Consolidated Kansas

[Hawkeye95]

I just bought the new 2010 American Standard of Perfection for Poultry. Eekks! I haven't wanted to spend that money, but finally did it since I figure I'm going to need it as the Poultry Superintendent and people are going to ask me breed specific questions that I won't know!! LOL I hope that book gets here in a speedy way! My first workshop is in 2 weeks!! I ordered from the APA-- has anyone else ordered from them? Are they fast on shipping???

 

[prairieblue]

Thanks danz!
Was wondering, has anyone seen the Backyard chickens for the White House thread under Chicken Laws and Ordinances? I thought it was a pretty cleaver idea for promoting the backyard chicken cause.

 

[cubbysan]

Checoukan-- question for you! I want to pick your brain! I am going to have two "classes" (or workshops, whatever) at the Sedgwick County Extension Office downtown Wichita. The topic is "Exhibition and Showmanship" and I'm going to spend 30 mins going over the exhibition part and another 30 mins going over the Showmanship part. I'll just touch on things and I'd like to have papers to hand out so that what ever I didn't get to, they can check over. We had ZERO kids sign up for Showmanship at our last county fair and I think it's because no one was taught how to do it and they were all scared. If I can get the kids to come to BOTH of the classes (both dates are in February-- 7th and 26th) I'm hoping I can encourage kids/parents to be more excited about it. I want to talk about your technique of flash cards and bring ours to show them. I also want to find a judge's blank form where they fill in the points for kids to earn on each section. That will be the easy part of the night.

The hard part will be explaining to the kids/parents on how to pick out birds and NOT to buy hatchery birds. How do you get that point across to your families without seeming like a chicken-nazi?? I'm not really sure how to go about it. And if I do, I will probably need some breeders around this area to make a list of people that will sell decent poultry-- better than hatchery. Doesn't have to be show quality-- just better than what I saw last year! LOL I am going to talk about feather loss, bare backs, bright eyes and signs and symptoms of disease and mites and control. But the "where to find good birds"--- what do you do????? I need ideas!!

Hawkeye95,

This sounds like something I would love to attend with my 10 year old - but Wichita is a little far. She told me last week that when we get silkies she wants to show them, of course I have no idea how to do any of this. When we first decided to go into chickens, we bought some eggs from Catdance to hatch, but we didn't have any success. The week they shipped it was 100 plus degrees, so I am sure that had something to do with it. My biggest problem is I can read these standards until I am blue in the face, but I don't understand how to interpret them, but I can definitely see the "whole picture" difference of a SQ and a pet quality.

I also belong to a golden retriever forum that many reputable show breeders belong to, and people who are not part of the show world, do not understand how every breed has a breed standard. I have gone to many dog shows as a spectator and at times brought other people, and they cannot understand why the "prettiest dog" didn't win. It so hard for them to understand that they are shown against their breed standard, not each other.

 

[checoukan]

Josie-- FUNNY about all the stuff you are wading thru. I mean, I know that can't be fun and to do all of this in winter when it's really cold out. Once you get to your new place and unpack, you could make a CraigsList pile of stuff to get rid of. Mostly, I just take everything to Goodwill because I don't have the patience.

Checoukan-- question for you! I want to pick your brain! I am going to have two "classes" (or workshops, whatever) at the Sedgwick County Extension Office downtown Wichita. The topic is "Exhibition and Showmanship" and I'm going to spend 30 mins going over the exhibition part and another 30 mins going over the Showmanship part. I'll just touch on things and I'd like to have papers to hand out so that what ever I didn't get to, they can check over. We had ZERO kids sign up for Showmanship at our last county fair and I think it's because no one was taught how to do it and they were all scared. If I can get the kids to come to BOTH of the classes (both dates are in February-- 7th and 26th) I'm hoping I can encourage kids/parents to be more excited about it. I want to talk about your technique of flash cards and bring ours to show them. I also want to find a judge's blank form where they fill in the points for kids to earn on each section. That will be the easy part of the night.

