Ponderosa Pine Poultry, Winston, GA (2026)

07/27/2023

This is Cam Floyd and I’m the owner of Ponderosa Pine Poultry.

I haven’t announced this publicly yet as it has just been a very hard decision to deal with.

Unfortunately, we will not be breeding poultry anymore.

If you didn’t know, I am the Culinary Liaison/Partner of a restaurant group in Atlanta and we have multiple restaurants to focus on. I am also one of the founders of the largest farmers market in West Ga MAES Farmer’s Market, founder of the Farmer Partner Organization, and the Chairman of the Young Farmers & Ranchers for the Georgia Farm Bureau in our county. I am focused on legislation but also boots on the ground studies and support in Agriculture. I also host harvest days where we visit farms and teach farmers how to process their animals. Additionally, I am focused and invested in raising our hogs for our restaurants along with Ray Baker at his farm Bedgood Heritage Farm - The Natural Way

I say all of this to say, for the last year, as my life has developed and evolved into AG, my priorities have been shifted. Given that the focus on the restaurants only affords me one off day a week, I’ve been facing the choice of tending to my poultry for the day, or being a father and husband.

My dream has been to be one of the best BLRW breeders there is but as of now, I have to shift my focus. Our BLRW have been sent to a friend that I am confident will continue to breed towards SOP and not use them to chase a dollar. And I’ll be with him every step of the way and even take them to shows if he can’t. My BLRW were my passion and it kills me to let them go, but the priorities in life leave no choice.

My large fowl Cochins will also be going to a friend I am confident will care for them. I have over $20,000 invested in my birds and quite frankly, could care less to make a dime on them which is why I chose the homes they went to. Homes that would respect these breeds for what they are and continue my efforts.

My investment in my birds is far less than the cost of not being there for my children or my wife on the already limited time I have to give them.

My focus is to continue my efforts in AG and being a voice for our farmers, make our farmers markets even bigger, and to dramatically grow the Farmer Partner Organization.

Raising my birds has certainly been a journey. But the more I’ve grown and developed in my journey with AG, the more I’ve begun to realize that there’s so many out there that need me more than I need my birds.

For now, our poultry days are over. I am confident and trust I made the right decision in giving them to someone that if I decide to breed again, I’ll know exactly where to go to get my lines. I will still keep our geese, ducks, sheep and goats as they are much more self sufficient.

One thing I do know, is most may take raising a breed like BLRW for show as a joke or maintain a “they’re just chickens” mindset, but for me, they were at the forefront of my mind every day. Constantly thinking about genetics and which bird’s color genes would affect the outcome of the next. From tracking the genetics of each bird and what they would pass on, to figuring out how to prevent one bad gene from continuing, breeding them was a major point of my life and my pride.

I have all the time in the world to breed poultry, but I am certainty on borrowed time to be a father and a husband. Even more so on borrowed time to be there for our farmers. At my age, my small window of impact on our community of farmers gets smaller every day.

If I have to sacrifice a passion of mine to support another, and the other has a larger impact, I’m going to do it. No matter how wrong it feels. And trust me, letting my Wyandottes go feels like the worst decision of my life. But I know it’s the best decision for so many other lives. Like the lives of my family.

The journey has so much further to go.

Cheers and much love.

07/18/2023

Very pleased with these grow outs so far!

06/28/2023

SCAM

06/26/2023

The left is Kobu that we’ve decided to keep. He is the son to Kodah on the right. We’re happy to see he’s kept some of the qualities and did not keep some of his negatives. So far, his comb is much better, body shape is tighter but fuller all around, color is very saturated in his neck the way we want it, better leg color and his tail is much wider than his fathers. We hoping he continues on a positive path as he matures but we’ve never had an offspring from Koda positively develop this fast and show this much potential at this age.

06/25/2023

Jacob Vickers of Ridge Top Poultry made the over 500 mile drive for this guy yesterday. We don’t normally offer this breed to many but it’s great to see his dedication and commitment to the breed. It was hard decision to let him go but we are grateful to assist Jacob in his next adventure of assisting all of us in bettering this breed. We felt this roo was the right choice for him since he has lighter blue BLRW hens and he can now begin his foundation flock to focus on body type while controlling the color genetics much better. By putting a darker roo with lighter hens, he may end up with more darker offspring than not, but this allows the ability to make the right selections and it’s much easier to achieve a lighter plumage than to push in darker genetics. Overall, we’re grateful to make another connection and support another breeder that respects this breed instead of attempting to be another hatching egg ju**ie.

