CluckerBooks.com w/Jeff Duguay
The companion books to the Standard of Perfection. Huge helps to understanding your birds, written by breeders and judges.
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Tony: 0:00
Welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast, where feathers meet fun. Your podcast hosts are Carey Blackmon and Jennifer Bryant. Together, they work hard to bring you the latest news and information from the world of poultry. So get ready for eggciting interviews, foul facts, and more. Now here's Carey and Jennifer.
0:17
Mhm.
Jennifer Bryant: 0:25
All right. Welcome to Poultry Nerds. We're here with Jeff Duguay.
Jeff Dugay: 0:30
Duguay.
Jennifer Bryant: 0:31
Duguay. And he is from Clucker Books. So Jeff, tell us about yourself.
Jeff Dugay: 0:38
All right. Let's see. I grew up in Maine, but I currently live in Louisiana. I've had chickens pretty much since I was a kid, I guess. Had them since I was real little, then I used to show when I was just a kid. I really didn't know what I was doing, though. I'd get hatchery birds, show them, and never win a show or anything. Then when I went to college, I got rid of all my birds. Then after graduate school, got a job, got back into chickens again. I've had them for geez, I don't know, 20 plus years, 25 years since college. So that dates me a little.
Jennifer Bryant: 1:16
I'm sitting here doing the math when I graduated from college, so I'm older than you apparently.
Jeff Dugay: 1:21
I worked in a warehouse for five years after high school. So I don't like school when I was in high school, but then I went to college, got three degrees, so college was a lot better, especially after working in a warehouse for a while.
Jennifer Bryant: 1:35
So tell our listeners, what kind of chickens do you raise now?
Jeff Dugay: 1:38
All right, I raise a modern game bantams. I've had those for, I don't know, over 20 years. And I just last year got a few naked necks. Sam Brush had sent me some eggs for some red naked neck bantams, and I ended up keeping a trio out of those, so I've got about 20 naked necks running around. But moderns are my main thing.
Jennifer Bryant: 2:02
I think moderns look like Barbie dolls. I don't want to tell you what I think naked looks look like.
Jeff Dugay: 2:08
Yeah, they're weird. Actually, they're both weird in different ways.
Jennifer Bryant: 2:13
So where, just before we get into what you're doing now, tell me, how did the modern games come about? How did they get such long legs?
Jeff Dugay: 2:21
They were actually first bred. Over in Britain when cockfighting was outlawed. And so they wanted to come up with something else. And basically they developed the moderns for a show bird. And for whatever reason, they decided they wanted a long legged bird. So they were raised specifically for showing.
Jennifer Bryant: 2:42
Gotcha. For our listeners, you don't know what a modern game is. You need to Google it and look it up. But when I first saw them, my first reaction was like a Barbie doll in Vegas with the big feathers on, and the high heels and the legs and stuff, but that's what they've reminded me of.
Jeff Dugay: 2:59
Yeah, actually, the cover on my modern book looks like that. I know people can't see it, but you guys can.
Jennifer Bryant: 3:06
Yep, there's Barbie doll.
Jeff Dugay: 3:07
Yeah, they got those long legs. People call them skinny jeans birds. Yeah, so long legs and noted for,
Carey Blackmon: 3:14
yeah, they're real
Jeff Dugay: 3:17
friendly too, which is what I like great dispositions on them. They're you handle them. They're about the friendliest bird. There is.
Jennifer Bryant: 3:25
Oh, really?
Jeff Dugay: 3:26
Yeah,
Jennifer Bryant: 3:29
Were they the inspiration for your current project?
Jeff Dugay: 3:32
Yeah actually the first book I wrote was on modern game Banthams. And the way that started was I had really improved my line of moderns quite a bit. When I first started, the birds I was producing were pretty sad looking. I had the standard, so I knew what they should look like. Plus, I'd look at other people's birds at shows. So what I did was I started writing it just so I would remember what I did in my breeding program. So if I needed to repeat it, I could. And then after I'd been working on it a while, I told my wife, I said, Hey, this would make a pretty good book. So I started adding a lot of other stuff. So I had my breeding stuff in there, but then I basically started putting everything in there. Somebody new to moderns would need to know. Like, how do you house them? What's good ways to get them into good feather condition? Keep them there. How do you train them to pose? I even put a section in on parasites and diseases on it. So basically everything I knew about moderns from what I had learned in 20 or so years, I put in there and it came out. I was really impressed with it. It came out good. 1st, I wasn't sure. But then funny thing is, after that, I told my wife, I said, disappointed now. So I've wrote, written about moderns, and I don't know enough about any other chicken to write about
Carey Blackmon: 4:48
them.