The hard part will be explaining to the kids/parents on how to pick out birds and NOT to buy hatchery birds. How do you get that point across to your families without seeming like a chicken-nazi?? I'm not really sure how to go about it. And if I do, I will probably need some breeders around this area to make a list of people that will sell decent poultry-- better than hatchery. Doesn't have to be show quality-- just better than what I saw last year! LOL I am going to talk about feather loss, bare backs, bright eyes and signs and symptoms of disease and mites and control. But the "where to find good birds"--- what do you do????? I need ideas!!

Oh, Hawkeye, you sure know how to bring back the memories!!

First, do you have open class? I mean can adults show at your fair?
What actually happened here, was we do have open class, and they had been encouraging former 4H adults, and others to enter in the fair. So I did. Well, and DD did. Thats all it took. We wiped everybody out. Nobody could beat DD. Well, people started coming up to me and asking questions. The poultry was down to about 20-25 birds total, and was not much. A lot of parents liked what I talked about, I took time to show them, and point things out to them.

Nobody else had ever taken the time to do that. Now with the back yard movement, lots of people are looking into poutry, and lots of "Town" kids are looking into 4H and they want to bring their hens.
Have to remember most of what I did to turn things around came before I was poulty and fair superintendent. Rumurs are flying around now about them me going on to the fair board. I don't know about that.
Lots of people still have the old saying in their back pocket, "Its just a chicken". That phrase has got to be stomped out!

The hatchery bird thing. You got to remember, is that some people will always go and buy hatchery stock. Let them do it, in fact you can let them know it is ok, BUT, you also have to show them, at the fair, take the time to show them the diffferences in Blue ribbon birds to white ribbon birds.

When Michelle started showing here, EVERY BIRD recieved a blue ribbon!! I was shocked!

Now you see all colors on pens. If they are not good type to the breed, what ever it may be, I tell the judge to rank the birds 1.2 or 3. I will not let the judge DQ a bird in 4H. I have some kids that bring cross breds in. WE place them in the class that they closely match. I always let the judge know what is going on, Some kids thats all they will ever have. They still get a ribbon, and premium money.
Now open class is a different story!! You better know what you are doing there, or you will get DQ'd.

Showmanship. Do you have a fax? I can send you what we use for judging. Have some practice showmanship meetings. Let the kids bring the birds, they love to show off their birds, or at least these kids do, but we have strong competion here too. We pay a premiums to the kids on showmanship for the ribbon placing, do you? Just lots of practice. Our kids even get a trophy at the award ceremony. If they got grand, and they also get the rosette.

How many trophy's do they hand out at the awards? We hand out 7, or 8, I will have to look. Kids love those small trophies Just small plastic ones with the emblem and what it was for and the year won.

 

[cubbysan]

Thanks for all the welcomes! Seems like a great community you all have created here, glad to be a part of it. As to my current flock, I have one australorp, an EE, a speckled sussex, and a blue splash marans that never splashed- she's all white. The EE and australorp are laying very well right now, the other two haven't started. But considering its winter, I'm not rushing them. They are currently living on my back porch in a temporary pen. Had a LARGE limb fall from the walnut tree over the outside coop that kinda smooshed it. I'm rebuilding, but it's slow going in the cold weather. I wanted to make it a little bigger anyway, guess that was nature's way of nudging me along. I'll see if I can put a pic up of the coop pre-limb damage. Don't have any of the smooshed coop, as my digital camera is dead and haven't gotten a new one yet.

mostly finished, haven't attached run yet

here's with run attached. Sadly the coop looks very broken now, but onward and upward- decided to make the run taller while I'm at it so I can get in to clean easier.

You setup is adorable! Sorry it got damaged, at least your chickens are okay.

 

[checoukan]

hawkeye, another thing we did, was because of the show and time constraints, we had a chicken dinner for lunch, anybody was welcome to come, just had to pay for their lunch and RSVP. We fed our judge, and then if parents, kids, who-ever had a question for the judge, that was the time they were allowed to freely to talk to the judge. It was a lot of fun, and was very popular. Really impressed some parents, when the judge would answer a question the same way you had already answered their question!!

 

[JosieChick]

Danz- Don't know what happened with your post. I laughed at your hardware store!! I started tying things to the fence for the geese to play with, they really seem to like that and of course they are free ranging today which consists of napping on the lawn right now! I put pools out for them which they are in heaven with.

