Poultry Show and One More Chicken Breed Added to the Flock

I should know better than to go near anyplace that might have chickens for sale. I just couldn’t contain myself when I went to the poultry show yesterday.

The show was mainly bantam chicken breeds and I did have a few that I liked, even though I have none myself. I raise chickens for eggs and so the bantam breed has never appealed to me due to the size of the egg. But here is a picture of a beautiful rooster…

Self Blue Dutch Bantam Rooster

He was just gorgeous. I love the coloring, very unusual. The hen was right next to him but I didn’t get as good a picture of her…

Self blue dutch bantam hen

Beautiful! Just plain beautiful! I just like looking at those bantam chickens. Of course, me being me, I had to try and stick my hand in the cage to see if they were friendly or not and both were very docile.

There were rows of poultry cages. If you have ever been to a show before, or possibly a county fair, then you have seen the displays…

Lake City Poultry Show '09

The majority showing were bantam chickens since this was the national show for the bantam association. There were standard breeds showing also but I didn’t get to see very many of them. Next year I will know better but when they are judging the poultry breeds they rope off the isles so you don’t get in the way of the inspectors. So for the first half of the day you couldn’t view the chickens in certain areas unless they are done. And then they may go back and close off a section if they want to check it again.

The good thing was that they had a flea market going on behind the exhibit building and there was lots of vendors outside to entertain you while they had the lines closed off. Along with the flea market was people outside selling all breeds of chickens. From what I saw most were pure breds. Remember in a previous post about the chicken breed Australorps how I stated that I thought I needed some of this poultry breed since they were docile and excellent egg layers…well, I couldn’t contain myself and had to buy me this pair…

Black Australorps--Samson and Delilah

I updated the picture today-1-13 so you can see how beautiful they are. In the sun the sheen on the rooster and hen is awesome. She even laid an egg for me after I had her home.

I was quite pleased with myself when I left the poultry show. I didn’t plan on buying chickens but I am glad I did. Can you imagine the cute little baby chicks I will be able to hatch out from their eggs? I’m beside myself just thinking about it!

Speaking of chicken eggs…tomorrow is day 18 for my buff orpington eggs in the incubator so the rotation stops and the humidity goes up. I’m praying for a successful hatch.

1-13–I’m having the hardest time keeping the humidity at the level it is supposed to be. I have both water troughs filled in the incubator and now have a damped wash cloth in the bottom to add moisture. One thing I haven’t told you is that I have these eggs sitting in a corrugated egg carton so I am sure that is the reason for the humidity being lower. I don’t like the thought of the eggs laying around on the wire so am trying the carton method. I’ve read that some have a better hatch rate. Who knows I do it just to keep the eggs stable.

Tags: bantam chickens, hens and roosters, poultry show