Feed Quality and Pecking Order with Jeff Mattocks
Jeff is the authority on nutrition, join us as we discuss feed and pecking order
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Carey: 0:00
Hi, and welcome to the Poultry Nerds Podcast. I'm Carey Blackmon, and I'm here with my co host for the show, Jennifer Bryant. And we're here to help you figure out how to raise the healthiest, happiest and highest quality birds possible.
Monica: 0:16
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0:37
Mhm.
Carey: 0:45
And based on the calculator that you put in the groups this past week, You'd be spending three cents less per chicken when you're feeding them and saving yourself a lot
Jeff Mattocks: 0:57
of time. And what we're not even calculating into this is the length of time for grow up. So by feeding a really nutrient dense, high quality feed with no fillers, no BS, no nothing in it, right? Just really good, wholesome feed, right? You're going to shave off almost 20 percent of your grow out time. Yes. If you count your labor for anything, then you have to count that too.
Carey: 1:29
Daily chores. Daily chores. With mine, I was getting ready to go out of town, and managing a hundred baby chicks in a brooder is rough, especially for somebody that's babysitting a farm that's never lived on a farm. Before I went out of town, I put these hundred chicks out on the ground. 30 degrees the night before I got in my truck and left. I didn't lose a single chick. We shouldn't. Now, granted, at three weeks, some of them weighed 630 grams because of the feed that they were getting. It wasn't 15 a bag broiler feed. No. You add it up and it's probably 35, 36 a bag. Yep. And you were complaining about it just like everybody else until you saw the difference. I am a numbers person and I am a results person. And, yeah, you can take a$15,$20 a bag feed and add a whole lot of crap to it and spend hours doing it. Or you can save yourself time, money, and effort by getting the$35 bag. I've discovered that the hard way. Back to breeding. In your book, half a square foot per chick. Quarter. Quarter,
Jeff Mattocks: 2:56
quarter square foot. For the first week, you want one quarter of a square foot per chick per. One quarter square foot per chick per. Each week that you have that chick in a brooder, you will increase by one, you start with a quarter, you increase by a quarter. So if they're in there for four weeks, they need one square foot thing. You do that with a hundred, it gets a lot of space quick. But if you don't, your bedding is going to get away from you. I don't care what bedding you're using and your air quality is going to get away from you. You're going to end up with a stinking mess. You're going to end up with sick chicks, right? Just something that I've observed is if I give them one quarter square foot and I keep gradually increasing that each week. So it's important to neck them down to that quarter square foot because I gotta have them find feed and water in that first 24 to 48 hours. They learn in their brain there's a receptor that sets their eating habit. As to whether they're going to grow or they're going to be a run, right? So if they do not find feed in that first, really it's the first 24 hours you're stretching it to go up 48 hours. They, so really when you put them in the brooder and you put them in there tight, I don't want them to go more than six inches without either running into food or water.
Carey: 4:22
Okay.
Jeff Mattocks: 4:23
So laying down, the brown, the unsurfaced brown, paper, the rough like crap paper or what I refer to as open face cardboard where it doesn't have the flat facing on it, it only has the corrugation. You lay that down and put feed on that. Put your feeders there, but you also spill feed around it. Okay, so you're getting them close to it, but they can't help but, find feed. So they learn what it looks like, they learn what it smells like. Yeah, a lot of people don't spend enough time in their brooder. Which is really amazing to me, right? Because who doesn't like looking at baby chicks? If you don't like looking at baby chicks, why are you raising, why are you raising chickens? Okay. So yeah, going in there every hour or two. And if you run your finger through the feed and you run your finger through the water, they're curious, right? They're going to run over and look and it doesn't matter whether this is ducks, chickens, turkeys. I don't care what it is. Just simply going in there, right? And doing something. And doing something. with what you want
Carey: 5:26
them to find. It's just like a potato chip bag and a dog. It builds their curiosity and they want it. The quicker they find the feed, the quicker they eat it, the quicker they grow, the quicker they're ready to be put out on pasture or whatever you're putting them out on. And as they grow and everything, you get to Feederspace. Other than the first two weeks when it needs to be everywhere, what, how much feeder space do you recommend for, say, a four or eight week old chicken all the way up to an
Jeff Mattocks: 6:00
adult bird? I like to start out with one inch of feeder space per chicken. So even like day one, so let's say after day three, you remove all the feed off the ground, which is fine, right? Usually we go three or four days, feed feed everywhere. You're gradually removing that as it gets, manured on or messed up or whatever. So really I want a chick to have one inch of feeder space per chick. Okay. Every chick should be able to eat at exactly the same time. Because if you go in there and you flip your huck bucket over and you sit there for a little while, you don't watch, right? So they have major feeding times when they all feel like they need to eat. And we want them to be able to do that. And people say they'll take turns. Or shit on that. That doesn't really that, I don't like to go down that road. So you remember when you were a kid and you went to Christmas dinner, you had to sit over on a card table or something else, or, you're sitting around. You don't get to sit at the big table with the big people.
