The Show

Friday morning we checked in our hens, and found that almost everyone else brought roosters. Our friends who had their coop burn down last year had three enormous roosters.  They weighed in at 10 lbs the night before.  Goodness!  

We had everyone in their holding cage and waited until 1pm when it would be 'our turn'.  

One thing about showing broilers is that when you are only J's age, you cant be expected to manage three chickens in the show ring by yourself.  So you get help, except because we are new and the friends we do have in the club were also showing broilers.  We asked around enough and had a very nice girl step in that we'd never met before Friday; M.  M was sweet and soft spoken, but a seasoned show-er... of rabbits.  

Since she is in her teens, she took care of two birds and J managed one.  Back to the ignorant card...Just as they were about to go into the ring a middle schooler was trying to show both J and M how to hold the bird upside down and then how to turn an upside down chicken back into a resting position.  M caught on quickly.  J struggled a bit.  My fingers go where, and my palm faces up or down, and how do you stop the wings from flapping like crazy??? Plus tensions and excitement were high...  

The judges sort out the birds as they walk into the ring, big to the left (ie roosters) and hens to the right.  Here they all are.

In the end J placed 19th of 23.  Not terrible, especially considering we brought hens to what turned out to be a rooster show.  

Here they are in 'showmanship' portion of the competition with our friend's kids, W and M.

Showmanship is talking to the judge about how much were you actually involved in the care of the birds, did you know how much food they ate daily, did you know what the protein content or brand of feed you were using, how much you were walking them every day.  
or were you more interested in playing in the dirt in the ring and talking with your buddy W.

The good news is that we made "The Sale" which happened on Saturday night.  There you are supposed to wear another starched plaid shirt (another ignorance mistake on my part).  Since I was clueless on that item, after W sold his project he and J temporarily switched shirts so J could take one of his chickens into the sale arena.  

During the sale very generous people bid on your 'project'.  Then you get your picture taken with them and get to write them a nice thank you note in the coming weeks.  S said he wouldn't have made it through that part.  :)  

I was very excited that our friend's daughter, M, won Grand Champion in the broiler division.  After the fire last year, it was great redemption for them.  I think she named one bird Phoenix.  Well if she didn't, she could have.