Diary of a Poultry Show Novice: The State Fair Chronicles *Update*

[CheshieChick13]

I'm sitting here still laughing....... Wow! I plan to take this venture myself. I have been trying to figure out where exactly to start.... NPIP Cert is my next step.
I am waiting till I get some of my own stock from my birds before I make the leap into the realm of competition

Best of luck!
~Steph

 

[Gallusfarm]

Update:

I forgot to include one thing. Like I’ve said, I learned all of what I know from books and the internet. One of the books is “The Mating and Breeding of Poultry” by Harry Lamon & Rob Slocum. This book is old, but great! It’s so interesting - the old fashioned wording that’s used. My favorite part of the book is the show prep part. He uses the word green feed a lot and said that pre-judging, it’s advisable to not give any beef scrap. Funny how these days you don’t just keep beef scrap on you! Anyway, one thing they mentioned is that it’s OK to use a little bit of coconut oil on the feathers after bathing (not too much). We just so happened to have a bottle of coconut oil that I’d planned on using to make soap. I noticed that their tail feathers had that separated look – you know the look I’m talking about… A little dab of coconut oil smoothed them out and brought them together nicely. I wonder if you can use hair mousse or gel? Might try that out one day… LOL

Judging Day:

Sat morning we wake up and head back to the fair, making sure we’re there before the judging. They looked fine; didn’t need to use the baby wipes we’d brought. I thought for sure they’d have poo on their feet – but they looked good. I added more shavings, just in case they had a loose stool so the judge wouldn’t get it on them…

So the judging is at 10 and the secretary told us the night we dropped them off that they would close the tent for the judging (I hope not since yes, it’s hot as can be again!!)… I figured they would just close it off to the public (and us) during judging. So we left and went to breakfast. We got back around 11, and the judge was still making his rounds, judging the bantams at this time. There were a lot of folks walking around – guess they didn’t close the tent off after all. But it’s a good thing we weren’t there while they were being judged. It would have been too stressful… I thought if we placed in the American class, we would have done something. Again, there were some nice (real) BRs and RIRs, and nice looking Wyandottes. Not like we were going against hatchery birds… I can’t believe I used the word “real”. That kind of makes me sound pretentious and that is so not me. I just mean that they are the birds that meet the standard…

So we walked over to their cages, and saw that the roo had a circled # 1 on his card, and so did the pullet. But the pullet also had more writing on her card. BB (best of breed), BV (best of variety- in our case there is only one variety). This wasn’t surprising, since one of our 2 had to get this, since they were the only 2 Dominiques in the show. Then there was Res. Champ. American written on there. What???? I couldn’t believe it – that was really something. Then also, there was Res. Champ. LF… Thanks to the internet site of how to read cage cards, I knew this was something good. I had to explain it to husband. This meant that out of all of the large fowl birds (all classes) she was 2nd. Well were proud parents! A gorgeous White Wyandotte hen won Champion.

See how bad she's panting?


This is where poultry shows are different than most other competitions you may know… It’s weird, because after they are judged, you immediately know if you won or not. It’s not like it’s kept a secret with the grand reveal at the end.

We really enjoyed the Jr. showmanship competition, which the judge started when he finished with the open group… I forgot to mention that Open Poultry means anyone can enter a bird… As opposed to Youth, or Junior Division. At least that’s what it’s like at the fair. Not sure about other shows. We learned a lot while watching the showmanship. Man, were those kids cute!! They really loved their birds as well. Sidebar: we don’t have and at this point can’t have kids, so animals are our babies… But if we did have kids, I could totally see me pushing them toward showing chickens…

So for the better part of the day we hung around the poultry tent. A lot of people walked through. It was cool, because a lot of people commented on our birds and a lot took photos. It was great being able to talk to them about the Dominique as a breed. We talked to a lot of people who would like to have chickens, but for one reason or another can’t…

Then we went out to enjoy the rest of the fair, and we stopped by to say bye to our babies and then we went home. I couldn’t wait to get them home, out of those tiny cages, out of the heat! Thee poor girl was panting excessively all day – it was so hot. Forgot to mention that she started singing the egg song before we left to walk around, and when we got back she’d laid an egg. Must not have been too stressful, I guess. I really hope kids or even adults were around to see her lay it. That would have been neat to see, I’m sure.

Homecoming:

The next day (Sun) we couldn’t pick them up until 8 p.m. We didn’t feel like hanging out there during the day, so we just showed up at 8 sharp. When we went into the tent, the roo was in his cage with a blue 1st place ribbon (not sure what this was about) I guess it’s first place for cockerel? Didn’t think about asking, because then we saw our girl Chloe on champion row, with a ribbon and a big banner that read Reserve Grand Champion in Show. This was a surprise! I guess the judge went back and evaluated all of the birds in the show to determine the grand champions of show. The white Wyandotte was the Grand Champion in Show. We chatted to the poultry club folks and they gave us info on the next show that they’re having in Nov. It supposed to be really big – maybe 1,000 birds! I don’t know if we’ll go. Well we’ll definitely go, but I don’t know if we’ll enter… I found out that Chloe’s comb is too beefy and there have been some other critiques of her on this site since the judging… I figure we just got lucky and with it being a fair there wasn’t a lot of competition, etc. Beginners luck probably figures in there somewhere.

And that’s the story of my first poultry show.

 

[muddyhorse]

wow great job!!!!! don't discount your win a reserve at a state fair is nothing to sneeze at

 

[WisconsinChickenWhisperer]

Wow! Great job! Congratulations!

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

We got to know a lot of people that attend the same shows as we do. We all keep an eye on each others birds and it has worked so far. There is usually one or two people that stay behind to watch the birds if we all go out to dinner or lunch during a 2 day show. The show hall closes at a certain time on Sat night and we lock our cages with hog rings or zip ties….makes it a little more trouble for someone to get into the cage, but it can still happen.

 

[Catstar68]

WOW! Congrats!!!!! You must be so proud!

 

[averytds]

Quote:

Congrats!

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

Fantastic job birds (and people

)!

 

[FourPawz]

I don’t know if we’ll go. Well we’ll definitely go, but I don’t know if we’ll enter… I found out that Chloe’s comb is too beefy and there have been some other critiques of her on this site since the judging…

Just my personal opinion, but you really might want to consider entering, if nothing else because you have a heritage breed that's rare. You are giving people a chance to see as many examples of the breed as possible. As far as Chloe's faults, no matter what anyone says, the perfect show quality animal of any species just doesn't exist. Actually, if you get to have her compared to others of the breed, you should be able to get a better feel for what you can do to improve your stock, or you may find another person who might be interested in helping you or for that matter, someone who might be interested in purchasing birds from you at some point down the road. Getting a number of opinions from experienced judges is how you learn.

 

[Gallusfarm]

Quote:
Awww. That is well said, FourPawz... Thanks! And thanks to the rest of ya'll as well...