Jeff Dugay: 4:49
And then I was talking to my friend, Peyton Igoe, he raises Old English, and he's also a licensed poultry judge. And he was saying he'd like to write a book on Old English, but he's not a writer. So I said let's collaborate. You got the knowledge and I can write. So we did that. And so that's how I started writing breed books about other breeds of chickens. So I wrote that one. And then after that, I contacted Marty McGuire, who's also a poultry judge, and he's raised silkies for decades. I contacted him and then Tony Davis, who has been raising and showing them for a while, and he's done really well in the shows to see if those guys wanted to collaborate on a book. So basically what I started doing was I'm getting with people that are breed experts, read experts, and then what I've done is basically get them to serve as like consultants to me. So I'll write down stuff, have them read it over. They tell me how it should be fixed or whatever. They also give suggestions on what to include. So that's how it came about. And right now I'm up to eight different books that I've published. They're all breed specific except for one that I call Bantam's a Decade of Winners. And with my job I have a job to support my chicken hobby. And I'm the director of our research and species management at Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries. So I do a lot of statistics there. So I like doing that sort of stuff. So I was looking at the American Bantam Association website, and they had all the starred wins on there. So what I did was I looked at a decade of starred wins to see what birds within each class are winning, and I did some analysis on that, and I wrote a book about that, too. So I have seven books on that are breed specific. Some of them can't contain more than one breed. And then I have that decade of winners. And the old English book has also been translated into Spanish. My daughter in law, Jennifer Dugay, I'll give her a plug. So if she's listening, I get some brownie points with the grandkids, but my daughter in law, she translated it for me. And that's been pretty popular. I send several of those to Mexico.
Carey Blackmon: 7:01
You recently published a book about the Crested breeds. Yes.
Jeff Dugay: 7:06
Yeah. Yeah. I had talked to Keith Wagner cause he's been raised in Polish and also Sultans, and I was talking to Matt Lamon, who had written the coaching book with, he was one of the authors on that, and he suggested Joshua Trulio, because Joshua's been raising crested breeds for a long time, and he's real well known for his hoodans. So what I did in that book was I actually included four breeds. I have the Krevkor, the Houdan, the Polish, and the Sultan. I put those four breeds together in one book. I figured there's no way I could sell enough books on each one of those individually, except probably the Polish. It costs a lot to self publish, so I figured I'll put them together. Otherwise, the chances of me writing a book on those breeds is unlikely. So that way people that raise those, they can see the different things I put in these books as well. Yeah. And really the the idea with these books is they're like a companion to the standard of perfection. Actually, in every one of my books too, I encourage people to buy the standards. This is a replacement for it, like a companion. What I'll do is I'll go over the different traits and the standard that these exhibition birds should have. Now, I have lots of pictures. I'm a visual learner. A lot of people are so I have pictures. I'll describe what the trade is. And then I'll have pictures showing this is what you want. Here are examples of what you don't want, why you don't want it. So these books are really good for those that are new to showing, so if they've never shown poultry, and then also if you're new to a specific breed. They also include information on there that's really for the newbie. On how do you get into showing what do you need to do? How do you, what did the coup cards mean? How do you read those? What does BB, best of breed mean? Best reserve of breed and so on.
Jennifer Bryant: 8:59
So they don't have the standard written in them because that's copyrighted by the APA. So you're more of a companion understanding the standard what the judges are looking for.
Jeff Dugay: 9:11
Yeah, that's it exactly. And then In APA and ABA, they're obviously, good with this. So I sell these books on my website, but. APA and APA also sell them on their website too. So I give them a discount and they sell them. So that's a good thing. So that way we reach more people too.
