Showing Chickens
“In the summer of 1990, I got a phone call. It was my mentor, Dick Holmes, a master breeder of poultry, saying that Clint Grimes couldn’t care for his own birds any longer. He had had a bad turn of health and couldn’t leave all the work to his wife, and someone needed to go there ‘tomorrow’ to pick his birds up. I was elected to make the 200-mile trip, and I arrived early that Sunday morning with every crate I could find lashed onto my pickup truck.
“It took four hours for us to catch and load them, but we found time to go over the birds he had and cull out those he felt were unsuitable for breeding stock to preserve his magnificent line.
“I had managed not to cull out any good ones, but then he grabbed the birds and told me that now he wanted to go over a few things. He picked each bird up and dug through its feathers here and there, never saying a word. Master breeders have mastered all of the basic knowledge regarding breeding for type and color. They focus their efforts on fine points and refining the strain of the breed they’re working with. Clint saw the faults in those birds, but he wasn’t going to let me in on what they were. He had me, hook, line and sinker, and it took me years to realize that the reason he never told me exactly what he was looking for was so I could figure out the finer points myself.”
—DON SCHRIDER, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, AMERICAN LIVESTOCK BREEDS CONSERVANCY
For a real taste of chicken fever, you need to attend a poultry show. At first, the sheer number of chicken breeds that exist will overwhelm you. Big, small, smooth-feathered, rough-feathered, calm and collected, jittery and frantic, funny-looking, naked, covered in fuzz, anything is possible. Then, the cacophony of sounds hits you. Loud crows, like trumpets, crows that are so ear-splitting and high that you wish you had earplugs. Hens tut-tutting about, looking for a place in their display cage to lay the inevitable egg, squabbles, squirmishes, and brawls between neighbors. It’s hard not to want every single breed you encounter.
And then there are the exhibitors themselves. Fussing over their chickens, primping this crest of feathers or that toothed comb, tapping the bird here or there to set up a pose typical of the breed, offering their birds food just at the right time to entice their birds to action for the poultry judge, willing to tell you anything you’d like to know about the best breed in the world—the one that they are showing.
A Bantam Belgian D’Uccle rooster eats while waiting for the judging.
The advent of exhibiting poultry may have started out as simply as five guys at a bar, asking the barkeep to decide whose hen was the best, but in the end, they became the trade shows of the poultry industry. Breeders exhibited to advertise their best birds, drumming up business for their lines of poultry and interest in their breeds. E. B. Thompson showed his champion Barred Plymouth Rocks at Madison Square Garden in the early 1900s, and for years no one won a prize in that category but Thompson. If you wanted Barred Plymouth Rocks, you went to him.
Today, poultry shows are a way to keep diversity in poultry breeds alive. In this accelerated era of information, preserving poultry genetics is essential. Our poultry production in the past 50 years has been completely dismantled and redesigned and may not be sustainable enough to take us through the next 200 years. Better quality feeds have emphasized production of hybrids that don’t need to forage on pasture to feed themselves. While these hybrids are faster-growing meat chickens and more productive laying hens, they are becoming less genetically diverse and therefore more prone to disease. Thinner gastrointestinal walls, designed to absorb nutrients more efficiently, have also left them more prone to bacterial uptake and danger of infection. Confinement to cages for laying and to open-air barns for meat production are the present technology, but we need the diversity of poultry breeds to ensure our ability to switch our management practices if we need to.
Judge Jerry Yeaw of Scituate, Rhode Island, inspects a Bantam Old English white pullet while clerk Kyle Yacobucci of Palatine Bridge, New York, takes notes. Yeaw said he’s been involved in the showing, breeding, and judging of chickens for nearly 70 years.
Chicken Scratch
In 2000, my husband and I traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to see the largest, most popular poultry show in the United States. We bought a black Minorca cockerel; on the 800-mile drive home, explaining his presence in the back seat of the Toyota sedan to the patrolman who pulled me over for speeding got me out of a ticket.
