4-H Poultry

[CrxyChickLdy]

Hi, I am wondering if anyone else out there is in charge of their Poultry Barn during the fair? A friend of mine and I are in charge of the Poultry Barn (She's Open Class & I'm 4-H). In the past, we have had a "chicken thief" come through our poultry barn and steal birds from the 4-H cages. Never from the open class cages - just 4-H. So the last two years we have used zip ties to lock the cages. This created a huge zip tie mess on the floor to clean up as well as becoming SUPER expensive for the barn. I estimate we went through about 8000 zip ties last year. I was thinking of locking carabiners for all the cages this year but those again seem pretty expensive. Granted - it might be a one time cost if everyone turns them back in at the end of the fair but still a big cost. I am wondering if anyone else has had issues at their fair and what they did to mitigate it. We do have Security that wander around our fairgrounds and keep an eye out, but there are times the barn is packed or we are busy and we just can't all watch every bird all the time. Any input would be appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Why don’t you tell the people to bring their own locks to lock their chickens in the cages?

 

[PirateGirl]

What if you purchase a quantity of locks that participants have an option to buy? Put out something with the registration info that they should bring their own lock and if they cannot, that there will be a limited quantity for sale. You could return any that you don't sell.

 

[MROO]

What kind of low-life steals from KIDS!?!

 

[nataliewipf]

Why don’t you tell the people to bring their own locks to lock their chickens in the cages?

I agree. Tell anyone who registers to show that they MUST supply their own locks due to thefts of birds AND get your own roving security for your building- even if it's parents that offer to patrol for a few hrs at a time. SHAME on whoever took birds from 4h kids that's lowwwwwwwwwww

 

[MROO]

So far, we've only done local, one-day shows, even for our County and State Fairs, so my birds never stay overnight at the shows. One of our team is always camped out right there in front of or beside the pens. So far, so good.

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

This reminds me of what the reason we use zip ties for the rabbit and poultry cages at our local county fair.

A few years back, they had an exotic animal guy who would bring giant snakes and let you get pictures with them ect. I guess one night he went into the rabbit/poultry barn and plucked out a whole litter of baby rabbits and FED them to his snakes!!!!

No need to say, he was banned from the fair after this.

You have no idea how mad I was when I heard this. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t meet him. Who knows what I would do or say to him. I can’t even express how furious it made me!!!