October 13, 2007This was our first poultry show in which we showed our birds. On the advice of our tester, we decided to show our mottled houdan hen (pictured on right). Of course, Puffy Wuffy being Buster's favorite girl, we also took her. She is a white crested black polish. We'd never been to a show and we only had two weeks to prepare. We got some insites on what to do here http://http://p098.ezboard.com/fbackyardchickensfrm33.showMessage?topicID=11.topic.
We went the night before and spent the night in beaumont. Luckily, the hotel allowed pets and we brought our birds in to do last minute crest washing, toe nail cleaning, etc. The birds normally free range and so their crests were pretty dirty. i couldn't get it to be white. next time, i'm planning on using a blueing agent.
The judging started at 9am, so we drove to the fair, registered our birds and had them in the cage by 8.30am. There were probably around 200 birds there with most of them being bantams. Our birds were large fowl (standards) and with not many of those birds there, we had a good chance of winning. Looking around at the birds there, i was amazed at how beautiful they were. Penciled birds and partridge birds, the lines on their feathers looked like they had been drawn. There were bantam polish there also, and the crests on those hens were spectacular to look at. I spoke to the gentleman who breeds those birds and was promised a call when he was ready to cull. It would be amazing to get that line into my birds. I also learned about different breeds and to my amazement, how dark a real Rhode Island Red roosters are. Instead of that reddish color, the true RIR roo is almost black. I definitely hope to get some culls from the people who brought those birds also. I hope to be able to sell more truer breeds than what is being produced at alot of the hatcheries.
Having a 5 year old, his main focus was not the chickens but the fair. After patiently waiting for me to look at all 200 birds, we went and looked at the rabbits, pigs, and cattle and then ended up at the petting zoo. Buster got to feed goats, lambs, zebras, donkeys, llamas, and saw emus and ostriches. Then we headed on to the rides.
By the time we got back to the poultry barn, they had finished giving out the ribbons and we had missed the presentation. We arrived to find a blue ribbon on the cage of the mottled houdan hen and a trophy by Puffy Wuffy and the judge presented us with a check for $26.50.
All in all, we had a great experience and look forward to the next show that will be held at Texas A&M in January. We hope to bring out houdan and polish back along with some wyondottes, frizzles, silkies, phoenix and creles.
Do you have birds you'd like to show? Come out and show off your birds! Entry fee at the beaumont show was only $1.50. And there are always alot of people at these shows who have so much knowledge and are eager to share information or answer any questions you may have.
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