Getting Started
Choosing your bird
Before you buy a bird, you should ask yourself these four questions – What kind of bird do you want? You shouldn’t just go around and snatch up the first bird you see! Even if it takes a while, it is best to choose a particular breed of chicken to look for. How much are you willing to pay for a bird? This is an extremely important question! Birds of good quality can cost up to $75, although $25 to $50 is what most birds will cost.Is the breed you have chosen suitable for your size and experience? If you are a small child, you definitely don’t want to carry around a ten pound Rhode Island Red. A small bantam is much easier to control and carry around for anyone.And last but not least, do you have the kind of housing to keep your show bird clean and in good condition? If your bird does not have a clean and well built pen, there is a good chance that you will have a dirty and sick bird by your first show. Buying your bird - example: I am considering buying a bird. It is a hen. Her feathers seem to be in good condition, which means that they are not picked out or tattered. Her eyes are clear and she acts alert in her cage, not droopy or sleeping. I would next look in my Standard of Perfection for the description of her breed and variety. Her breed is Old English game bird, and her variety silver blue. The Standard says her feathers are to be a dark slaty blue, except on her neck, where they should be white with a lacing of black. Her feathers match this description. It also says however that her comb should be small, which hers is not. After looking at the rest of the description, that is the only physical problem with her. This is when I ask myself, is the defect serious enough for me to consider not buying her? After consulting a judge or poultry breeder, I decided to buy the bird. Contacting the owner, I offered to buy the bird for the amount asked for. This is when most owners will ask questions such as where do you live, and what kind of housing do you have for your bird? You should also ask some questions about the bird, such as, how old is this bird? What is his/her show record? and have you ever shown this bird? After purchasing the bird, you should place it in the cage that you brought with food and water. For a cage you can use anything from a box with lots of air holes in it to a cat carrier.
Care of your bird
Once you buy your bird, you need to keep it in top condition for showing. For bedding, straw or shavings are usually best. Make sure that you clean out the pen at least once every week. For feeders, a hanging metal feeder that is low to the ground usually works very well. Feeders that attach to the side of the cage are also commonly used, but are normally good only if you have one bird in the cage. Waterers can be anything from a metal pan to an automatic waterer, as long as it is off the ground and stays clean. The food you give your bird depends on its size and purpose. For a show bird, crumbles (a small kind of food in pellet type form) is the normal kind of food. You should also dust your bird regularly to prevent parasites. To dust your bird you should wear a dust mask, gloves, and old clothes. Use poultry dust, not cow or other livestock dust. Hold your bird at an arms length and sprinkle the powder on the bird. Rub it in to their feathers, and then release them. You will need to do this on a regular schedule of about once a month. You will also need to put some kind of de-wormer in either their water or food. Such wormers are available in produce stores. Use only poultry wormers and keep to a regular schedule of about 3 months between each de-worming. Also stay on a regular schedule of trimming your bird’s toenails and beak. This helps them to look far better at a show, as well as allow you to keep up with the growth of their toenails and beak on a regular basis, keeping them from getting overgrown. DO NOT WASH YOUR BIRD ON A REGULAR BASIS! This will cause the feathers to lose their natural shine, and they will not regain it until the bird molts again. Also, do not try to make your chicken have a forced molt. This causes undue stress on the bird, and, if anything, make them look better but act lethargic at the next show. If your chicken is a hen, make sure that you take out any or all eggs that she may lay. This prevents her from learning to eat her own eggs if you ever want to breed her.
Practicing with your Bird
If you have ever seen a professional poultry showman at work, they make showing their bird look very easy. However, for your bird to act that good in a show ring, you need to practice, practice, practice. The smaller and calmer your bird is, the easier time you’ll have of it. You should first start by handling and talking to your bird a lot, as well as feeding it tidbits out of your hand. With roosters, you need to be careful with the last step, as they can get aggressive if they feel that they have an advantage over you. When you and your bird feel comfortable around each other, you can start practicing holding and walking around with the bird the correct way, by placing your middle and fourth finger between the bird’s legs. Using your first finger and pinkie, hold the bird’s wings down. For carrying, put the bird’s head under your arm. Although the chicken’s head is supposed to come out at the back of your arm, most show birds are so small they don’t fit. For practicing showmanship.
Washing your bird
About five or six days before the show you should wash your bird. If done correctly this helps to give the bird an edge in competition. You should also have dusted the chicken for the show by this time, as the results are better if you dust about two weeks before the show. You first need to gather the materials that you will need for washing. These materials will be:
2 buckets (9 litre size)
1 tablespoon of mild liquid soap
1 teaspoon of white vinegar
1 teaspoon of glycerin
3 to 4 towels
Hairdryer
Nail clippers
Old toothbrush
The first thing to do is to prepare your area for the washing. Make sure it is either a warm day or you can keep the bird inside overnight. You can wash in many different places, most of which depend on the bird. For small bantams that are easier to control you can wash them in the bathtub. For larger birds like Rhode Island Reds or Leghorns, the garage or outside is a safer bet. Spread the towels out wherever you are planning on washing as well as where you are going to blow dry the bird. Save one towel to carry the chicken from the washing area to the drying station. Have a cage ready to put the chicken in when finished.
Washing Procedure
The first step is to fill the first bucket with warm water, make sure that the water isn’t hot enough to burn or cold enough to give the bird chills. Add the tablespoon of mild liquid soap. The reason you use the mild soap is because chickens get rash very easily. The second step is to fill the second bucket with warm water. Add the vinegar and glycerin. The vinegar helps to rinse out the soap from the feathers, while the glycerin gives them an extra shine, especially on black birds. If you have a white bird, adding a teaspoon of bluing makes the bird whiter and more clean looking. Don’t add any more than the teaspoon, otherwise you will get a bluish colored bird just in time for the show! The third step is to wash your bird in the bucket with the soap in it. Use the toothbrush to scrub their feet and legs. Make sure that the chickens head doesn’t go underwater. You will be cleaning the head of the bird later on at the show, so don’t worry about washing that part. Gently rinse under both wings and under all of his/her feathers. Be careful not to ruffle the feathers too much, as this can make them look tattered and unattractive.The fourth step is to rinse the chicken in the water containing the vinegar and glycerin. Swish them around in it, rinsing out all the soap. Again, make sure the bird’s head does not get underwater, and do not to ruffle the feathers too much.The fifth step is to wrap the bird in a towel and take them to the blow drying station. Blow dry them until they are either completely dry or close to it. Have the blow dryer setting on low and hold it about eight inches away from the bird’s body. This will take about 20 to 30 minutes.The sixth and last step is to clip the bird’s toenails and beak if you have not already done so. To trim the toenails, hold the chicken tightly and, using a small pair of fingernail clippers, cut off any excess nail. Make sure that you don’t cut past the small blood veins that each toenail contains. You can see where the vein is by holding the nail up to the light and looking for a small thin line in the middle. Leave at least a tenth of an inch after the end of the vein. If you do by accident cut it, use Blood Stop, a blood coagulant. Is very important to stop the bleeding, as a seemingly small amount of blood loss can be fatal to the chicken. For the beak, use a small nail file, and file the beak to the length that is needed. Check for the blood vein in the beak as well, and file carefully, feeding the bird small treats to keep it calm. Try to finish in a short time, as the longer you take, the more agitated the bird will get. This does not mean that you should hurry at the expense of the bird, just that you should try to finish in about 5 to 10 minutes.
This is a Guide with some very good tips.
Hope this helps
Thanks
Peacocks Australia
Courtousy of: ucce/ucdavis/edu/files/filelibrary/2318/25796
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