Farm Kid2 is a Cloverbud in the 4-H program. In 4-H you can’t compete until you’re in 4th grade; he is in 2nd grade. He can do many fun 4-H activities, he just can’t win the blue ribbon – which kind of ticks him off. But, he has fun anyway.

We are fairly relaxed with his show skills at the moment. Right now it’s all about learning as much as he can & having fun. There’s no need to have the added pressure of winning.

Getting Ready

Farm Kid2’s show chicken is a SCCL Light Brown Leghorn named Percy. She is a fabulous chicken for him as a newbie to showing.

To get ready for the show Percy got a bath.

At the Show

All small animal Cloverbuds showed together, so there was a mix of chickens, rabbits & cavies.

My favorite part of him showing is when he has to answer questions the judge asks him. I think it’s such a great life skill. He has to speak loudly & clearly, answer confidently, and figure out the best way to answer if he doesn’t know the answer.

Since Cloverbuds can’t compete, they usually get a participation ribbon or some other goody. This Halloween themed show handed out candy.

The fun part of the show was the costume contest. There were many fun ideas.

Percy was a ghost.

Happy Halloween!

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One of the most recognizable parts of a chicken is its comb. Most people know that the comb is the (usually) red fleshy part at the top of a chicken’s head. Not all combs are the same, though. The American Poultry Association lists 9 different types of combs in their American Standard of Perfection.

SINGLE COMB

The single comb is probably the most recognizable, in part thanks to Foghorn Leghorn. It is, as the name implies, a single formation, with multiple points. It should be fairly thin & begin at the beak. This comb should be larger on males than females. A large, bright comb may attract a potential mate.  On females, if it gets too large it may flop over.

Many breeds have a single comb including:
Andalusian
Australorp
Cochin
Delaware
Faverolles
Holland
Jersey Giant
Leghorn
Marans
New Hampshire
Orpington
Phoenix
Plymouth Rock
Rhode Island Red
Sussex
Welsummer

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The Pacific NW Poultry Association Spring Show was this last weekend. All 5 of us went & stayed nearly all day Saturday looking, learning & exploring. This was our first show. We were planning on going to the show just to check it out. But, last month when Farm Kid2 went to a clinic on how to show your bird he left there wanting to show his bird. So, I signed him up. Win or lose, I figured it would be a great learning experience for him.

Farm Kid2 showing his bird for the first time. He has a Light Brown Bantam Leghorn.

Show Birds & Raffle Items:

To see a couple more bird pics from the show check out our facebook page.

Both our boys made posters to enter in the poster contest. Neither won, but I think they did a great job.
Left: Farm Kid2 (age 7) wanted to make his poster about chicks hatching. He wanted to include both hatching from an incubator and hatching from a broody hen.
Right: Farm Kid1 (age 10) chose to make his poster about our Golden Polish chickens. Those do seem to be his favorites. If he’s going to go hold a chicken, it’s almost always a Golden Polish.

A few more fun things at the show:
Left: Any time Farm Girl could pet a bird, she did.
Middle: Farm Kid2 also wanted to enter our eggs in the egg judging contest. So, we did that too. Again, this was a first for us & I really didn’t know how they were going to be judged. We did get 2nd place, though, out of 4 entries in our class.
Right: Farm Kid1 asked if he could get a quail & that he’d pay for it with his own money & take care of it. Farmer John has said for years that he would like quail, so it wasn’t hard to sell dad on the idea. I will admit they did look pretty cute. They are like tiny, little jumping beans. Each of the kids picked out a quail.

It was kind of a long day & parts of it were a bit slow, but we all enjoyed the show. Next time we know to bring a few things to entertain the kids. I’m sure this was the first of many shows we will take part in.

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