For a truly spectacular show, make the trip. It’s held each year in early November, by the Ohio State Poultry Breeder’s Association (www.ohionational.org). If you can’t make the Columbus show, there are also shows on the East and West Coasts. Just Google “poultry shows,” and you’ll find locations and dates for shows in your area. If you decide to enter a show, you’ll need to choose an event and apply for the show schedule. This will give you an entry form and all the pertinent information you need to be on time for your event.
Not only is breeding and exhibiting poultry an important component of preserving a diverse variety of breeds, it is also an ideal way to introduce young people to the joys of keeping chickens. Exhibiting teaches responsibility for living creatures and attention to detail.
Calvin Rambacher, 5, cuddles with Little Smurf, a Blue Andalusian hen, during the showmanship competition. It was Rambacher’s second time showing his chicken.
If you’d like to enter the world of exhibiting poultry, you should stick to some simple rules.
• Concentrate on a single breed—don’t catch chicken fever. Each breed has different management requirements and conditioning strategies. If you spread yourself too thinly, you’ll end up with a bunch of barnyard classics—glorified mutts that may be cute to look at, but don’t serve much purpose in preserving the diversity of chicken breeds.
• Use the Standard of Perfection to select desirable traits for your breed.
• Align yourself with a fellow exhibitor or master breeder (someone who has earned a certain number of points at shows and is considered an expert by his or her peers in breeding poultry). If they see real interest in an individual, they are usually more than happy to pass on the secrets of success (everyone wants his or her work to be carried on to the next generation).
Judge Paul Kroll of East Aurora, New York, gives a lesson to young exhibitors about showing and judging chickens. After Kroll judged the small number of birds, the kids were to take their turn to see how they compared.
• Learn to be a modest winner and a gracious loser. Don’t enter sick, lousy, mite-infested, or injured birds. It will reflect poorly on you and your management decisions.
• Don’t complain about the judging. If you’re upset about the outcome of a show, go home and gripe about it to your best friend, your parents, or your spouse. They might be able to have insightful, constructive criticism about your next attempt.
• Be practical. Eat your culls, and if you decide instead to make them into pets, pick good ones that are tame and personable. Don’t cast off your poor birds on others that have come to you for representatives of the breed.
Raising a Winning Bird
A bantam White Silkie rooster is ready for judging at the Northeastern Poultry Congress’s annual Poultry Show at the Eastern States Exposition Center in West Springfield, Massachusetts.
If you’ve decided to raise your own birds from your own breeding stock, it’s best to start with breeders that you’ve purchased from a reputable source. Barred Plymouth Rocks, for example, have been managed for egg production at the expense of their plumage. If you try to enter a Barred Plymouth Rock that you’ve purchased from a hatchery that sells laying stock, your bird may not be considered show quality. Consulting the opinion of an experienced exhibitor is the best course of action. They’ll be able to explain the correct type required for your breed (not just its color, but its correct weight and size, the shape, slope, and carriage of its body and its tail, its feather quality, the shape of its comb and the overall behavioral characteristics associated with the particular breed).
“It is worth bearing in mind that any birds you hope to show seriously will require a more pampered existence than most domestic birds enjoy.”
–Chris Graham, in Choosing and Keeping Chickens, 2006
Exhibitors speak of a bird’s bloom, or its overall health and cleanliness. Obviously, a bird that is old or molting would not be a good candidate for show. There are various trade secrets to bringing a bird to this peak of perfection. Following is a list of some more common conditioning secrets:
• Feed your birds 60% dark leafy greens. Don’t allow them to eat so much that they develop loose stools. Don’t allow your birds to forage for the greens; sunlight will bleach the feathers, or turn them a reddish hue. Instead, two months before the show, move them to their own pen, inspect them closely for body parasites and broken feathers, and get them used to the pen or coop that is similar to the one they will be exhibited in.
• Animal protein is considered essential for optimum bloom. While breeders and show birds should be fed a maintenance diet of 18 to 20% protein for optimum plumage, some breeders also supplement with other animal proteins. These can be as simple as dry cat food or as specialized as Tizz Whiz Sho Glo, a prepared protein supplement made up of 90% triglycerides and rice bran oil. Cod liver oil is also a good source of animal protein.
