Brahmas with Bumbalough’s
The Bumbalough’s are in Tennessee and work on Brahmas project colors! They tell us what they have working on the farm and future plans.
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Jennifer: 0:00
Welcome poultry enthusiasts to another exciting episode of the poultry nerds podcast,
Carey: 0:06
whether you're raising backyard chickens, diving deep into the science of avian health, or just obsessed with all things, feather and eggs, you're in the right place. I'm Carey
Jennifer: 0:16
and I'm Jennifer. And today we've got an episode packed with everything you need to know about Brahma's with Bumbalaw Farms.
Carey: 0:26
From expert tips to fascinating facts. We're here to help you become the ultimate poultry pro. It's time to get nerdy about poultry. Mhm.
Jennifer: 0:40
Are you looking for a poultry supplement that goes beyond the basics? Meet Show Pro Poultry Supplement, the only supplement with cysteine, a powerful amino acid for stronger feathers, healthier birds, and better egg production. Give your flock the boost they deserve with Show Pro Poultry Supplement, because healthy poultry starts now. From the inside out. Hey guys. So we're back today and we are here with Kristen and Jacob from Bumbala hollow farms. Welcome guys. And they raise Brahma's in middle Tennessee which is where I am, but middle since he's big. So you guys are like, what, an hour and 10 minutes or so away from me? Yeah,
Jacob: 1:27
I'm going
Carey: 1:29
to say in middle Tennessee, a lot of people would be like, oh, they're neighbors, but not in middle Tennessee. That's no. Yeah. Could be an hour or so away.
Christen: 1:40
Yeah. We got a good, I think about an hour drive to you.
Jennifer: 1:43
Yeah.
Carey: 1:43
Nice.
Jennifer: 1:45
And there is no straight shot between here and there. You got to make us big triangle. But anyway, so welcome guys. And you guys raise Brahma's and Jersey giants and goats and horses and all kinds of stuff over in those Hills. Don't you?
Christen: 2:03
Oh, yes. We also raise a Rex rabbits and then blue slate Turkey.
Jennifer: 2:07
I forgot about the rabbits. You guys are getting really big into showing the rabbits, aren't you?
Christen: 2:12
I am. I have actually my next show's on the 25th.
Jacob: 2:17
That's a lot.
Christen: 2:18
Alright, cool. I'll have to come check one out.
Jacob: 2:22
That's her deal. I only really deal with the
Jennifer: 2:24
chickens.
Christen: 2:25
That's her deal?
Carey: 2:26
So do they do rabbit shows like they do chicken shows?
Christen: 2:30
The poultry shows, your bird's just in the cage and they come by and judge, but the rabbit show they call the different breeds, you gotta take the rabbit and put it on the table, and then you watch the judge pose it, and if it doesn't place, you pull it off, if it does place, it stays on for best of breed. It's, I enjoy it, but he doesn't enjoy it too much.
Jennifer: 2:50
Oh, you think us chicken people are whacked out. Those rabbit people are crazy. Oh, it's a whole different
Christen: 2:57
world. Yeah.
Jacob: 3:00
They're either really nice or very stubborn.
Christen: 3:06
They just sound similar to the chickens though. A lot of your top breeders won't let you, won't sell to you unless they know you're serious about bettering the breed and stuff. Yeah, that, that's, that is a thing. Yeah. So people can find you guys on Facebook? Yes, we have Facebook, Instagram. And then our website is bumbleahalafarm. com.
Carey: 3:21
Now for the people from Alabama, like me, how do you spell bumbleahala?
Christen: 3:27
Carey: 3:32
dot com.
Christen: 3:35
Yes.
Carey: 3:36
Perfect. Bumble and
Christen: 3:36
Holla farm. com. You got to put the farm on there.
Carey: 3:39
Okay. All right.
Jennifer: 3:42
Yeah. They live down in the holler. If you've ever gone over there where she is, she's like in the hills of. Yeah, it's not like my property is nice and flat. And you can see faith told me one day you could see a dog run for two miles or two days or something. And you go over there where they live and you, it's just deep ravines and you can hide stuff down in those ravines and all kinds of stuff.
Christen: 4:07
We're
Jennifer: 4:07
like
Christen: 4:07
in the middle of nowhere with hills all the way around.
Carey: 4:11
Sounds perfect.
Jennifer: 4:11
So today we're going to talk about your Brahmas. And you do project colors, right?
