Chook. The Podcast

• Stock Horse Breeder Jeanette Gower on What Chicken Breeders can learn from the Horse Breeding Experience

  Horse breeding and chicken breeding may seem like completely different endeavours but it turns out they have quite a bit in common… and of course they’re underpinned by the same genetic principles. With more than 50 years' experience raising foals, esteemed Australian stock horse breeder Jeanette Gower knows a thing or two about genetics and its practical application. I was keen to find out and find out what the horse breeding experience can teach us about how to approach poultry.  In this conversation I pick Jeanette's brain on everything from inbreeding and inbreeding depression to outcrossing and hybrid vigour. Jeanette writes a fantastic blog on Substack which is where you can also find more information on her books about horse breeding. Be sure to like and follow the show to find out when new episodes drop. And, if you like what you hear, leave us a review on your podcast app.

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• Poultry vet Dr Grant Richards on intestinal worms

  Worms are often the chief suspect when a backyard chicken gets sick. But how often are they to blame? This is the starting point for my conversation with poultry vet Grant Richards who has spent his 40-year career in chickens and chicken health. Grant sits at the helm of Parasite Diagnostic Services where you can send poultry manure for worm testing so you might think he’d be talking up the dangers posed by intestinal worms. But his perspective is a lot more nuanced than that.  We discuss: — How often worms are the culprit for sickness in backyard chickens — The importance of testing for worm loads before de-worming a chicken — Whether you should worm on a schedule — What is a healthy worm burden in a chicken — How chickens become “bombproof” against intestinal worms — The necessity of exposure to worms in order for a chicken to develop natural resistance — Understanding the parasite life cycle — How chickens get worms and the role of intermediate hosts — Why the mobile chicken tractor set-up is helpful in avoiding issues with worms  — How often to move your flock to fresh ground to avoid parasite problems — How sun, rain, frost and grass length affect parasite survival in the environment — How long to rest the ground before rotating your flock back there — Whether baby chicks can hatch with worms — The critical age for roundworm build-up in a chicken — Why not to google your bird’s symptoms — How long post-hatch it takes for a chick’s immune system to ‘fire up’  — Grant's take on diatomaceous earth — Whether you or your dogs can catch worms from your chickens — Whether Dr Richards thinks you should vaccinate your chickens — Whether it makes sense to cull your flock if mycoplasma is detected — The use of ivermectin-containing pour-on sheep and cattle drenches to control lice and worms in chickens

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• Ethan Rivers, UK-based Cream Legbar breeder

  Cream Legbars are one of the most sought-after chicken varieties among those of us who love coloured eggs. They’re also one of the more complicated chickens to breed well. That’s why I went straight to the source, to the Cream Legbar’s home country of the UK where they were originally created at Cambridge University. There I found experienced Cream Legbar breeder Ethan Rivers who's been breeding the variety longer than it's even existed in Australia.  In this conversation we discuss the faults found in the variety, how to work with them and mistakes that can trip up beginner breeders. The cream gene is denoted by the abbreviation Ig — you’ll hear Ethan refer to it that way in this conversation. Another term you’ll hear is “gold, split for cream” which means a bird that is gold but carries one copy of the cream gene, hidden because it’s recessive. Is there a topic you’d like Chook to look into? A guest you’d love to hear from? Let us know by sending a note to [email protected] Loving the show? Ensure we continue by leaving a review on your podcast app.

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• 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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