How do you keep your show chickens?

[JoJo 95]

I finally decided to show chickens after countless persuasions from my ag teacher, 4-h officer, and friends. So I placed an order with ideal, along with two friends, to get some blue silkies and gray Japs.Now I need some help. First of all, How do I house the different breeds without interbreeding. I want something that is inexpensive yet satisfactory for my birds. I Also need to know things about feeding, grooming, and care. As the silkies are a feather legged breed, I also need options for bedding.

 

[awesomefowl]

i will be watching this thread.

 

[JoJo 95]

bump

 

[sunket77]

Japs and Silkies can be hard. The Japs are not feather legged but their short stature (good show quality one are very short legged) their wings drag the ground since they also stand upright. Their wing feathers can be hard to repair if they get damaged. Silkies are a little easier, especially the darker ones. With silkies as long as they are kept out of rain they should be fine. What you can do is have some "bachelor pads" for your best roosters and keep all the hens together. You can keep the roo's together if they are raised together but once you separate them you can't put them back together. So be sure to cull or give away the roo's you don't want and turn out not such good quality. A bachelor pad can be a couple of rabbit hutches you might find on craigs list. During the parts of the year that you are not showing they should be fine in a coop/run or tractor and then put them in cages off the ground about 2 weeks or more from the show. Japs are tricky. We don't have many so we keep ours in a cage we built with a hardware cloth bottom, even still their wings are not perfect, I am thinking we need to add a layer of beading. (Beading should be something like pine shavings) Beading would need to kept as clean as possible though. What I built needs to modified to clean it out better. It's really temporary housing. I hoped that helped some! Next time you would better off finding a breeder to buy chicks or eggs from, but it is possible to get good quality from hatcheries it's just rare.

 

[NYREDS]

Housing w/o interbreeding is rather obvious. Build 2 seperate pens & seperate the birds by breed.
I recommend either straw or pine shavings for bedding. Either works well & it would depend on which is easier for you to get. BTW Japanese Bantams are not feather legged.
There are books written about feeding, grooming & care. I'd recommend you buy a book or pinpoint more precisely what information you're looking for.
If you are planning on showing at county fairs in 4H shows birds from Ideal will meet your needs. Don't expect them to compete in open shows.

 

[JoJo 95]

Yea that was a mistake in type. I know japs aren't feather legged. I was thinking about cochins because I was on the phone and just typed part of my conversation. Anyway how would I make a small pen that can still be kept at the right temperature and be safe from predators?

 

[JoJo 95]

.

 

[JoJo 95]

I decided to get cornish bantams instead of silkies. How big should the coops be? I need one for 4 cornish and one for 4 japs.

 

[awesomefowl]

would a large rabbit hutch work for show seramas? i have never shown anything.