Is they’re any money in Poultry Shows

[BitterSweetCitrus]

My mother and I have been dying to get more silkies after our best looking silkie (who happened to be our first chicken passed away). So we have been following one breeder with amazing show stock and birds. We are planning to get hatching eggs from her.

Now it begs the question, we don’t care if there isn’t any money, but can you make money off show birds. It would be a plus to recoup funds

 

[gtaus]

Maybe it depends on where you live. Where I live, I don't know of anybody who makes any money from Poultry Shows. I suppose if you had a particularly desired breed, then maybe you could put it up for sale at the show, or at least post your name and number on a cage where a bird has won a ribbon to let others know you sell stock.

As far are recouping funds, I tell everybody I have composting chickens and get eggs as a bonus. We have all the fresh eggs we can eat at home, and we sell our excess eggs to friends and that pays for our feed costs. But my biggest payback is all the compost I harvest from my chicken run composting system. I take out 100's of dollars' worth of black gold compost from my chicken run every year to put into my food gardens. But I have full sized chickens. I don't know if silkies would be as good for eggs or composting.

You would probably have to find people interested in buying your silkie breeds and showing your birds at a Poultry Show would just be one way to get your name out there. I know some people leave a business card at the feed stores with what animals they sell. Maybe check with the local 4H coordinator to see if there is any interest in your birds. Kids love to show their birds and I am sure they have to buy them from somewhere.

 

[Amer]

It’s possible but it takes a lot of care.
Myself, I’d be happy if I break even.
I suppose if you showed like once a year to show off and then sold birds for high prices you could derive a slight profit. You would have to choose a popular breed though, which might not be what you are interested in.
But the costs of hotels, travel, and entry fees means that if you actually do much showing you would lose your profit.
I enjoy the showing aspect of the hobby though, so of course I do that.

 

[BitterSweetCitrus]

Maybe it depends on where you live. Where I live, I don't know of anybody who makes any money from Poultry Shows. I suppose if you had a particularly desired breed, then maybe you could put it up for sale at the show, or at least post your name and number on a cage where a bird has won a ribbon to let others know you sell stock.

As far are recouping funds, I tell everybody I have composting chickens and get eggs as a bonus. We have all the fresh eggs we can eat at home, and we sell our excess eggs to friends and that pays for our feed costs. But my biggest payback is all the compost I harvest from my chicken run composting system. I take out 100's of dollars' worth of black gold compost from my chicken run every year to put into my food gardens. But I have full sized chickens. I don't know if silkies would be as good for eggs or composting.

You would probably have to find people interested in buying your silkie breeds and showing your birds at a Poultry Show would just be one way to get your name out there. I know some people leave a business card at the feed stores with what animals they sell. Maybe check with the local 4H coordinator to see if there is any interest in your birds. Kids love to show their birds and I am sure they have to buy them from somewhere.

Thank you for all the input! We are definetly covered in the egg and compost department. Our flock mainly consists of Olive Eggers, Coco Eggers, and Ameraucanas, so we get a colorful egg basket that sustains us and we share with friends. As far as compost, we use the chickens, we have a over 100 pound tortoise with plenty of poop for composting Sadly we live in an area where we aren't aloud roos, so breeding would be out of the question. At the end of the day, our girls are all our pets, so we don't mind not making money off of them. We were just hoping that if we showed we could make money off a new hobby.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

oh goodness, absolutely not.

Sorry to laugh, but it's just such a wild notion to me I can't help it. Poultry showing is expensive, even if you won every time you entered, cash prizes are free and far between and wouldn't cover the expenses for raising the birds.

Maybe I'm thinking of this wrong, though. How would you imagine there would be money to be made at poultry shows?

 

[kurby22]

You might be able to make more off the progeny of a show winner than off the shows themselves. I have had a lot of interest in chicks from my bantam wheaten Ameraucana cockerel since he won Jr Reserve Champion a few weeks back. You can ask a bit more for them and sell your cull birds in the show sales barns too and make a bit back…but like others have said, making a profit? Not really.