Went to the Alabama Chicken and Egg Festival

[KristyHall]

It had a lot of things to do, and a nice artist and vendor area. I an into some old friends from the powwow circuit, including a black smith I grew up around. They had cut games like a contest where you had to toss and catch eggs without breaking them, bingo, egg and wing eating contest, photo contests, and chicken art. It had great music, and games for kids and lots of food.

I was disappointed that it had very little chickens and eggs. it had a small tent with only a dozen or so chickens. No chicken or egg cooking contests, no bird shows, no chicken sales, the owners of the chickens weren't there to answer questions about their birds, the birds were not even labeled with information, breed, or so on. As a small town festival it was great. As a chicken based festival, it wasn't focused on chickens.

In the kid's corner I overheard this storyteller telling things that surprised me about how things are on a farm. I only heard a part of the story though so I can't completely judge what he was saying but what I heard was " you can only have one rooster because they will fight to the death, and most farms hens only live three years, and roosters only live five" I guess Someone needs to give the memo to my 5 year old hens, and my three roosters, one who is six years old.

Do you think I should e-mail them with suggestions of what some people might like to see next year? Or would that be rude? I think it would be fun if they had a chicken/egg cooking contest, a bird show, displays of different colored eggs, display boards with information of different types of chickens, chicken and egg sales. (they were selling other live animals up there). I will be going back next year, it was still fun, even if it didn't have as many chickens as I was hoping.

 

[bgelber]

We were on our way there but the directions on the site wasn't very good. After the llooooong night we had friday, we ended up just going to Alfonso's in Decatur and having Italian. Told each other we would plan better next year and go.

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
yeah the directions were not great. good thing I knew the area fairly well. If you were going for the chickens you would have been disappointed. few chickens and more music, and kid based games.

 

[Onephunchk]

I'm so sorry about the directional signs to the festival. We had a bright idea that just didn't work. We had politicians who donated old political signs. We printed several hundred paper signs with the words "Chicken Festival" with appropriate arrows and we used a spray glue to attach to the old signs. We had an abundance of great signs on Friday night before the festival. Unfortunately for us, the heat was over powering for the glue and almost EVERYONE of our directional signs came down. Signs are so expensive and we were trying to save some money by recycling the old ones. Each year we have bought nice signs and they never seem to make it back to storage!

As for the chickens..... we struggle every year to find someone to provide chickens for folks to see and to buy. We want to make sure the birds are clean and disease free. We will even build and provide the show cages for the folks bringing in the chickens. We will gladly consider ANY suggestions to help us provide 1) healthy flocks 2) educational information on the care of backyard poultry. I'm at a loss as to how to grow our chicken and egg part of the festival. We're done excellent job on the art and music and even the Southern Folklife Artist and Gentlemen Farmer Displays and welcome your input for the chicken and eggs part of the festival.

So I guess I'm looking for vendors and folks to do educational workshops on the care of backyard poultry. Please email me. [email protected]

Thanks agian for coming to our event. We are proud of what we've accomplished totally by the efforts of all volunteers, but we welcome you input.

Onephunchk

 

[Onephunchk]

Oh, one other new thing we did this year was a Chicken Chain Pilot program. We sponsored the event last year in Marshall County and it was great. This year we purchased baby chicks to distribute to the local 4-H students. Our local extension program offered classes to parents and students about the care of backyard chickens. This fall, the students will return a portion of their flock to be auctioned to the public. The students keep the money they make from the sale of thier chickens.

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

With reusing old campaign signs, are we talking the cardboard ones on wickets? If so...

Pull the staples and remove the sign from the wicket. Flip sign inside out. Use markers (Sharpies are the best) to write on the inside of the sign. Staple sides, put back on wicket, staple on either side of the leg to keep the sign in place.