Christen: 4:19
Yes, so we do buff lace, Isabelle. We're working on partridge, which Scott Perry is actually working on trying to get them recognized. So they're actually going to start being moved to being called gold and blue gold instead of partridge. So I'm going to start advertising them as gold and blue gold instead of partridge. And then we also raised black modeled. And I am starting to dabble into the dark bramas so that I do have a recognized color to show.
Jennifer: 4:45
Okay, so let's talk about the partridge for just a minute because I saw Scott Perry's post about that. Why did you guys decide to change the name of that color?
Christen: 4:57
When the judges see partridge they start judging it towards the other breeds and their partridge standards. And the par partridge color on the braa doesn't meet the standards that it does on some of the other breeds. So calling it gold and blue, gold kind of takes the partridge out of their head for them to be able to judge them the way they need to be judged.
Jacob: 5:17
It, it gives them
Jennifer: 5:19
Okay, gotcha.
Jacob: 5:20
It also gives them like their own category to be in. Like Kristen said, they're, the partridge name is also associated with so many different other breeds and colors and. Just easier for the judge to not have that in his bed and so that they can have their own category.
Christen: 5:43
And Scott has actually wrote up a proposed standard for the gold and blue gold brahma so that if anybody is wanting to raise them and breed towards to show, I'm happy to share the the proposed standard that he wrote up. I have pictures of it.
Carey: 6:00
That's a long process. Can they find that on your Facebook
Christen: 6:02
page maybe? They can message me and I can send it to them.
Jennifer: 6:06
So for people who.
Jacob: 6:08
Oh, trying to get these dramas. They don't grow very fast, so it does take a long time to get them to the point where what they need to be look where they need to be look like the standard, but that's one thing. A lot of people don't understand about bramas. They're such a big chicken. It takes them a lot longer time to beef out and to grow into themselves
Christen: 6:36
like your coaches.
Jennifer: 6:39
Oh, my gosh, they're like molasses. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so for people who don't maybe understand when we're talking about project colors versus approved varieties, like my Orpingtons, they're buff colors. That's an approved, through the APA, we can show it underneath of that variety color. And then in the Brahmas, what's the accepted varieties on the Brahmas?
Christen: 7:09
Dark, buff, and light are the ones that are accepted. Yeah.
Jennifer: 7:15
Now, I've had a lot of people So you can show those, you get your points.
Christen: 7:20
Yes, you can. You can show the non recognized varieties. You just won't get APA points for it. I like to show them when we do shows just to help get the word out about them and get interest and let people know we raised them. But on the other side of it, I've also had some people tell me that they're not Brahma's because they're not recognized
Carey: 7:38
color. That would be the ones at the shows that have their pinkies out.
Christen: 7:42
Yeah, yes, I've had quite a few people message me to tell me that it's because it's not a recognized color than their head. It's not a pure breed.
Jacob: 7:55
They think it's like a run of the mill just like yard chicken, but Reality, they're really not. They all start
Jennifer: 8:06
somewhere. Yeah.
Jacob: 8:07
Yeah. Oh reality. They're really not. I mean It's taken a long time for us to get to where we're at with all of our birds and how they look and, trying to better our breed program and
Christen: 8:20
We've had help from a lot of other breeders as well to help us get to where we are.
Jennifer: 8:27
Okay, so let's go back to your project colors. So the buff lace. I've seen pictures of those. Those are, it's buff lace, right? Yes. Okay. They are called Buff Lace. Okay. Good. Okay, good. So the Buff Lace how long have you been working on those?
Christen: 8:48
Let's see.
Jennifer: 8:49
I've had
Christen: 8:50
the cartridge since 2020. And then, the buff laced, I think we got in 21. And then we added the Isabel, I think in 22. And then we added the model within 23.
Jennifer: 9:07
Oh, the model's so pretty. I think that's my favorite.
Christen: 9:10
Oh, they are. And they're very popular. They're just, I only had a few, so I was slowly trying to grow our flock to be able
Jennifer: 9:20
to produce more. So when you start a project, do you. Do you just start it from scratch or do you like buy birds from somebody and continue the project? How did you get started?
Christen: 9:33
So all of our project birds, I had bought from another, other breeders who had already started. Trying to think, our buff laced originally came from a lady who got hers from the guy who started the buff laced, but I have gotten some from a couple other breeders to make our flock where they are now. and working towards the best I can breeding them towards the standard because the buff blazer they're still a big bird they're still big bramas but they're a smaller brama than some of your other project colors so I'm trying to work on my size on them.