• Sunflower seeds, wheat germ, and probiotics (whey milk or yogurt products) are also sometimes used to condition birds.
• Vinegar added to the drinking water is said to change the pH in the chicken’s digestive tract and act to attract beneficial microbes for digestion while warding off coccidia.
• If you’re raising white varieties or white-wattled breeds like Minorcas, Spanish, or Leghorns, don’t feed them corn; it tends to impart a brassy color to their plumage.
How to Wash a Chicken for Show
Believe it or not, most chickens get baths before their shows. Light-colored birds always need washing, while darker, tightly feathered birds may not need dousing unless they’re heavily soiled. Most exhibitors like to wash their birds at least three or four days before the show, so that the natural oils have returned and out-of-place feathers can be repaired.
A bathroom or laundry room sink is ideal to wash your bird in; it’s not drafty, it’s at the right height, and you have access to water that is warm (around 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit).
Use only mild shampoo, like baby or hypoallergenic shampoo. Some people prefer to put the shampoo directly into the water for a bubble-bath effect and then put the bird in up to its neck feathers. Others like to put just 3 or 4 inches of water in the basin and wet the feathers down then apply the shampoo directly to the bird. However you decide to do it, use calmness and quietness so that the process does not scare the bird. I like to place my hand under both wings, cupping the breast, gently lowering the bird into the water. When you wash the feathers, don’t go against them; work from the head back toward the tail, paying special attention to the vent, legs, and feet. An old toothbrush works great to brush the scales of the legs and feet clean. After shampooing, drain the basin and fill it with warm water again to thoroughly rinse off the bird. Then remove most of the water from the feathers by hand, carefully squeezing them and then towel-drying. A blow-dryer set at a low setting is handy for fluffing up the feathers and keeping the birds from becoming chilled.
Cody Schwieger, 8, of Strafford, New Hampshire, has a calming effect on his chicken—a black-breasted red Old English Game—while waiting his turn in the Pee Wee Showmanship Competition.
You can finish grooming the bird by gently wrapping it in a towel and working on its comb, face, and wattles. A little baby oil, vitamin E oil, or olive oil can be rubbed into the fleshy areas, keeping care not to soil the feathers. A toothpick or cotton swab can be used to clean around the bird’s nostrils and ears.
Bucket, a Polish Crested pullet, is one of the cherished chickens owned by Brianne Riley and Matthew Taylor, because she survived an overly enthusiastic greeting from one of the couple’s dogs. Bucket now visits school classes with Riley.
Preparing Your Bird for Cooping
Any bird that has not been introduced to the confinement of the show pen will be a disaster in the exhibition hall. Not only will the sights and sounds be overwhelming, but the small cage alone is enough to unsettle the bird.
Because chickens love routines and hate surprises, it’s a good idea to train your bird for the show. The younger your bird is when you begin this process, the more successful you’ll both be.
You should start confining your potential exhibition birds at least two weeks prior to the show. Handling the birds at least two or three times daily will simulate the judge’s inspection of your bird. Be sure to remove your bird from the coop by cupping it under its wings near the breast and plucking it from the cage head-first. It should be returned to the coop head-first, so the wings fold back and don’t injure their feathers upon reentering. Flighty and nervous birds should be approached quietly and calmly, and if they seem distressed, give them a time-out to get used to the situation.
Every breed has a certain pose it should strike when the judge is examining it. Consulting the Standard of Perfection will help you “set up” your bird to strike these poses, and again, the help of an experienced exhibitor is invaluable.
Above all, showing your birds should be a fun event. The prizes won’t make anyone rich, but the camaraderie of fellow exhibitors and the commitment to preserving diverse breeds will make it worthwhile.
William Trickett, 13, of Mansfield, Connecticut, eats a yogurt while his brother’s Bantam White Cochin pullet sits on his lap.
Bradford Jones, 9, of Royalton, Vermont, holds a chick that was hatched by incubator.