Carey: 7:00
Yeah. Nobody likes that.
Jeff Mattocks: 7:01
Okay. So they don't like it. They don't like it that way either. Yeah, everybody gets room at the table. Think of it that way. So then you increase by a quarter of an inch of feeder space each week that you own the bird. So by the time they're eight weeks old, you should have three inches of feeder space. So at eight weeks, three inches. Because you started at one, right? And then if you go eight times one quarter, that's two. So now you have a total of three by the time you hit eight weeks. What about an adult? Still, I'm working at three to four inches. So once they hit that three to four inches at eight weeks, that's a good place to stay.
Carey: 7:44
Yeah,
Jeff Mattocks: 7:44
You know that I'm looking at Cornish cross numbers. When I come up with that three inches. So most of our heritage breeds unless you got new hamps or something really huge, right? Now, you know if you've got really if you're doing a really large fowl Then think about five or six inches, right? Yeah. Like a, like an orping 10 or something like that. Yeah. So you need to go out there and you need to look again, flipping over your huck bucket, spending a little bit of time observing your birds right after you feed them is perfect. You go out, you fill the feed troughs or whatever you do, please don't feed full time, all the time, every time. I do not, I am not a fan of. Once they're adults or once they get past puberty and they're hitting that adult stage, I really want them to clean up the feed that you give them every day and have some limitations on it.
Carey: 8:38
Okay. With that is there a particular time of day?
Jeff Mattocks: 8:43
So sitting on my bucket, watching my chickens in the backyard and paying attention, I noticed that the feeders were packed one hour before the sun went down. One hour before sunset, I would watch, it didn't matter that when we fed them, right? I could have fed them three hours earlier, two hours earlier, whatever, but on their own, their normal habit, they would circle and fill that feeder and everybody wanted to fill up, right? And they got a big old crop that's bulging, they want to go to bed with a full, for the full belly. Is the bottom. Me too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So who doesn't and then so they'll fill up at that one hour before sunset. Then they stand there, they wander around, they do their socializing that, they go see each other and whatever they want to do. And they do some grooming and some preening and some dust bathing or whatever. But actually after that one hour before sunset, they just in an open range or free range environment, they just gradually do their thing, but they're migrating back to the roost. So when that sun goes down they're already there. Yeah. They want to be on the roost. And then I noticed with our Americanas. They went to roost first. You know why? They wanted the highest spot on the roost. They fought horribly. They were, I'm not a fan of Americanas. I like how they look. I'm not a fan, I won't own Americanas ever again, because they're ornery assholes. They had to be at the top rung of the roost. Learning from that, I actually decided my roost would no longer be a ladder roost, my roost would be level. I socialized my chickens. I took a social, a socialist view on my chickens and they all had level roosting. So I eliminated the fighting for the top spot.
Carey: 10:49
See, I have some of mine they like to be high and I have some dog kennels that are five by 10. They have an A frame roof on them. And in them, as the chicks, as they were growing, I put, you can fit a 2x4 in there perfectly. So I put it up about a foot and a half, and then the next one I put about two and a half feet, a little staggered over. And as they grew and kept going higher and higher, I just moved them higher and higher. I there's only four or five birds in one of these breeding pens, but every night when I look out there, they're six feet high. You can, but they all need
Jeff Mattocks: 11:32
to be at the same level. They are all. So that, because there's. Because if they have to fight for that top position.
Carey: 11:39
Yeah.
