Apparently now one of my aliases is "chicken man". Here's a small entry I typed up but never posted a few weeks back showing my excitement over my first chicken show....
The week of Aug 29th, Abby and I made the trek out to Loudon county to the 4H chick chain sale. I didn’t know much before marrying Abby about 4H, but it seems like it’s a great program something akin to Boy Scouts which are some of my fondest childhood memories. The program that night was essentially a "chicken show" of sorts. I’ve never been to a chicken show up till now, but I have to say it was quite a fun experience.
There are apparently many characteristics on which to judge a chicken. Judges looked at beak structure, comb structure and color, feathers, legs, overall size, and even measured pubic bones to ascertain if a chicken was laying or not. The chickens were lined up in pens in groups of 3 and based on these characteristics. The judges were looking at consistency between the three birds in the pen that were judged. Breeds were divided up into their own respective classes and then there was a best in show judging. Abby and I were hesitant as we heard they had been going for a lot in other shows in other counties (upwards of 30 dollars a bird), so to be safe before the auction began we bought one chicken for sale off the side. A silver laced wine dot. After the judging was complete a bid list with the winners and bid order was handed out. The “Grand champion” chickens went for 32 bucks a chicken! Yes that’s 32x3= 96 for the pen. We thought at this point we were going home with one chicken, but to our pleasant surprise we were able to win the reserve grand champion (2nd place)! We won 3 addition Barred Rocks so now our chicken total on the home front is a baker’s dozen. The new arrivals have yet to start laying but they are close judging by their comb color and body size. Here's some photos from the trip out to the county, where we were the city slickers.
The Spread of birds.
Rhode Island Red class
Barred Rocks were the most popular bird at the show.
These are called leghorns and were the only ones at the show.
These are "black stars". As you can see they don't call them bird brained for nothing.
The new ladies are still getting used to being able to free range a bit.
Our New Silver Laced Wine dot.
These are "black stars". As you can see they don't call them bird brained for nothing.
The new ladies are still getting used to being able to free range a bit.
Our New Silver Laced Wine dot.
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