm gonna package it in little like one pound packets. If you wanna put a tablespoon for every few birds that you have so they can eat that first and really get a jolt of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids and then, feed them some feed, that'd be great. Also- Is there probiotics in it? There is probiotics in it. Basically what I did was made a shelf-stable version of the breeder supplement. So there's no fish meal in there. There's no kelp. You still get the same results, but we used different stuff to do it because, if you don't put fish meal or kelp in a freezer, it's not gonna last more than a few months depending on where you have it. If you're one of those people that keep it out in the barn If it's in the summertime, it'll start to degrade after a few months. Is this gonna be available on the website for shipping? This will be available on the website for shipping, I would say within two weeks. I need to get a label design finalized and approved with the people in black suits, and then get it produced so I can put it on the bag, 'cause for this product I want it to have a pretty color picture like, like what's on the breeder supplement bag. So by the time this airs. Hopefully, yeah. Okay. So we're running long today, so let's just run through really quickly, because you are now the newest ComBot dealer, right? There may be others- We need to do this that have gotten approved within the last couple of days, but- they're... I had to pick a company to partner with because people in this area don't know who ShowPro feeds. They don't know that. And so also I make poultry feed, and that's where my study is, and so I had to find somebody that wasn't oversaturated in the area, somebody that put out a product quality enough that I would consider selling it And somebody that could get me the stuff religiously without stupid requirements. And Kombok we talked about their Flop Maker for a long time, 'cause that's one of their best formulas. It's got most-- Like, it's got a l- all the stuff that they need at levels more so than anything else that you can get commercially. You can even get the Flop Maker off Chewy. That's when I decided hey, their feed is good, so that's who I decided to partner with. I've been using Kombok I think before Kombok was a thing. That was part of that original feed study that I did, and I'm the one that screamed around here trying to get it brought in here. But I use both of these feeds. The 17% layer, you can buy it on Chewy, but of course I spend, I buy too much of it for that. And the Flop Maker is what I feed the ducks and year-round, and the turkeys and the layers in the wintertime. So I'm very familiar with both of these, and I like both of them. I would also like to say that Kombok is family-owned, family-controlled still to this day. Did you know that? That the other two big companies, like Purina and the other ones, are all owned by big conglomerates- Yeah that do a lot of stuff. So I would just, I like to support the smaller, more local- I mean- and Kombok is still that Kombok's not really a small company. No. But they are still family-run, and they have a lot of those values. I accidentally sent my rep a message on a Saturday. I just sent him an email. I was like, "Hey, Monday, when you get this, give me a call because I've got some questions." Because I was, looking at the sheet that I got, and I wanted to know more information. And the guy emails me back in less than 30 minutes, and he says, "I can talk today if that works for you." I've got other companies that I've sent emails to inquiring about their products to have them in my store, and I haven't gotten a response from them yet. So- Yep that to me is customer service. And- They are having some growing pains because they are growing so fast. Yeah. But all in all, it's well worth it, the effort to get a hold of them. How do you look at the dates on a bag? Because Combat uses a Julian system, correct? Yeah, it's a Julian date. And so on theirs, there's a bunch of numbers on, printed on one of the strips. It's the strip at the bottom of the bag. And you're looking for a group of numbers that the size of the font is in the middle of the small point and the big ones. And I know that sounds weird, but when you look at it you'll be like, "Okay, I see now." Because it's the only one like that has five characters, and that is the Julian date. The first three are the day of the year, and the last two are the year. So that will let you know exactly what day that thing went through their computer-controlled bagger and printed that out on the thing as it sewed it onto it. So when you say five days, so there's 365 days in a year, so we're on probably what, day 150 or something right now? Hang on, let me find out. Let me look. So it'd be like 150 and then 26? So if you look at it- Man, I really wasn't prepared for that one. I'm just guessing just so we can understand how it works- So- 'cause I had to Google it when I learned to let the cat out of the bag, we record most of the time on Mondays. So today is Monday, May 25th, 2026. That is Julian day 145. I was so close. Yeah. So you will see with Kombach, it's very obvious because you're hoping to see the 26 and if you see a bag that says 14526, then you'll know that bag was produced today. And don't be scared to look at them and say, "You know what? I'm not buying this because it's six months old." Walk away from it. Yeah. I actually bought a bunch of feed from somebody, and when I got it back here, I was looking at it and I actually had some that was from '23. Oh my gosh. Yeah, don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. So see, it even gets us. All right, let's hit these really quick. So we've got... I don't even know what that conditioner is, and then I always call this other one the pretty food. Yeah. So the Southeast Game Cock Conditioner, that's one that they do put out for the game fowl folks that has whole peas, whole corn, whole soybean. It's got a grain mix and it's got a pellet in it that has nutrition. If you look at the numbers, they're very close to what the birds should have. Now, you can't- Every business runs on a profit model. So if they make this stuff the way it should be made, it's gonna cost 28, 30, $32 a bag, and it doesn't. It's more like 20, $22 a bag, give or take. And so it's reasonably priced, but it's very close to what they need. Who makes it? Combat does. Oh, okay. They have a elite game fowl conditioner that's in a pretty bag that's got all kinds of colors on it, and it's got a rooster. Oddly, the nutrition is lower than what it is in the Southeast Game Cock Conditioner that comes in a plain white bag with the Combat logo and the sticker on it. Marketing. It is. And I always call it the pretty feed because when you... It's got the little picture window in the front, and you can see all the colors and the seeds and stuff. It gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling. I know. And then your birds pick out what they want, and they throw the rest of it out for the mice. Yeah. So you're feeding the mice. Okay. And- But if they ate it all, it's a good food, right? Yeah. Okay. All right, so that's it. We're done.

Cedric 47:31

Thank you all for tuning in about feed today! Congratulations to Carey and the Show Pro Feed Line for the big leap into a storefront! Check out ShowProFarmSupply.com and see how he is growing and support local. Please hit subscribe and leave us a review if you enjoyed the show. Check out the website to learn more about today's topic and grab your downlodable on feed requirements from Carey.