4-H: how to prepare for meat bird showing?

[albsure]

I enrolled two of our kids in meat bird class at this year's 4-H.
Anybody have pointers on how to prepare paired meat birds for showing?
Of course they're shown live, not "prepared for the table"... ;-)

Our birds are 7 weeks old, and show is next week. I figure to start llightly cleaning them daily and see how they do.

 

[brahmabreeder]

When picking out your pen of meat birds you want birds that are similar. You also want a really wide well carried back breast. The judges also like a bird that has nice feather condition. I personally would pick out the birds that are going to the fair now if you haven't already. Then wash then real good and keep their pen nice and clean. If you want you can wash them a few days before the show too. Just don't mess with them too much because their skin is fragile. Found that out a few years ago. It was the day of the show and we just washed the birds. My dad and I looked at the one and noticed it was acting weird. So we take it out of the cage, look it over and it's bone was sticking out on it's wing. The judge never took points off for that though. Good luck at the fair.
Experience- five years showing meat chickens at the fair. Won grand champion,reserve champion,and best of show.

 

[albsure]

Thanks for the notes of experience!

What do you mean by "back breast"? Do you mean back and breast? That would make more sense to me...

 

[brahmabreeder]

You also want a really wide well carried back breast. Meaning that the breast should be nice and wide and stay that way until you reach the the back end of the bird. You want it to be like a rectangle.