We have beautiful White Silkies which are alot of work to keep clean. When our first County Fair was approaching, we followed all the recommendations from our local County Extension Office to ensure our birds were in tip-top condition for showing; they'd been debugged; bathed twice (a feat in itself), rinsed with bluing & blow dried; their feet and leg feathers had been completey scrubbed and de-pooped (!); nails clipped; we even used a wash cloth to wash their faces! They were picture perfect. When we arrived at the Fair, we discovered some of the other's who were in the fancy chicken competition had these big tack boxes full of all kinds of helpful accessories, such as "Chicken Sheen" & blow dryers & baby wipes & vaseline. We had a bucket, a roll of paper towels, and hand sanitizer. We had a long wait on the first day of judging for our category and it was really hot and humid. Just before our breed was called, our chickens decided to take a dust bath in the sawdust in their cage. They looked filthy!!! Thinking fast, we took each one out, and blew the dust off as they were going to the judging table! By the time our Roo was called back, his feathers had finally fluffed back into place, and the judge asked if he was the same bird!!! We still laugh about it - even though it was pretty horrifying at the time!!!! LOL!!!
