Our small county fair was this weekend.
The local industrial chicken grower provided all the kids chicks (their own special CornX) on the same day from the same hatch and breeding. So all the birds started the same.
The eldest DS (per advice from here) fed 22% protien, 12 hours a day, with all the fresh water and pasture they cared for.
All came back to the fairgrounds this past weekend at roughly 5 weeks.
Of 33 birds in pens of 3 per exhibitor, my son's were the largest, meatiest, cleanest ( lots of how to wash a chicken posts! Thank you! ) and most uniform. He won the champion broiler trophy.
This allowed him to offer them for sale at the livestock auction (basically a fund-raiser for livestock-raising kids). He got $100 for three birds, which definately helps with the feed bills.
Now, we didn't do so well in the Breeds category, as we have known for some time that our hatchery Speckled Sussex are pretty far from the APA standard. However, we will take what we learned this year on the broilers and attempt to improve for next year. We are going to the Wisconsin International show in Portage in Sept to look all the breeds over and see what the DS likes best, maybe make some contacts for starting trio(s). We are looking for tri-purpose large fowl (eggs, meat and closer-to-appearance-standard).
The most beautiful Austrolorp rooster won the Best of Show. A real stunning bird, even to a novice like me.
Thanks All!
The local industrial chicken grower provided all the kids chicks (their own special CornX) on the same day from the same hatch and breeding. So all the birds started the same.
The eldest DS (per advice from here) fed 22% protien, 12 hours a day, with all the fresh water and pasture they cared for.
All came back to the fairgrounds this past weekend at roughly 5 weeks.
Of 33 birds in pens of 3 per exhibitor, my son's were the largest, meatiest, cleanest ( lots of how to wash a chicken posts! Thank you! ) and most uniform. He won the champion broiler trophy.
This allowed him to offer them for sale at the livestock auction (basically a fund-raiser for livestock-raising kids). He got $100 for three birds, which definately helps with the feed bills.
Now, we didn't do so well in the Breeds category, as we have known for some time that our hatchery Speckled Sussex are pretty far from the APA standard. However, we will take what we learned this year on the broilers and attempt to improve for next year. We are going to the Wisconsin International show in Portage in Sept to look all the breeds over and see what the DS likes best, maybe make some contacts for starting trio(s). We are looking for tri-purpose large fowl (eggs, meat and closer-to-appearance-standard).
The most beautiful Austrolorp rooster won the Best of Show. A real stunning bird, even to a novice like me.
Thanks All!
