Here is a private message I got from a great guy who wants to start up a Poultry Club for Kids. Have any of you out there been a product of a club or 4 H club??
Wanted Barred Rock non Hatchery Standard Breed Birds:
My Response: Are you going to show them or just to enjoy them? bob
His Re: thanks for getting back to me so quick bob. I live in Kentucky and my main objective is to enjoy them myself but I do show at some smaller shows on occasion. i am also a 4H leader and we are trying to get a poultry club up and going in our county. Id like to see some of the kids in the area have access to some better stock
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Ave you thought of spending some time with youths and help them get started in Poultry and helping them show their birds at county fairs or state fairs?
This is something that we should be thinking about. Only maybe 1% of us will do it but I have never know a kid who was evolved in raising livestock and meeting other kids at fairs go wrong. This is a request where any of our good strains of Standard Barred Plymouth Rocks will be helpful for this fellow. Most of the time when you have a group of kids a leader can order chicks from a hatchery type breeder like Urchs, Joel Gilman or Butches birds. Also what state do you live in? There are about five good strains out there to shoose from.
You can get a small shipments of chicks from a breeder if he has enough breeders birds but they are few and far between. I still think the best way is to put 15 eggs in a incubator and hatch 1- or 11 and ship these chicks to a new person at age five weeks of age overnight express. Would you not be happy to get 11 chicks hatch out of 15 eggs?
Eggs of course is a fear factor because of the way they are treated in shipment. We have many methods posted on another thread how experts do it. I will post this tread below. I talked to a friend in Michigan yesterday giving me the gossip of poultry in the Mid West and found some lost strains of Blue Andulisians and Anaconas in Ohio. The breeder does ship eggs. I got to make a list of these rare breeds maybe some day a guy will make a web site with Heritage Poultry and we can add these names to the list of the birds he list as rare. Wouldnt that be a nice Christmas present for us old time chicken breed lovers who want standard breed birds. bob