Josie-- FUNNY about all the stuff you are wading thru. I mean, I know that can't be fun and to do all of this in winter when it's really cold out. Once you get to your new place and unpack, you could make a CraigsList pile of stuff to get rid of. Mostly, I just take everything to Goodwill because I don't have the patience.

I do this too!!! DH always wants to sell stuff and I just put it in a box when he isn't home and haul it to Goodwill! I don't have time to deal with people haggling or not showing up for stuff. I am at the point now where I just want to throw it into a box and label it crap!!!

The hard part will be explaining to the kids/parents on how to pick out birds and NOT to buy hatchery birds. How do you get that point across to your families without seeming like a chicken-nazi?? I'm not really sure how to go about it. And if I do, I will probably need some breeders around this area to make a list of people that will sell decent poultry-- better than hatchery. Doesn't have to be show quality-- just better than what I saw last year! LOL I am going to talk about feather loss, bare backs, bright eyes and signs and symptoms of disease and mites and control. But the "where to find good birds"--- what do you do????? I need ideas!!
I bet you could post on the facebook swap to see if you could get a list together of folks who would be willing to help. I would LOVE to help if I have birds hatched in time for kids to show this summer. A lot of my bantams grow fast and I am hoping to have some call ducks this spring too. I was a 4-H kid and I love them, so much fun for them to learn about the birds and build confidence!

Ohhh, no AOV!!!! Darn. I might be limited. I will have blue bantam cochins hopefully. The calls are butterscotch so they are not an APA color yet. The orps are black but split to lavender so they might be decent for show. Do they have to be this years hatch to show them?

That reminds me--- if anyone would like to be on my 4-H list for kids to buy good decent ACCEPTED birds in the Standard-- no AOV, please!!! Let me know! I think it's much better for the kids to start out with breeds that are not projects, but have been recognized and can be easily judged. The closer you are to Wichita, the better, but I'll take anyone, really. I'm sure parents that are really involved will travel. Also if you can think of anyone else that isn't here on BYC, let me know so I can contact them! Just PM me if you'd like to be involved in selling birds to 4-H'ers.

Oh my goodness that is darling!!!!! You could be straight out of a magazine, no wonder your neighbors love your chickens! Sorry about the limb that fell!

Thanks for all the welcomes! Seems like a great community you all have created here, glad to be a part of it. As to my current flock, I have one australorp, an EE, a speckled sussex, and a blue splash marans that never splashed- she's all white. The EE and australorp are laying very well right now, the other two haven't started. But considering its winter, I'm not rushing them. They are currently living on my back porch in a temporary pen. Had a LARGE limb fall from the walnut tree over the outside coop that kinda smooshed it. I'm rebuilding, but it's slow going in the cold weather. I wanted to make it a little bigger anyway, guess that was nature's way of nudging me along. I'll see if I can put a pic up of the coop pre-limb damage. Don't have any of the smooshed coop, as my digital camera is dead and haven't gotten a new one yet.

mostly finished, haven't attached run yet

here's with run attached. Sadly the coop looks very broken now, but onward and upward- decided to make the run taller while I'm at it so I can get in to clean easier.

Mine kinda took a while, hmm hmm hmm, to get here. But I bet yours will be here in no time flat!!! If you don't have it by next week let me know and I will start box diving. I know I just packed it the other day so it is around.

I just bought the new 2010 American Standard of Perfection for Poultry. Eekks! I haven't wanted to spend that money, but finally did it since I figure I'm going to need it as the Poultry Superintendent and people are going to ask me breed specific questions that I won't know!! LOL I hope that book gets here in a speedy way! My first workshop is in 2 weeks!! I ordered from the APA-- has anyone else ordered from them? Are they fast on shipping???

APA SOP is gibberish, that is why you can't understand them! I have a terrible time. If you get a breed to work on get in with some local breeders or on here with a breed specific thread and ask every dumb question you can think of. I just started looking at one part of the bird at a time. Solid colors are easier than patterned birds too. A lot more is going on in a patterned bird to learn about. I have self taught and been educated by good breeders by picking a place to start. For example if you decide to go the silkie route start by learning about combs. So a silkie (Hawkeye will be all over this!) is supposed to have a walnut comb and it should be mulberry in color. Look at lots of pics of silkie combs and learn what breeders are saying about the comb, its color, if it has horns, if the size is acceptable for a hen or cockerel etc. If you start with "pieces" of the bird it helps you to start to look at a bird critically and assess what is good and bad. Some things are forgivable if other things are looking good. Other things have no place in a show bird and would be considered a pet. It is challenging but fun and once you start to get better at it you can assess a bird and then read what a really good breeder said about the bird and "compare" notes. Most breeders LOVE to chat about their breed of choice!