Jeff Mattocks: 11:39
We, before I had chickens, we would use the term pecking order. As a punchline or something. There is a pecking order. It's real obvious. And especially when it comes time to roost. And I found it hilarious that hens, once they establish their pattern that this hen will sleep beside this hen and don't you let another hen come in there and try and take that spot. Right? There again. So they have socialized and they have paired themselves and, like this one's okay with this one, but don't let this one try and get in that spot. And funny story
Carey: 12:20
about that. I had a couple of chickens get out of one of my breeding pens. I opened the door and they ran. I don't know what had been going on, but they did. And I finished doing what I had to do. I was able to catch one of them, put her back in there. Everything was fine. The other one, she wasn't having it. I chased her for a few minutes, wasn't having it. That night, 1130, 12 o'clock. I look out the window, six feet up in the air, on the part of the two by four that's hanging out the side. That hen, the rooster, on the inside of the pen, right beside her. I said, man, they're crazy. She had a chance to run, but she's right there. So I walked outside, walked up behind her, like she knew what I was doing. She stood up, I put my hands right up underneath her, took her around, walked inside the coop. The rooster had already started moving the other ones over. I set her up there, not a squawk, not a nothing. It was like my wife was like, what are you doing? And I told her and she said, you've got to be kidding me. And I said, no, it was in like, there was no tears for them to climb to get up there. This was a Delaware. She weighed over six pounds, flew straight up six feet. So I believe in that. And I believe that they like to be in the correct order side by side at night. Ever since I saw that. There's a social
Jeff Mattocks: 14:09
order. And, they want, they can tell, even we, we don't think they care. But they care. And they are very fussy about who they go to bed with and who they wake up with. And it's I'm, listen, talking to breeders like yourself and Rip and others, right? And they're talking about moving birds around and, going from this pen to this pen. And I cringe every time I hear this. If you want to move a bird, You do it at night, right? After it's dark, everybody's gone to the roost, you move them over in the dark, you wear your headlamp with the infrared, right? So nobody can see it, and you place that hen or that rooster, in that pen on the roost. The, this, it's funny, but it's not funny, but I have figured out that it's not okay to go to bed with a stranger. But it's okay to wake up with one. So
Carey: 15:03
I can see how it's less frowned upon. Yeah. I have a green head, headlamp that I use as rechargeable and my backyard, which is where I have all my breeding pens. at night. And when I go b green light, it doesn't s you know, it's just like a lot easier to find beca the infrared green i All the new hunting
Jeff Mattocks: 15:36
lights have gone to the greens. Yeah. You don't see the reds like you used to. Yeah. For that same reason. Evidently the green is not detectable. It's not frightening to the wildlife. And so it just works better.
Carey: 15:49
With us talking about feeder space and all that good stuff, is there a certain height? How high do you want the feeder or water off the ground? What makes it important?
Jeff Mattocks: 16:03
Look, again, we've known this for a hundred years. The lip of the feeder whatever the bird has to reach over, needs to be level. Or at the same height as the average bird's back. Okay, where the neck meets the rest of the body. And the reason we do this, both for feed and water, is we reduce spillage. If you ever actually, again, flip your bucket over and actually watch your birds, Okay? They've got to pick the feet up, but then they have to straighten their head. They have to straighten their neck and look up to the sky to actually get the water in. The further the distance from where she gets the water to where she can tip her head, is only a spilling hazard. So if you like to replace your bedding and you like wet bedding, You just keep it on the ground, right? For the rest of us who want to save money and time, because you're going to waste almost 30 percent of your water by keeping your water on the ground versus having it at the appropriate height. The same is true with feed. I can't tell you how many folks like yourself and not you, but how many breeding folks or how many chicken folks I talked to. And they're like, there's feed all over the place. They're wasting it, right? If you have it too low, they're going to bury their head in that feed. They're going to sling it side to side. And what they're looking for is that giant nugget of corn because they know there's one in there. They're going to sling them until they find it. Instead of adapting by getting your feeder height where it needs to be to feed a grain feed like a mash feed or coarse textured feed, people went to pellets. They all look the same. So now there's no sorting, there's no slinging, there's no looking around, right? So now you've taken away the chicken's ability to select. Or, so
Carey: 17:59
I look at that as taking away their foraging because when they forge in the woods and look for stuff, they're looking for a particular thing. And I think that activity is important to maintain the quality of the bird, just my opinion,
Jeff Mattocks: 18:18
it all goes together for proper mental health and well being. And that's the way I look at it. The bird. Just like you said, we all of us creatures, if I go to a buffet, I'm looking for certain things, right? When that chicken comes up to the feeder. Now, when you first put the feed in, if the feed if you let the feed run down to that residual 5 or 10%, like you should, when you come in and refill the feeder, they're not sorting. They're not looking. Right now, they just want to get their food. They just want to eat. They're going to fill their beaks. They're going to fill their crop. Now, people that like to have free choice, 24 7, all the feed you want to eat, you are encouraging that buffet eating. Now, what I mean by buffet eating is not the sorting and selection. What I mean by that buffet eating is, how many times have you gone to a buffet, you see somebody who fills a plate, and They only eat half of it because it didn't like it and they leave it there for the waitress to carry it away. Okay, so now you're encouraging waste. Yep. By leaving a feeder full again. So then you switch over to pellets because they all look the same. The birds don't have the ability to self select.