Carey Blackmon: 9:28
No, I have looked at some of the standards of perfection as written and published in APA. Their book and having a guide to go along with it to translate it into layman's terms is definitely a plus.
Jeff Dugay: 9:43
Yeah, I know. Especially when I was first showing moderns, I'd read things in the standard and I'd be like, I have no idea what that means. So it's a pictorial guide to what they're describing.
Jennifer Bryant: 9:56
So what are the breeds? You've got the old English game. You've got the moderns.
Jeff Dugay: 10:00
You've got
Jennifer Bryant: 10:05
one book of a whole bunch of Bantums. You've got Cochins,
Jeff Dugay: 10:08
right?
Jennifer Bryant: 10:09
What's the other three?
Jeff Dugay: 10:10
I have breeding and showing the Belgian Duclay or Diekel or Duckel, however you pronounce it. The ones that pronounce it Duclay, I call them the hardcore breeders. And I also have the the Seabrights in Belgian D'Anvers. They're in the same book. So that's another one that has to, they're both rose comb cleanly. And that was another with Dan verse. There's not enough exhibitors really, so if I've just wrote a Dan for a book, I couldn't sell enough to pay for the cost of publishing. So I think that's all the, let me see here. So the modern, the old English silky, the Duke clay, the coaching, the Seabright Danvers, and then the crested breed. So that's got the four breeds. Trev core food and Polish and Sultan. And then my decade of winners and currently I've started a new project and this one I'm working with Howard Davenport on and this is but the title I think will be parasites, diseases and disorders of poultry recognizing and treating. So it's going to be another kind of pictorial book where we're going to cover, all the diseases basically that we can. And we describe this. These are the symptoms and this is how you treat it if they can be treated and then have pictures showing what it is, for example, fowl pox. Fox doesn't manifest itself the same on every chicken, some of them get, really bad scabs. There's just a little bit. Some will have them on the legs. So we got a lot of pictures showing different examples of things and then I've been looking at a lot of the Facebook sites and there's several. Poultry veterinary Facebook pages, and there's a lot of people that have poultry, whether it's chickens, turkeys or whatever, that have never had them before. And, they don't really know anything about them, and I've seen posts like people posting saying, Hey, my chicken has this growth on its neck. It's never had it before, and they show a picture and it's the crop. So I'm covering things. That are really basic, that people in the poultry world probably already know, but those new don't with the example of the crop, what I'm doing is I'm telling what the crop is, what its function is, and then showing pictures. So I'm showing a bird with an empty crop, a full crop also the preen gland showing what that is. Describing a function, those sorts of things.
Jennifer Bryant: 12:34
So that's your current project. What else you got in the works? You got turkeys going too?
Jeff Dugay: 12:39
Not yet. But I do want to include a picture of the beard. I've seen people posting a beard, in the disease pages saying, what is this thing growing off of my turkey? So I want to say, this is a turkey beard. It's modified feathers. Here are pictures of it. But after this, I've already talked to Brian Carriker and Stephen Beatty. We're going to write a book on leg horns, but we might make it the Italian breeds, which are the Ancona Buttercup and Lakehorn and that'll be like my other books. I have pictures describing what's in the standard, those sorts of things. And then I may do Sebastopol geese after that. The, their club had contacted me. See if I'd be interested in writing a book on that. I've had a few people contact me had somebody contact me, a judge about writing one on Japanese. That'll be something that I'll do hopefully soon. At my current rate, I've been publishing about two books a year. So I probably won't live long enough to do every breed of chicken unless like I could retire from work and do it full time. Or unless I start writing really fast. I figure two books a year is pretty good.
Jennifer Bryant: 13:49
Yeah, we don't know everything about every breed. We try to zone in on what we're doing and not clutter our brains too much.
Jeff Dugay: 13:57
Exactly.
Jennifer Bryant: 13:58
Yeah. So tell everybody where they can buy their books if they need one.
