Looking ahead at growing our flock

[pinkmartin73]

Pinkmartin - You might consider contacting your local poultry club. The county extension agents should know about them, or your local feed store. Because if your son is going to be interested in showing, and breeding birds to show, he needs some experienced people to guide him, and he probably needs higher quality birds than your average hatchery birds.

Another place to look is Sandhills preservation. They do quite a bit of work with various breeds. I have done business with them once, and received pretty high quality breeds.

The hardest part of this hobby is picking a breed. I have often thought, oh this is the way I will go, only to change my mind as another opportunity shows up.

Mrs K

Thank you. I looked into "show quality" birds. Our budget is tight. We just decided we would focus our finances on housing and equipment for the first couple of years. We are still learning as this has been a whole new world for us. I'm told by others in our county that "hatchery" birds often do very well at the fair. Particularly birds from Eagle Nest, which is the one we use.

After all poultry was banned from showing this year, our $2 chicks looked really good to us. We didn't spend hundreds on birds that weren't even judged.

My son is the one who chose which of this year's birds will show next year. Tbh we just don't like the RIR's as well as the BO's. He also wants to show cheaper birds for real once before investing in expensive stock that he doesn't enjoy showing.

Even with no birds at the fair, he still brought home a 5th place ribbon for modified showmanship using a stuffed chicken. Not bad for his 1st year.