Carey: 19:34
I'm not a huge fan of pellets because of that. But I've found since feeding the better feed that chickens like the greens.
Jeff Mattocks: 19:45
Actually, given time. So I would challenge anybody who's sold on pellets to offer a combination of, 50, 30, 40 percent grain or pellet, and then the rest is in grains, properly processed grains. And if you watch give it a month and then pay attention. When you fill the feeder, what did they eat first? And
Carey: 20:09
you flip your Huck
Jeff Mattocks: 20:10
bucket over and you watch, right? They're eating the grains. Yeah. They're going to eat the grains first. Yeah. Candy every time. Right now, if you're feeding the grain feed a good, properly processed grain mashed feed, and all of a sudden you run out, you gotta run down their tractor supply and all they got is pellets. You bring that home, your hens are going to look at you like you got three heads. They're going to look at you like you're stupid. What do you want us to do with this? Okay. My cousin called me one day because he couldn't get his regular layer feed. And he said, all I had was these pellets. I brought them home. He goes, my hens haven't eaten in two days. He goes, what do I do? Hurry up and get what they've been getting. I give him a, I give him a Band Aid, on a gunshot wound, but we got past it. Them through the blender? Just wet them. Turn them into a wet mash and, they'll eat them as a wet mash.
Carey: 21:02
Yeah.
Jeff Mattocks: 21:02
And break them down a little bit. The other thing you can do is just go buy some wild bird seed somewhere, anywhere and just toss some of that in there to get them started eating. Then they'll accidentally eat a pellet. Then they'll realize it's not as bad as it looks. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. Don't even look at their pellet feeds and the last few ingredients are flavor additives, but there's molasses in there. There's other flavor additives in there. So the bird can smell it, right? So there they have to entice. It's like putting icing on the cake. They got to entice the bird to eat the stupid pellet to begin with.
Carey: 21:39
Right. With the water height again, for science, I used to cut waters in buckets. That was my thing for the longest. I was a huge fan. And what I did, I had to make a new one for a pen. And I had a couple of pullets that were younger that were really well with some older pullets. And the the cockerel that I put in there, he was 14 ish months old, we'll say. So they're different sizes. And I put three cups, one about three inches off the bottom of the bucket. And then I come over a couple inches and up a couple inches. And so if you look at the side of the bucket, it looks like stair steps until the tallest cup was, the top of the cup was about level with the waddles on his chin. And I was like, man, I got that a little too high. That one probably will never get used. But from what I saw, it's they almost preferred to reach up and get a drink. then lean their head over and get a drink. And, I remember Rip saying you need it level with the top of their back. And if you put it level with the top of their back, they do reach up a little bit to get it. And since then, I still use the buckets. The cups get on my nerves because when they get to horsing around in there they'll pop one of the cups off. And if you can't find the spring, you got to chunk the whole thing, put a new one in. It's frustrating and gets expensive after a while. So what I've started doing with my breeding pens and having 16 of them, I know this is not going to be the cheapest solution, but in the long run, it will be. I started swapping over to Bellwaters. Now I understand the bell water for five birds is a bit overkill. Not hardly. They don't spill it. They haven't broke one of them yet. Now a lot of my breeding pens are the bottom four feet is solid roofing metal and then the top four feet of them is two by four wire all the way around. And then they have metal roof on top.