Jennifer: 10:07
You can't ever get them big enough it didn't seem like.
Christen: 10:10
Oh yeah and no matter the color they're all the same standard so the way of the body type of a light brama would look is the way we're trying to get the body type of all of ours to look. It's just. A very long process.
Jennifer: 10:26
Why did you choose to do projects instead of just already recognized varieties?
Christen: 10:31
I was trying to figure out what breed, when we first started raising, I was trying to figure out what breed I wanted, and I dabbled in a little bit of everything, and I fell in love with the Brahmas, and then I was like, when I first started, I was like, oh, I'm going to do darks, we'll just try it out, but when I first started, I had hatchery quality birds, and those didn't last very long and I went to somebody's house and they had project colors. They were just they're like their backyard flock But they told me the breeders they got theirs from and I just fell in love with all those colors I didn't want to have the basic standard recognized colors. I wanted all the fun colors around Because there's quite a few people around here that raise the standards and I like raising the different colors and helping them get towards being recognized
Jacob: 11:16
and also the brahmanas, especially the roosters are a lot of people think they're You know, they see a big rooster or a big chicken period, and they're automatically just scared of it. Our Brahma's, we haven't really had a single mean one. They're such a gentle giant. Hey, you haven't. General, they really are. I did it. I don't do this all the time, but I did it one time to see if I could. I brought one of our Brahma roosters inside one day. And he sat down, I sat him down on my leg and he sat there and watched TV with me for about an hour.
Christen: 11:55
I'll have to have a customer who she keeps me updated and sends me photos all the time. Her daughter actually takes Brahma's that they got from us and she puts them on the swing set and pushes them around, Careys them in the house. They've just got really sweet personalities.
Jennifer: 12:11
Yeah. So the Cochins are, somehow the Cochins helped create a Brahma way back when, but you're talking about how sweet they are. And if I'm moving the Cochins around, I can put them on the seat of the gator and they'll just sit there while I drive around to wherever I'm taking them. They just sit there. So I think the big birds are better than any little birds.
Christen: 12:35
I do too. The only downfall I think I've found is they require so much more space, but that's okay. That just means bigger pens.
Jennifer: 12:43
Yeah, just more of them,
Christen: 12:44
right? Yeah.
Jennifer: 12:47
So What else you want to tell us about your brahmas? What do you do? Do you sell chicks and birds and eggs?
Christen: 12:57
So we sell hatching eggs and then we do sell chicks also. And then like every frequently throughout the year, we'll have some grow outs available because we'll like in the beginning when we start hatching, we'll keep a certain amount from each pin and grow them out and pick our keepers. Or if we have a lot, we'll just sell off the extras or whatever. Then every year of course, we rotate breeders to help improve our stock. We've shipped all over the United States. We ship eggs and chicks. We do not ship juveniles or adults yet. I've not gotten, I've not gotten enough nerve up yet to ship those nerve wracking enough. Come out and see me. I'll show you Alright,
Jacob: 13:37
I think the far
Christen: 13:38
we've shipped to California, Washington. Now I do have people ask me a lot of the time if they breed true or colors and A lot of the times projects can be different but like our buff lace Every now and then from back in the line where they created them We'll get a gold out of them, but it's only one in every like 20 chicks We end up with a gold lace so they pretty much breed true and then our partridges It works like a blue black splash pen, so you can get blue, gold, or splash partridge. And then our mottleds, they breed true. Their chicks are always mottled. And same with the Isabels, they're, they always breed true as well.
Jennifer: 14:23
So the Isabels, they're like a lavender color.
Christen: 14:26
Yes, and they have the same lacing patterns as the partridge do. You can actually put an Isabelle with a gold partridge rooster to help improve your Isabelle line.
Jennifer: 14:39
Do you have an issue with the shredding gene like they do in the Orpingtons? I have not. Oh, interesting.
Christen: 14:47
And if that ever does become an issue, I can always breed back to the partridge and help fix that issue. But as of right now, we're what, three years old?
Jacob: 14:57
Yeah.
Christen: 14:58
Something like that, and we've not had any threading gene issues.
Jennifer: 15:01
Oh,
Christen: 15:01
that's good.
Jennifer: 15:02
So you guys have to study your genetics pretty good to work on these projects.
