STARTING OUT IN SHOW POULTRY

A common question beginners ask is advice on what breeds to keep. The best way to answer this would be to visit shows and make your own choice. When inspecting the exhibits it would
be wise to ask breeders, showman & judges the advantages and difficulties of varieties that please your eye. It is best to avoid the rarer breeds/varieties when starting off as stock is harder to obtain, and is likely to be of doubtful quality. They will also receive little competition in shows and judges
may be unfamiliar with them thus not assessing them properly.

I would recommend a breed that lays well and make good mothers. This way you don’t have to get a separate breed to hatch the eggs or buy an expensive incubator. Despite this the beginner is most likely to do best with a variety that he/she most admires, so long as they obtain good stock and are
not easily disheartened by early set-backs.

A common mistake made by most beginner’s is to keep too many kinds. Concentrate on one or two breeds at first and don’t add another until you have gained experience on the first. This is the best advice in the world, but seldom followed.

OPEN RANGE VS CONFINED EGGS

Do you know the difference in open range eggs and confined eggs? Not many people do, it sounds good open range chickens running all over. Where do you think the chickens lay their eggs? How long do you think they lay out in the pasture before they are collected? I don’t much care for how they treat caged hens either, but most people have been buying caged eggs for years and they never complained about it. In confined layers they are not fertile eggs, in open range poultry they could be fertile. Open range eggs cost more because you have to hire twice the amount of people to collect the eggs. confined eggs roll down a line for a couple of people to collect.

All confined chicken are only confined to laying for one year. Open range poultry do have a better life to wonder and forage for bugs and grass but both confined and open range both get the same bagged feed. We confine our show poultry for one month prior to shows, they do lay inside. We do not like how confined poultry are treated but we do not think that open range eggs should be dollar or more than confined eggs.How do you now that they are truly open range poultry? We do not. We do know that either of the two are not as fresh as if you had your own egg layers. Their are too many people that want to make a profit from using words like open range or organic or lower cholesterol. Just something for you the people to think about. All we want is for you to think about things and ask yourself which is better for you and your family.

Delaware

Who new that a four month old bird could out eat every other fully grown bird? They where the cornish cross of the 1950’s. They are a very meaty bird and love to watch you work, very good people bird. The roosters are a little more aggressive and very pretty for a white bird with black markings. We do have these birds for sale

Ohio Nationals

Ohio Nationals will be coming up in November and is a great place to go and visit with other poultry folk. We will be going to try and add to our own flock, this is a great place to buy and sell poultry. hope to see you their.

our next show

Connersville Indiana in october will be our next show before we go to the Ohio Nationals hope to see you their

Black Cochins no more

Well today is the last day that the Rusty Pumpkin will have black cochins. We will be switching to the partridge cochin wich is a better looking and quality line than the blacks that we had. Our new line will show this blood line at our next coming show.Out with the old and in with the new.

What a Way to End the Day

Our day came to a close with the Home Baked Pie Auction and Barrel Auction. A barrel is actually a trash can that’s converted into an amazing work of art.

This trash can sold for $110.00 while the top home baked pie brought in a whopping $190.00.

Needless to say we came home without a pie!

And it’s with this awesome work of art, that I’m going to call it a day.

Thanks so much for allowing me to share our big 4-H adventure and 1st Poultry competition with all of you.

G’nite!

This is What an Overall Best in Show Looks Like

The Overall Grand Champion of this years 4-H Fair Poultry competition is Holly. Holly is Presley’s prize bird. This is called a Splash Silkie Bantam.

Pretty darn cute, isn’t she? Her sister Paris Hilton didn’t do nearly as well. I think it must have been the bars or something. She seemed depressed.

poultry washing

To get ready for a show you need to wash your birds, you will need 3 tubs and a 4th tub if you have white birds. Fill your tubs with warm water , in the first tub you need to add a show guality soap,seven (bug killer) and borax.

In the second tub filled with water you need to add vinagar.

Your third tub should be just plain water. If you have white bird you will need your 4th tub filled with water and add a small amount of bluing.

O.K. now that you have you tubs filled you are ready to wash. Now get your first bird and grab him with one hand under his body and the other over his wings.

Now slowly dip him into the water making sure his head is not below water level. You want to wet them down good and always rub with the feathers not against them.

Now making sure that you have washed legs, feet and all other part really well place your hand under him and over his wing and take him to your second tub wich has the vinegar in it.

The vinegar helps to gat the soap out of the feathers. Make sure to rinse the bird really well at this tub.You really do not have to rub just make sure the water reaches the skin.

Now to the 3 tub wich is just plain water, repeat the same thing as in the second tub.

If you have colured birds you are done get a towel and get as much moister off as you can. If you have birds that are fluffy like Cochins and Silkies they need to be dried with a hair drier. Now if you have all white birds they need to be taken to the 4th tub with bluing in it.

Repeat the same method as with rinsing. MAKE SURE NOT TO ADD TO MUCH BLUING AS THIS WILL TURN YOUR BIRDS BLUE, oNLY A FEW DROPS. Towel dry and keep your birds in a draft free room to dry. it takes about 2 days for your birds to dry all of the way. Now you are ready to so and good luck

Chicken Resources

Go to the link below for great poultry breed info. It has the following info on great place to learn about your breed or one you would like to own before you buy; Breed
(with links to other sites with images and more information)

Varieties / Rarity / What’s a hen weigh?

Class and Type

Origins

Egg color & productivity; egg size

Comb / Skin color / Earlobes

Brooding
Hardiness
Maturing

Behavior

go to this link;www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html#p