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The fall show in Hutch? I and most testers I know provide the bands. If your interested in becoming one, it's renewal time for PT tester licenses in KS. Everything's online now too. If not, best to start locating a tester now.
We just make sure everyone's tested and in best possible condition. We do cage train, but that has more to do with the bird not freaking out and injuring itself and/or messing up it's feathers. All the extra handling has to do with my kids using certain birds for showmanship rather than the judge's handling. We make sure nails and spurs are trimmed and blunt, other than that we figure the judge can handle himself. Just in your show prep and cage training you'll handle the bird about the same and they should be fine. Mainly he'll take it out, examine and put back. Unless he sees something he doesn't like right off the bat.
I wouldn't sweat to much not your own breeding, especially now. You are just starting out, raised from chicks, decided who to take to show and did the necessary prep. Someone else could start with chicks from the same hatch and have an entirely different outcome. Not the same as what I would deem a "show ready" bird.
Thanks for the reply! Actually, not the Hutch show, but Sedalia, MO. I checked on NPIP testers. The person the county gave me as a contact I was unable to reach. The number had been disconnected or changed. The closest one listed on the KSU site was in Holton. Since it was so easy to take the test, I went ahead and took the test and passed it. I am waiting for a response from the state at this point. I've ordered legbands from Smith poultry, and they should be here this week.
I have several empty cages that I could use to isolate them a little and work on handling them more, but I am also making plans to build a double decker set of cages. The top one would have a solid floor (I have a 7' kichen countertop I think I will use, and the bottom one would be a vinyl coated wire floor. I think I will put two on top and two on the bottom.
My sis thinks I'm jumping in too fast, but I feel like I have to start somewhere, and right now my enthusiasm is really high, so I feel like I will go ahead and pursue it.
I know what you mean about chicks from the same "hatch" not showing the same depending on how they are raised. We had this very thing happen with my kids. There was a breeder (judge) that brought a trio of his best bantams to a swap meet to a 4-H family that ordered them. He brought along his second best trio that he wanted to sell. We saw them and immediately bought them. Later that year at the county fair my son's birds beat the others that had been deemed 'better'. They didn't even look like the same birds and it was a "no contest." I'm not sure what had happened but the other birds were dull and dingy, bleached out looking. It was noticeable, even to an untrained eye. I know conditioning works, I've just not done much of it. I've always just tried to use good animal husbandry, so I know that is the first step.
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