Christen: 15:06
We grow out a lot every year and I'll sit there with my APA book and sit there and look at them and try to figure out which ones are the best. And of course the color varies because they're projects. So you got to eyeball, pick what your goal is for your project, but body type wise, always look at the,
Jacob: 15:37
and it does help a lot. When you talk to breeders that are willing to talk to you, like Scott Perry he has helped us a lot. He has studied and been dealing with the Brahmans for a lot longer time than we have. He has helped us a lot with our breeding program just by talking to him.
Christen: 15:58
And then Beach Bum Bitties has helped us a lot with our buff lice program.
Jennifer: 16:03
Yeah, the chicken community is pretty tight and there's a lot of good people who will help. Oh, yeah.
Carey: 16:09
Yeah. Once, once they figure out you're serious, they'll, oh yeah. They'll generally talk to you.
Christen: 16:15
Like I, we met I finally officially met Scott at the Dixie Classic in Knoxville, and I brought home three, or was it three, three birds from him. And they're, and I already had one rooster from him. And they're gonna be like the real stamp to help us get our partridge to the next level to show.
Jennifer: 16:35
Okay, you're gonna have to quit calling them partridge.
Christen: 16:38
I got to remind myself to quit calling them partridge. The gold, get them to where they need
Jennifer: 16:43
to be shown. Okay, so I have to ask you a fun question. So we're coming up on spring spring season. So how many times a day do you get asked if you sell the giant brahmas? Oh, my
Christen: 16:56
goodness. I probably at least once a day and I tell people all the time they are, they're the large pal brahmas and or they're the giant ones and they'll send me pictures, like the edited or the way, the way they hold them from the other countries where they look huge. And I try to explain to them, that's photo angle and everything. And. Sometimes people just get mad at me about it.
Jennifer: 17:15
Have you tried to take those pictures where they make them look huge?
Christen: 17:19
I haven't. You should do it. It's so much fun.
Carey: 17:22
Okay.
Christen: 17:24
I'm going to have to do it. You're going to have to be my camera person now. We're going to have to angle it.
Jennifer: 17:29
So Amy, a friend of mine, Amy, and I did it with yank. I think it was Yankee, one of my big coaches. And if you hold them. You don't want to move your arms too much, but you hold them close to you, and you take a picture, and then you just ever so slightly move them out away from you, and the photographer goes down and shoots it at an up angle, and it will make him look six times bigger than he did in the previous picture.
Christen: 17:56
I might have to do that just to send when they ask me that. Be like, yes, here's my giant Brahma.
Jennifer: 18:03
And then when they call you back a year later and go he didn't grow that big. You'll say you didn't feed him quite like I do
Christen: 18:12
Yeah. We did finally get us a bigger incubator too, so we plan to hatch a lot more this year. Yeah. We got a, I think the CT three 50 maybe from hatching time, something like that. One of the big boys,
Carey: 18:27
H the hb.
Christen: 18:28
Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, you'll
Jennifer: 18:31
love it. Your hatch rates will go way up.
Christen: 18:34
Oh yeah, we've got that and then we have a friend one of our poultry friends is moving across the country and she's got another hatching time cabinet. The smaller one, the one you have a bunch of, he's and she's gonna let us buy that one from her. So we'll have
Carey: 18:49
two and we'll really be hatching out and be able to fill more orders quicker. So if I were you once you have two, I would have one that I incubate in And one that I hatch in.
Christen: 18:56
Oh, yes, that's the plan because the one not
Carey: 18:58
doing the same.
Christen: 18:59
Yeah, the one that she's got has all the different baskets and then our big one just has the basket in the bottom.
Jennifer: 19:08
Welcome to the big time with all the extra incubators.
Christen: 19:11
Oh, yeah I've been watching you and your hatch rates and your videos and I told him I said we got to upgrade this year
Jennifer: 19:19
Yeah, if you the turkeys you'll really notice the difference with the turkeys from the GQF and the, if you ever get into ducks the Hatching Time makes the ducks way easier.
Christen: 19:32
I don't know if we'll ever do ducks, but he wants a couple geese in the future.
Jennifer: 19:37
Couple geese? Yeah. We need you to get swans so I can get some baby swans. Swans
Carey: 19:44
on the lake would be nice.
Jennifer: 19:48
Oh, that would be.
Carey: 19:50
It's expensive.
Jennifer: 19:52
We'll, I'll put you together. There
Christen: 19:55
you go. I do want an emu later down the road. So
Jennifer: 19:59
we know emu people to hook you up with.