Hawkeye95,

This sounds like something I would love to attend with my 10 year old - but Wichita is a little far. She told me last week that when we get silkies she wants to show them, of course I have no idea how to do any of this. When we first decided to go into chickens, we bought some eggs from Catdance to hatch, but we didn't have any success. The week they shipped it was 100 plus degrees, so I am sure that had something to do with it. My biggest problem is I can read these standards until I am blue in the face, but I don't understand how to interpret them, but I can definitely see the "whole picture" difference of a SQ and a pet quality.

I also belong to a golden retriever forum that many reputable show breeders belong to, and people who are not part of the show world, do not understand how every breed has a breed standard. I have gone to many dog shows as a spectator and at times brought other people, and they cannot understand why the "prettiest dog" didn't win. It so hard for them to understand that they are shown against their breed standard, not each other.

ALRIGHTY, back to the grindstone. At least it is pleasant out today!

 

[lizzyGSR]

I don't know for sure that you are really having a deficiency. Sounds more like boredom and lack of "new" things to graze on out there. Plus my geese love dog food and make a bee line for the dog house much to Molly's chagrin. She stands in the doorway while they are out to protect her bowl. I usually wind up putting it up so they can't get into it. They also love to raid the cat food in the garage if the door is open. It is like junk food for geese. I imagine dog poop might be appealing because it tastes kind of like dog food? Have you tried thawing some frozen veggies for them or maybe a head of cabbage? I had some left over oranges and kiwi that were starting to look a little punky on the counter last week that I cut up and the geese had a grand time with them. I think this time of year is just boring for them.

That is an interesting take on things. I guess that is possible. I went out and gave them a bit of dog food a little while ago. Don't worry, it is something I give them only rarely. Do you think boredom could be the same cause for the ducks? Also, you mentioned giving oranges to birds. I thought oranges and other citrus were bad for ducks and assume that if it was bad for ducks it would also be so for geese... Am I wrong on that one?

 

[JosieChick]

That is an interesting take on things. I guess that is possible. I went out and gave them a bit of dog food a little while ago. Don't worry, it is something I give them only rarely. Do you think boredom could be the same cause for the ducks? Also, you mentioned giving oranges to birds. I thought oranges and other citrus were bad for ducks and assume that if it was bad for ducks it would also be so for geese... Am I wrong on that one?

Oh dear, now I am in a panic! I did read that oranges are not good for ducks so maybe not for geese too? I hope I didn't give the goobies a tummy ache! They had a grand time playing with them. I throw whole carrots in for the geese too. I used to cut them up but they have a blast gnawing on them and can actually manage to break them up quite well. Glad you said something, guess I won't give them too much citrus in the future. I tend to throw them whatever is around the house and getting older and I would think if it caused them a belly ache they wouldn't eat it twice? They turn their beaks up at a lot of things so it isn't like they aren't picky. Maybe someone with more duck expertise can jump in too.

 

[lizzyGSR]

Oh dear, now I am in a panic! I did read that oranges are not good for ducks so maybe not for geese too? I hope I didn't give the goobies a tummy ache! They had a grand time playing with them. I throw whole carrots in for the geese too. I used to cut them up but they have a blast gnawing on them and can actually manage to break them up quite well. Glad you said something, guess I won't give them too much citrus in the future. I tend to throw them whatever is around the house and getting older and I would think if it caused them a belly ache they wouldn't eat it twice? They turn their beaks up at a lot of things so it isn't like they aren't picky. Maybe someone with more duck expertise can jump in too.

I've given my ducks citrus before as well, though it was always just the white stuff on the inside of the peel. They always ate it and actually seemed to like it. I, too, would have thought that they wouldn't eat it if it caused problems, but who knows! I stopped giving them citrus peelings after I read that it was bad for them, even though they seemed to like it so much.