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Not telling you what you should do -- just sharing what we did:
When we decided to get chickens, we decided to let the kids pick out their own breed. We wanted to make this a family activity & by them having their own, they're more "invested" in this with us. We found Henderson's breed chart & showed the kids.
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html It has links to feathersite for pictures of each breed. Sammy picked Silkies because they're pretty & she's such a girl! We found a breeder who let us buy a nice little starter flock of BBS for 6 to 10 bucks each. I also hatched white silkie eggs I bought from breeders online. Noah was a different story altogether... he chose Red Dorkings because they're very rare & a friendly, docile breed. When I realized how hard they were to find, I told him to pick another breed. I thought that he wanted a rare chicken because it's "rare" like certain pokemon cards. Boy was I wrong. At 9 years old, he explained to me that they were on the critical breeds list & he didn't want them to become extinct! Well, how exactly do you argue with that?! I certainly couldn't... and if I had, he had thoroughly researched the breed on his own & could've argued his point. I had eggs shipped from Arizona for him. While I was looking for his eggs & waiting for them to hatch, we bought a bunch of different breeds -- including an EE -- from people on craigslist. The EE is the only bird we've kept from the CL purchases & we use her as a layer.
Our county doesn't have a 4H poultry group, so the kids showed in open class at the state fair. They both did very well, even though Noah had a bird DQed for color. We spent a lot of time in the poultry building & because of their research & friendliness, I got to listen to them telling people about all of our birds. It really made me proud. They were also able to identify faults & DQs in other birds. We saw many that were either mixed breeds or hatchery birds DQed. It happens every year.
Noah really wants to do 4H poultry, so I'll be driving him to the next county for meetings -- about 45 minutes each way. His commitment to his Dorkings is awsome! All the chickens love him. His favorite girl follows him like she's a pup -- sometimes right into the kitchen! He's interested in genetics so I'm going to do a breeding project with him. He's a real science kind of a kid... he plays with the chicken genetics calculator like it's a videogame!
I guess my point is that if they're given access to information about different breeds, kids may surprise you!
A lot of breeders would gladly help out a kid in 4-H by giving a nice discount. My silkie breeder friend
gave a 4-H kid at the fair a winning trio of Bantam Cochins because her "mutt" chicken was DQed. I don't understand why some people are against breeders.... we're not all bad! Some breeders are 11 year old kids!
I am a 4-H poultry leader, and I love this story!! It made my chin quiver!!
Please tell your son that his dedication to his breed is an inspiration, and I wish that some adults were as dedicated as he is!
Thanks!!! I'm blushing! Noah will be thrilled to hear this.
I wish that more people had his dedication too! He's only 11, but is already hoping to go to Cornell University. We were discussing his breeding project earlier & he asked if he should keep his notes for when he applies to college! By then, he'll probably have already done great things.
