New 4-H poultry leader - HELP!

[ecajean]

I started a 4-H club in our area last year, I had volunteered to be a poultry leader but the kids weren't interested. This year they are (course two of my kids in my group will actually be MY kids, lol). Anyway, I've never shown anything in 4-H or anywhere else. I realize that I can get help from other clubs' poultry leaders, but I was wondering if there was any good books out there. I found Your Chickens - A Kid's Guide to Raising and Showing in my McMurray catalogue. It looks good. I'm going to the feed store tomorrow, so I'll look for it there.

The other thing is that my daughter really wants Japenese Bantams. Would that be a good breed? Or would another be better for her, she is 8 and afraid of the larger chickens and after seeing some bantams at the fair this year has decided she wants "the little ones" and to add the short leggs of the Japanese, she's in love! What do you all think?

 

[menageriemama]

I love those Japanese Banties!! They are so cool. We saw two of them at our county fair and I added them to my mental list of possible show birds for my kids. This year will be my DS's first year as a regular member of our club, so he will be able to do poultry (

). Best of luck to you and have a blast!!

 

[Run-A-Muck Ranch]

How about looking for 'the standard of prefection' for poultry. That might help. Story's Guide to raising chickens and Story's Guide to raising poultry(has more than just chickens in it) are good books too.
We also have the Hobby Farm to raising chickens.
I went out and got most the books I could when we would get a new animals. Some of the stuff in the books are repeated in each one, but then there's also other info in them.

Our girls showed this year in 2 local fairs. Did pretty good. It's both of their 1st year in 4-H. They really enjoy it.

As for the Japanese Bantam they are very cute. My daughters both want to show them next year. Along with the 'Samatra's' (I think that's it...the ones smaller than a pop can).
You might also try just regular bantam sized birds-We have Cochin Bantams that are super friendly.

 

[PotterWatch]

Where is your group? I have been trying to find a 4-H in my area that does poultry.

 

[ecajean]

We are in Mariposa County. Are you close? Where we live, we have kids that are in Mariposa and Tuolumne Counties that are in our club. Are you close? I'm in Coulterville.

 

[a2ms4chickens]

My DS, 11 yr, joined 4-H last year and showed modern game bantams. He has a brown-red hen that is a great showbird. She poses really tall, and is used to being handled.

He also has old english game bantams (OEGB). The hen spent a lot of time in his hood at one of the shows. She is very gentle and easy to handle.

Good luck this year. I kind of got talked into being the poultry leader, this year, too. It should be interesting since I have only had chickens since Nov. last year.

Ang

 

[PotterWatch]

Darn, not anywhere close to me.

 

[NYREDS]

You'll definitely want a Standard of Perfection-the black & white soft cover is on special at the American Poultry Association website-I think it's only $8.
Personally I wouldn't recommend Japanese Bantams for a new breeder. The short leg the breed requires is linked to a fatal gene and many chicks never make it to hatching. Also only a relatively small percentage of the birds that hatch will have the required short leg. So to get some good ones you have to set a lot & cull a lot.
Good birds for kids to start with are Old English Game Bantams or Modern Game Bantams. Both are small & easy to handle. They also come is several very colourful varieties.

 

[ecajean]

NYREDS, in order to show the birds do you need to be a breeder? I'm not sure that I'd want to breed them, but are you're saying that we need a big pool of chicks/poulets to pull the quality ones out? So we will have to breed them? Can I just buy chicks/poulets?

Potterwatch - You know, we didn't have one either and I ended up starting one last year. It was a lot of work but very rewarding!

I'm off to check out the Mondern Game Birds & OEGB's and show them to Annie and see if she is interested in those...

Thanks to all who responded and sharred their stories!

Erica

 

[ecajean]

I just showed my daughter the MGBs and OEGB. She likes the OEGBs but really doesn't like how long MGBs legs are. When I asked why I discovered that she likes the Japanese Bantams because of their short legs and that they would have a hard time running from her and that the MGB's legs are so long that they look like they'd run VERY fast from her.

Go figure!