The Coming Debut at the Fair -- of Pebbles and Bam Bam

Two county fairs are coming up in my area, which means it's time to prepare my pet chickens for the competition. Same with you, I imagine? If you're a fellow chicken enthusiast you probably have at least thought about taking the hobby one step further and showing your best birds.

This year, the fair may be the only indication that it's summer, here in the Northwest, anyway. BRRR!

Since so much is going on (including a 7 day work week-I know, I am grateful to still have a job in this economy) I decided to just show 4 or 5 birds this year. Two of my favorites are a pair of Japanese Bantams. The rooster is Pebbles, and the hen, Bam Bam. They're young, part of an order I sent off for in February, but they meet the minimum age requirement. Assuming all goes well (technically challenged) you'll soon be able to watch a video of them at five weeks where I check them out.

In the free report about fitting and showing chickens, which is available on my website, I talk about showing young chickens to avoid a fairly common issue. Often, when people are deciding which of their chickens to show, they'll put forth all the necessary effort taming and conditioning them, only to find that their chosen birds have started to molt when it comes time for the competition. This has happened often enough to me so that I started placing an order in late winter to avoid that issue.

Probably next week, I'll start cage training my entries. This is where you use a judging stick to go through the same steps the poultry judge will take while the chicken is in it's cage at the fair. You stroke the chicken with the rounded end of the stick in several ways to bring about show quality posture. This is part of the "fitting" or conditioning process. It's fully explained in the above report.

The first issue of the "Out of an Eggshell Newsletter" will soon arrive in your in-box if you've signed up as a subscriber. Like the report, it's free by just entering your first name and email address, and of course you'll be able to cancel if you don't like it.

Look forward to 'meeting' you.