LIFE OF A SHOW CHICKEN. What's involved?

[guinea fowl galore]

This is a thread where you share how you feed, house, groom and train your show chickens.

I have hatched out some future showing chickens. Obviously I don't know if they are show quality yet, but i'm wanting to know the proper way to bring up a show chicken. And a bit of information on show preparation would be great too.

 

[stephanie1992]

buy from quality breeders only. eggs or chicks. feed only purina feeds. keep them in clean pens. get them vaccinated. wash them monthly in warm water. blue soap fpr white birds or any white on them. fabric softner for the others. rinse in vinager water. put bag balm on there combs, wattles, and feet. remove any broken feathers. keep white birds on pine bedding or wire bottom cages. give attintion eveyday. for my showmanship birds i go over the showmanship steps everyday with them.

 

[guinea fowl galore]

Do they need to be vaccinated? Is it a rule for showing or just safer for the birds?
What are the showmanship steps?

 

[stephanie1992]

Quote:
no they dont need it. its just safer i think because there exposed to soo many differnt birds and people. and where i show the steps of showmanship are:

Hold the bird in one hand
one leg on each side of ur middle finger.
u have to check the birds face in front of the judge,
check its wings,
its back feathers,
mesure the with of the back,
flip it upside down,
mesuer its pin bones,
its chest bone,
and look at the feet.

after these steps u have to walk it across a table with a show stick. or pencle, or anything that size. make it stand the way that bird is suppose to and has to stay that way till the judge says ok. then u have to put in in a cage head first, shut tha cage, back up, the judge tells u to take it out, latch the cage open, take the chicken out headfirst and hold it like before. and the judge will ask u questions

lol its really difficult to explain, ill see if i can find a video for u

 

[stephanie1992]

heres a video that explains it better lol
she just doesnt to the cage part

 

[guinea fowl galore]

Thanks for the video. I will start the traing tomorrow. The chicks are two weeks old now so they should be well used to the process by then. I'm also going to get them used to being in show cages with noise all around. I've been to shows before where some of the chickens look so distressed you'd expect them to die before or after they got home. It's so sad.

Any more opinions and experience?