Thank you Jacob for committing to the drive and the investment in this roo! We hope to see him and his offspring in upcoming poultry shows soon!

06/23/2023

We finally decided on a name for these flipper puppies. Meet Mezcal & Cointreau!

06/08/2023

It’s interesting to evaluate these two gents side by side. Same parents but hatched a few months apart. The light blue cockerel is only a few months.

The right cockerel has a much better head and a body type we don’t hate and am kind of interested in. Currently has a rounded chest but not much body underneath that and coming around and under to his tail. The ridge of his back sort of goes down from the neck, curbed slightly and shoots back up and over his smaller tail. We’re not super fond of his coloring either with his mahogany leaning more towards red. However, his has some width showing on him so that and his head structure are positives.

His brother, is an exact image of the father roo only he already is showing more positives. Light blue plumage, rich mahogany, and dark blue neck feathers with lacing. No shafting has shown yet, so far his comb is looking great as long as it continues to grow back and lie down, and his tail is coming in really wide. Though he looks like he has a long back now, it seems his head and neck haven’t grown into his body quite yet. At the same time, he currently does not have as nice a head and it could be more rounded. Both have low wing sets at the moment but that could change once they have more hip and thigh development as they age.

Either way, these are all just pros and cons and you just have to consider all of them and if the pros benefit your breeding programs, or if the cons will set you back.

06/07/2023

We spent the day yesterday evaluating our BLRW birds. Now that our foundation roo, Koda has moved on to another breeder, it’s time for his grandsons and great grandsons to move into other breeder coops. While there’s still a lot of work to do, we’re grateful for some consistency in body type, color, natural leg color, lacing and a few other positives but there’s still some negatives to focus on as well. Combs will always be an issue to focus on even though we have multiple Roos with straight, single leader smooth tongue combs. And even some of the nicer leaders may turn a bit towards the end or not lay down as much as we’d like and some can look perfect one week, and begin to have ridges form the next. Either way, body type has been the main focus for show and really pushing attention in this area has helped us more than anything. We’re really happy with the splash hens that are being produced with nice mahogany instead of brass and rounded bodies and the blue hens are all producing nice blues. Our focuses now are (always body type first) continuing efforts fighting shafting though we don’t see it often anymore, and pairing breeding coops with the right color genetics. All of our splash, light blue, or even weaker laced blues are being paired with my black laced cockerels. And the darker blue hens are being paired with the light blue cockerel son. He’s not ready to breed yet so we figure it will give those hens some time to rest for the season until he’s ready. Plus we need the time to keep watching him but he’s seemingly on the right path to stay. We also have a full grow out pen of others with potential. There’s two cockerels here that we kept back from the exact same hatch and same parents so it’s interesting to see the major differences in them. One is the lighter blue cockerel that looks exactly like his father, Koda when he was younger although his hackle feathers are much darker. The second cockerel is 11th photo which has a completely different body and tail structure, and we’re not super happy with how his mahogany hasn’t stayed a rich brown and is starting to lighten. Not too happy with his comb either. Neverthe less, he’s one to continue to watch and see if he’s pros outweigh his cons, and if we have a hen that has pros strong enough to breed him with for a good outcome.

06/05/2023

Today we finally took the drive to Mountain View Chicken! E Dale Ridgeway and us are working on a partnership to create a Pine Mountain Bloodline. Dale purchased chicks and even grow outs from us a long time ago from Koda. He now has sons, daughters, and grandchildren from Koda so it’s only fitting to give Koda to him to breed back to his offspring. We spent the afternoon sifting through every bird he has and discussing every pro and con from leg color, body shape, comb, shafting, etc. We set up some breeding coop plans and generational breeding plans so I’m hopeful for this bloodline’s future!

It’s a hard day to see our favorite bird I’ve ever had go, but it’s for a better cause to continue perfecting this breed.

Ponderosa Pine Poultry

07/27/2023

07/18/2023

06/28/2023

06/26/2023

06/25/2023

06/23/2023

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06/05/2023

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