Christen: 20:02
I'm good.
Carey: 20:03
So to me, having an emu walking around would be the ultimate. If you can't have a LGD having an email would be like the next best thing.
Christen: 20:14
Oh, yeah.
Carey: 20:15
I got a solid no from my wife.
Christen: 20:19
I had never asked him before. And we went to a pet and zoo and they had some there and we both fell in love with the ones they had. And I was like, okay, so when we. Buy a new property. I was like, we got to have an emu or two.
Jennifer: 20:31
Oh
Christen: 20:34
yeah.
Jennifer: 20:36
So what shows, what poultry shows are you going to this spring that people could find you?
Christen: 20:43
We will be at the Dixon County poultry show. It's a Double show.
Jennifer: 20:49
Yep
Christen: 20:49
on I think April the 26th. We'll be at that one for sure And then I know we'll for sure be at the dixie classic again in december And then the other shows just depend on how the summer goes because we do also we do the fair shows. Like we'll do the cab county fair the wilson county fair, which is the state fair and then we also do the bedford county fair which those They're not the big time shows, but we do Like to do those to get the word out about the breeds and be able to talk to more people about them And then other shows the big apa shows just depend like we'd like to go to the ohio national this year so that's one we're planning for and then The others we just plan around because we have, I have my rabbit shows as well and then we do our monthly poultry swaps that we run
Jennifer: 21:44
locally. Yeah, I forgot about those. You need to come to Fort Payne. That's a big show. We like it. We like to go down there. Is that Alabama? It is. It's north Alabama so it's not that far.
Christen: 21:57
You
Jennifer: 21:57
have to send me the information and we'll look into it. It's February 2nd. It's coming up quick. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't have just for our listeners. Poultry shows are I don't know. It seems like they're like 3 hours away from each other. So you do have to do some traveling to, to find one. The Dixon County show that she's talking about is a new show. I think this is only their second time doing it. I think so. And it's their first time with largefowl because I'm going to go, actually they just texted me while you were talking. It was funny coincidence. So, there's only what four shows I think within three or four hours of us here. Yeah,
Christen: 22:36
there's not many. It's so hard for us to make a lot of the bigger shows because we have so many animals to take care of when we leave. Sometimes it's hard to get away.
Jennifer: 22:44
Yeah,
Christen: 22:45
for multiple days
Jennifer: 22:45
at a
Christen: 22:46
time.
Jennifer: 22:47
It is, but you have to go to so many in order to get your project colors admitted into the APA, don't you?
Christen: 22:57
Yeah, you have to, I think it's three or four breeders for about five years working on getting them out to the public to get them recognized. I could be off on those numbers, but like a certain amount of breeders for a certain amount of years showing them and getting the word out.
Carey: 23:14
I think that if you go to the APA's website, they have a document on there that talks about it's a certain number of breeders Five years, I know, and you have to have a certain number of birds shown in a certain amount of shows per year as well.
Christen: 23:36
Yeah, any show we go to, we make sure we take our golds too. And then, of course, our Jersey Giants. Those are the main ones we show. And then we'll show some of each color of our Brahmas as well.
Jennifer: 23:49
Yeah, and now everybody knows why we travel with so many birds when we go to shows. We have to have all those numbers there. Oh, yeah. Yeah so All right. Do you want to tell anybody or tell everybody anything else about your Brahmas?
Jacob: 24:05
I can't think of anything else. I
Christen: 24:07
know if anybody ever has any questions about them, like I'm happy to message people and help them the best I can. And it's always nice to have other breeders around working on the same project as well to help get them recognized. Oh yeah. You can't really do this stuff
Jennifer: 24:23
without mentors.
Jacob: 24:25
So many people helped us with our birds. We try to help as many people as we can. And like I said earlier, I think Brahma's are just so misunderstood. So many people just scared of a big chicken.
Christen: 24:42
There for a while, the Brahma's really weren't that popular, but they're starting to pick back up and get popular again.
Jennifer: 24:48
I had them for about two years. And I just had light Brahma's, but I liked them. They used to sit on top of my goats. I have pictures of them on top of my goats. I'll put a link to your website and Facebook page in the show notes on the website. So people can find you. Alrighty, and I appreciate you guys coming today and talking about Brahmas.
Christen: 25:12
Of course.
Jacob: 25:13
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Carey: 25:14
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.