Jeff Dugay: 14:04
Yeah, so they can get them off the APA or ABA websites or they can buy them off of my website. My website is cluckerbooks. com. C L U C K E R, like a clucking chicken, so I came up with that, and then books. com. And also on my webpage, I have some pages, so people can see what's in these books. I have table of contents and I also have in the works that describes the upcoming project that I'm working on. And I also have a calendar to a 2025 poultry calendar, and I put all the chicken show dates on it that I could so that way, people can look at it and see when the upcoming shows are, and I got pictures of birds on every page, so that's a wall calendar.
Jennifer Bryant: 14:48
I did see that. I didn't click on it. I was looking on your web page last night. But the list of shows that would be nifty.
Jeff Dugay: 14:55
Yeah. I put that on there and also just some interesting information, things like, monitor your birds for coccidiosis. It's a big killer of chicks. Things like that. Just tidbits here and there. So I just do this for fun. I like writing about chickens. I like taking pictures of chickens. So if you've seen me at a show, I'm probably taking a lot of pictures at the Fort Payne show. I don't know if you were at the one where I brought my setup. I had my whole camera set up there with the backdrops and everything. And I was taking pictures of people's birds for them. And I told them, I'll do this for free. And I didn't charge them for the pictures. But I just told him I may use your pictures in future books. So that's a good way for me to get some pictures. That's how I get a lot of pictures just at the shows. I'll take pictures of birds in cages or whatever.
Jennifer Bryant: 15:42
That's why we secretly do this podcast because we just want to talk birds all day long.
Jeff Dugay: 15:47
That's good. My favorite thing to talk about. Ask my wife. When I'm not at work, I'm either with my chickens or writing about chickens.
Carey Blackmon: 15:55
He had asked me the other day, he followed back, followed me back into the chicken yard. He goes, Hey pops, Why do you like chickens so much? And I said let me ask your question with a question or answer your question with a question. When I'm back here messing with my chickens, how often does anybody come back here? I don't never this first time I've ever been back here and he's lived with us for several years. I said, okay. Do you hear the noises that they make? And he said, yeah, I said, do you ever just sit there and think about them and try to figure out the rhythm or, what they're trying to come up with or all that he said, sometimes late at night, like, when I hear him, it's there'll be in one pin talking to one in the other pin. And I wondered what they're talking about. I said, yeah, it's relaxing.
Jeff Dugay: 16:45
That's right. It is relaxing. Sit down.
Jennifer Bryant: 16:50
Yep. I woke up in the middle of the night last night or early this morning. I'm not sure which and couldn't go back to sleep. So I laid there and I was like I need to sort this chicken over to this page. And lo and behold, I fell asleep again. Is there anything else you would like to tell any newbies?
Jeff Dugay: 17:07
Yeah, if they're folks are interested in getting into showing, one of the best things to do is just start going to some shows, see what kinds of chickens you like. If you want to get a breed of chicken that you really like, because it is work, taking care of them as so get something you like and then, talk to the exhibitors and breeders there. When you find somebody that has a breed of chicken that you like, try to get those, from somebody that shows and does. At least decent at the shows. That way you can start with some good stock. So that makes a big difference. If you go three or four years and you don't make any progress, it's discouraging. So get good birds right off the bat if you can.
Carey Blackmon: 17:46
Yeah. Starting with good foundation stock is definitely very important.
Jeff Dugay: 17:51
Yes,
Jennifer Bryant: 17:53
yeah, and if you do go to a show for the first time week I always try to tell people this but it's hard to interject it anywhere The people sitting in the chairs on the walls are the exhibitors Walking around or more than likely just people looking at chickens Yep, so talk to the people in the chairs.
Jeff Dugay: 18:13
Yes, definitely
Jennifer Bryant: 18:15
Yeah. All right, Jeff. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming.
Jeff Dugay: 18:20
Yeah, I've enjoyed it. It's always fun to talk chickens.
Jennifer Bryant: 18:23
Yes. All right. We'll have a good day.
Jeff Dugay: 18:26
All right. You too. Thanks a lot.
Carey: 18:28
Thank you for joining us this week. Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they are released. And they're released every week. Feel free to email us at poultrynerds at gmail. com to share your thoughts about the show. Until next time, poultry pals, keep clucking, keep learning, and keep it egg citing. This is Carey signing off from Poultry Nerds. Feathers up, everyone.
