Poultry 4H meeting ideas / leader & parent discussion thread

[Cloverleaf Farm]

I hear ya completely...most of the birds (at least a vast majority of the large fowl, as the bantams seemed to be better quality) were poor quality, even for hatchery stock!! AND one 4Her had TWO of her OEGBs stolen last year! Someone came in, took them out of their cages, and walked out. Not one single person said a word to them!

On the other hand, if your kids have higher quality birds, they should win easily! I know it doesn't help when there isn't much in the way of competition, but it can be a confidence builder for the younger kids. One of my 4Hers last year won reserve feather legged, and it was his first show ever. He was very excited! It was great to see. Also nice, because like I said, the bantam birds seemed to be much higher quality than the large fowl, which were largely a joke. Our club is going to work on "informational / educational" posters to put up in the poultry building this year about "exhibition" poultry....

 

[danielle82]

I love this thread! I have a dughter who is 6 in aclub and I am the poultry leader, so far she is the only one in a poultry project. The main leader of the club asked me to do a presentation of some kind next meeting to drum up some interest. Most of the kids in the club are older than my daughter too...It is so hard to come up with ideas that are good for such an age range! I have been scratching my head and am so glad I found this!

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

That's great! I'm glad you find it helpful!

It is really tough to try to come up with something for kids that don't have poultry already, or that don't know anything about it. That pretty much rules out alot of the breed games, etc...though you could do a "basic poultry knowledge" type of Jeopardy game, with more like true/false type of questions...like the age old "A hen needs a rooster to be able to lay an egg, true or false?"!!

As far as the presentation part of what I did last night was I used a tri-fold display board, covered in colored paper, and printed out a bunch of coop photos from here, pasted them on, along with several photos of my own birds. I also brought the most varied dozen eggs I could come up with, and talked about "what to think about before you get chickens" like local ordinances, etc, talked about predator proofing a coop, and then talked about the benefits of backyard poultry, in terms of bug and weed control, fertilizer, eggs, chicken personality, etc. I also talked about how battery hens spend their lives, and just what things like "naturally nested" "Free range" and "cage free" really mean...it went over pretty well!

 

[averytds]

Quote:
You would think so wouldn't you, but no. They mostly got reds and the judge even said he would have DQed some of them if not for the fact there were so few entries.

That's what happens when the judge doesn't know anything about poultry. Showmanship was even worse. He didn't even understand the differences between cocks, cockerels, hens and pullets.


Kids took the same birds to a larger open not a month later with a licensed judge and DS went away with GR CH LF and DD just missed for bantams according to the judge. State fair opens, DS took Best AOSB. At the APA Nationals, DS got JR RV AOSB and DD got RB.

My kids have put a lot of time and combined we've all put in a lot of money into their stock. Our fair requires 2 overnight stays. Not only could someone just walk off with one or more of them, there is no predator protection what-so-ever. It's just sad.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Quote:
You would think so wouldn't you, but no. They mostly got reds and the judge even said he would have DQed some of them if not for the fact there were so few entries.

That's what happens when the judge doesn't know anything about poultry. Showmanship was even worse. He didn't even understand the differences between cocks, cockerels, hens and pullets.


Kids took the same birds to a larger open not a month later with a licensed judge and DS went away with GR CH LF and DD just missed for bantams according to the judge. State fair opens, DS took Best AOSB. At the APA Nationals, DS got JR RV AOSB and DD got RB.

My kids have put a lot of time and combined we've all put in a lot of money into their stock. Our fair requires 2 overnight stays. Not only could someone just walk off with one or more of them, there is no predator protection what-so-ever. It's just sad.

That IS sad. I'm REALLY not looking forward to fair this year. Last year, my son was still a cloverbud, so his bird didn't have to stay, but this year, it has to stay at the fairgrounds in late August heat for an entire week!!! We put alot of time and money into our birds too, and it worries me ALOT!

 

[Ohne-Fehler]

Quote:
You would think so wouldn't you, but no. They mostly got reds and the judge even said he would have DQed some of them if not for the fact there were so few entries.

That's what happens when the judge doesn't know anything about poultry. Showmanship was even worse. He didn't even understand the differences between cocks, cockerels, hens and pullets.


Kids took the same birds to a larger open not a month later with a licensed judge and DS went away with GR CH LF and DD just missed for bantams according to the judge. State fair opens, DS took Best AOSB. At the APA Nationals, DS got JR RV AOSB and DD got RB.

