Chook. The Podcast

• Incubation Masterclass with Brinsea Distributor and Incubator Extraordinaire Loi Truong

  If you’ve ever needed help with or had a question about a Brinsea-brand incubator, Loi Truong is the man who will have come to your rescue. One of the loveliest and most helpful people working in chickens in Australia today, he holds the Brinsea distributorship in this country and has been incubating for decades. So I couldn’t think of anyone more qualified to talk about the ins and outs of incubating eggs at home. In this conversation we discuss everything from storing eggs prior to incubation and why we incubate at 37.5 degrees when hen body temperature is much higher to dry incubation, incubating posted eggs, what humidity Loi recommends for incubating Marans eggs with their extra coat of dark pigment on the shell and what to do if there’s a power outage during incubation. I also ask Loi to weigh in on the question that always sparks heated debate between egg sellers and buyers: can you tell whether an egg that doesn’t develop was fertilised by examining the yolk after it’s been incubated for five or ten days? Other topics include:  — How interest in incubation has changed over the years — The optimal age for putting an egg in the incubator — Loi's experience incubating refrigerated eggs — Horizontal vs vertical incubation — Why turning during incubation is important — The ideal turning interval — Malpositioned or “breeched” chicks — How long it takes after pipping for the chick to unzip — The worst time to attempt an assisted hatch — What hatch rate Loi gets from posted eggs vs eggs collected in person — The consequences of incorrect humidity during incubation — Candling to monitor air sac development — How much temperature can vary during incubation without killing the chick — The difference in setting temperature in still-air vs fan-forced incubators — Whether you should incubate at 38 degrees — How to correctly use an independent thermometer to check your incubator — Candling prior to incubation — “Sticky” chicks and “shrink wrapped” chicks — The danger of too-high humidity during hatching — The magic of broody hens — Whether incubation technique can in any way influence the sex of the chicks that hatch — Exploding eggs — Whether it’s okay to remove fluffed up chicks while others are still hatching — Using cheap incubators

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• Madelaine Scott: From "Egg Girl" to Successful Businesswoman

  From 20 chickens as a homeschooling project at the age of 8 to a million dollar business with 5000 chickens, certified organic. As the brains and the brawn behind Madelaine's Eggs, the broad strokes of Madelaine Scott’s story are well known to Australians.  She burst into the public eye as a 19-year-old launching a crowdfunding campaign that raised 60 thousand dollars in 60 days to purchase an egg-grading machine. In this conversation, now 31, Madelaine opens up about the day-to-day realities of running a free-range, organic operation including: — The financial realities and how much she pockets in profit, relative to turnover — How to care for chickens without worming and spraying them with chemicals — Exactly what feed and which supplements she gives her flock — The daily workload involved in running her free-range operation — How many staff she now has and her role these days — The organic certification process  — The prospect of H5N1 bird flu arriving in Australia and what it would mean for her operation — Vaccines for chickens — The phasing out of caged eggs in Australia — Diversifying into meat (turkeys, "spent" hens) as well as eggs — Plans for a micro-abattoir at Hollyburton Farm — The homesteader lifestyle You can check out Madelaine’s own chicken soup recipe in the Spring 2025 issue of Chook Journal, our fully digital, immersive magazine available now via the website chookjournal.com.au

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• Alf Woods, 98 years in chickens

  Alf Woods is a singular figure within the Australian poultry community and someone who, in show circles, truly needs no introduction. He went to his first show at the age of 7 and, now 98, he’s been a fixture at the Melbourne Royal ever since. Having spent 9 decades in poultry, participating at just about every level of the fancy, it was a priceless opportunity to sit down with Alf and pick his brain. This conversation is jam packed with not only instruction in how to breed but anecdotes from a lifetime spent around chooks and chicken people. Alf discusses: — His method of single mating all his birds — The importance of ruthless culling to eliminate faults — His poultry "bible" aka stud book — How he feeds his birds — Some of the best reads from his enviable library of chicken books — The unique Japanese fowl known as the Onagadori — How he's never wormed a bird — His daily routine with his birds, at 98 — His advice to new breeders starting out — The perils of buying birds online — Eating chicken soup every night  — Brother-sister matings — The longest he's kept a line pure without outside blood — Why you should not have a feed hopper in your chook pen — Whether you should outcross to a male or female bird — Beetle green sheen versus purple — The fine line between show preparation and faking — Whether he's ever bred himself into a corner and had to abandon a line — How he trims rooster spurs — Memorable adventures from a lifetime in chickens

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• Paul Rodgers, Cofounder, former Australian Marans Club

  As I was researching the cover story for the debut issue of Chook Journal, I kept uncovering question after question. It wasn’t until I met Paul Rodgers that the answers started to really flow. Paul knows probably more than most people about the history of Marans in Australia. When he saw his first Marans, he says it was love. He went on to cofound the short-lived Australian Marans Club. Paul remains passionate about Marans but does worry that careless breeding or a failure to maintain the egg colour that defines the breed, could threaten its future in Australia. Just a heads up - you’ll notice a discussion about beetle green sheen. Please note that subsequent to this conversation I got in touch with the Marans Club in France, for clarification. To see the French response to the beetle green sheen confusion, check out the cover story on Black Copper Marans in the September 2025 issue of Chook Journal, a fully digital, immersive magazine, available now at chookjournal.com.au Long story short, Paul is on the money. 

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• Jeff Mattocks, Bonus chat with the poultry nutritionist

  Jeff Mattocks deserves an award for services to the poultry community, worldwide. He's so much more than a poultry nutritionist. In this conversation, he describes the brooder trick the world’s best poultry keepers use to raise healthy chicks, explains why he can’t recommend any store-bought chook feed and shares his go-to response at the first sign of illness in a flock. 

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