My kids have put a lot of time and combined we've all put in a lot of money into their stock. Our fair requires 2 overnight stays. Not only could someone just walk off with one or more of them, there is no predator protection what-so-ever. It's just sad.

It really has to be disappointing for the youth that try and have well presented birds when something of obvious lesser quality wins. We didn’t exhibit poultry at our local fairs open show last year but did walk through to see what there was. They had about 4 open birds and perhaps 30 youth birds. Of those the only thing that wasn’t either hatchery stock or a crossbred were a couple nice Egyptian Swift pigeons that belonged to a young boy. We were disappointed to see a large crossbred hen had gone Best in Show. Later we learned from the grandfather of the boy with pigeons (also a breeder) that they had pulled the beef cattle judge over to judge the poultry show. It’s not surprising that given the judging every bird in the barn had received blues. I feel like more is learned when a competent judge is there and can help the youth and explain things to them. I would rather see an animal in a class of one receive a red and have the judge explain it to them rather than just hand over a blue. More is learned this way. I can remember my first birds I ever showed were a pair of Murry McMurry Buff Minorcas. I took them to fair expecting to earn a big prize sure that they were perfect. In fact I came back the next day to discover two DQ’s. A breeder was nice enough to come talk to me after the show and explain the placings and the SOP for the breed. Sure I was very disappointed but I learned a lot from it!

I think when leaders are dedicated to the project, as everyone on this thread seems to be, the youth can learn a lot. Sometimes it takes the fairs a little while to catch on that things need to change but when there are motivated people out there they seem to come around.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Unfortunately, it's a rare county fair that's actually APA sanctioned. Ours usually is, but also unfortunately, the DQs were few and far between. EVEN in the open class!! I was absolutely disgusted to see EEs winning first and second in their "class" in the OPEN show, when they were even poor representations of EEs! I'm talking single combs and no beards here....it was horrifying. The judges usually are afraid of discouraging the kids, but how about teaching them something?? It's not doing the kids any favors to have their crossbred hatchery birds winning over birds that are at LEAST purebred, if not bred to standard.

 

[averytds]

Our local competition is mostly whatever they had at the feedstore for chick days. I thought the judge was just a volunteer. I was shocked to hear he actually gets paid. He's the same judge for both our little local fairs. At the first he marked down what he thought was wrong with the kids' birds and at the second he didn't write down or say anything. Since he was so off the mark when he did leave notes, I wasn't sure which was worse. Both the poultry superintendents, the outgoing and incoming we convinced to enter their kids at the larger open in another town. I think they got at least a little education. The outgoing was shocked to learn my kids bathed their birds for Heaven's sake. The incoming has said he's at least going to try and get a different judge. Still don't see how I can get around leaving a $75 bird just out there and exposed to anything and anybody. Which just leaves showing lesser stock which is entirely against the whole point.

State was eh. My younger doesn't meet the minimum age requirements and my older didn't qualify with the reds for 4-H. So I put them both in the opens. The adult, not the Jrs. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but the judge apparently didn't finish judging DD's. He DQed almost all the other Silkies entered, gave one of hers RV and just put 1's on her other 2 cage cards. DS got the Best AOSB on one of his, but his other 2 the judge knocked down 2 spots to rank some EEs over them.

I expect better from adults, especially at a sanctioned show. The judge from the year before DQed all the EEs.


Nationals was nice. If there were any EEs there, I didn't see them in either the Ameraucanas or Auracanas. That was nice for a change.


I spoke with our state superintendent about 4-H poultry at the state fair. He said participation drops anywhere from 1/2 to 1/3 every year and he wouldn't be surprised if it's done for in just a few more years. That's just sad. I told him our reasons for being in the opens vs 4-H and the reasons I knew some others didn't enter. Not sure there's much that can be done though.

 

[dmiravalle]

Quote:
How many poultry groups do you have in your county??? Do you have a fair livestock board or committee of any kind??? We actually went on strike against one of our fair grounds, it is amazing when almost no kids show up to the fair how quickly they will bend over backwards, it is still a work in progress, but at least they are working on the air system, cages, etc.. for this fair. (The average temp in Roseville in June is about 102)

You would really need to educate yourself to how much the county and other clubs are willing to do to help out a bad situation.

 

[dmiravalle]

PS I love this "new" thread!! Thanks!