The Northeast Georgia Poultry Show!

I was finally able to convince my dear daughter to show some chickens at the poultry shows. Being a teenager, she has fought me here and there, but she reaped the rewards of getting her birds ready all last week for the show this past Saturday. I am so proud of her and her birds.

Let me back up a bit though. I do have pictures of some of the work being done behind the scenes here at home.

I had two new birds to show this year. Two beautiful appenzeller spitzauben cockerals (meaning they are under one year old). These birds are hard to come by and I lucked up getting the two of them awhile back as babies. Here is Haw. Yes, the other ones name is Hee. ;) They had never been bathed and blowdried before but they took it like champs and never fought it at all. I think they actually liked the pampering! The last two pictures are of them in show. They got great marks, so that lets me know they are good show birds.










Taking a break after blowdrying for about fifteen minutes, getting a treat for being so patient with the human and her silliness. ;)










A beautiful end result!







Now here are some shots of Shelby getting Rayne ready, and him getting some treats afterwards for being such a good boy for her!












The results for her efforts, four ribbons!

Rayne took Best in Breed and Best in Variety...




Her little white serama cockeral won Reserve Best in Breed and Reserve Best in Variety...




Her bantam Barred Plymouth Rock cockeral won Best in Breed and Best in Variety, and one of two of the pullets won Reserve Best in Breed and Best in Variety...






A couple of pictures of her two serama boys that won, in their coops at the show...






She also showed another serama cockeral and a serama pullet. The way they judge seramas, only the best two win placement of any kind, so these two did not place, but I was told by Tommy (the judge) that they are still very good birds.







Proud parent and happy child...




Once again, Dwain was there with me. He loves to go to the shows, but he is also an irreplaceable big help to me, and to Shelby also now that she is showing. I went to the Dalton show by myself, and I can tell you, it was very stressful trying to get all the birds in, tested, and cooped in all by myself. Dwain, the next show, you need to get in front of the camera. He also did a very nice thing for a young man showing at this show. He offered up a Golden Phoenix hen to go with the youth's golden rooster that was at show. He then offered up whatever he wanted to choose from he could have, he just had to come by Dwains house and take a look. :) Dwain you have such a big heart, you are truly a great friend and just an all around wonderful person. I am honored to know you.

So, on with my birds. I took Buckbuck and Babe again this year. I was met with BIG competition though. Beth was showing! The wonderful lady I bought my birds from in the first place. She truly has GIANT cochins. They were HUGE! I was so caught up in the show I somehow managed to miss taking pictures of hers or mine...but will be sure to take some at the next show. She works very hard at all the shows helping out, and I told her she deserved the recognition and rewards of showing, both because her birds are truly a sight to see and because she works so hard. I don't mind losing to her, she is my hero when it comes to cochins! I did place second to hers, and was happy to just place at all against her birds.

Here are my two at home after the show, relaxing, and hopefully managing to stay clean for the upcoming shows ahead.












My polish were show stoppers as usual. They always draw a lot of attention from spectators. Kuckoo was not in the mood to show that day. He was not performing like I would have liked. He had his head down and was slumping, pacing, looking for a way out of that coop. I could tell he just wanted to be home. I hope he will do better in the following shows. He did receive Best Large Fowl Polish last year. You can see that picture on my sidebar. The girls were looking real nice. Coco had some solid white feathers come in on her head this year after her molt, so she placed third out of her and her two daughters. Laverne did VERY well and won Reserve Champion Continental, Best in Breed, and Best in Variety. Her sister Shirley placed Reserve Best in Breed and Reserve Best in Variety. Here is a good picture I was able to take of Laverne at the show.




Shirley was not as cooperative...






and here is a nice one of their mother, Coco...







Its a shame about her crest feathers. Year before last she was going to take Champion Continental, but if anyone remembers, was disqualified for stubs, something I have since learned to avoid easily. Someone showing a buffed laced polish rooster at this show is now learning the same tough lesson I did, as theirs was disqualified for stubs.

Here is poor Kuckoo, this was pretty much his look the whole show. The pictures following this one are of a more relaxed and happy Kuckoo at home the next day, relaxing with his girls.













Shelbys winnings...





My plaque for Reserve Continental. I had a choice, five dollars and a cookbook, or a plaque...as you can see, I wanted the plaque! :)





There is quite a lot going on around here to blog about, a lot of stories rattling around in this noggin, and I am hoping to be able to put them down here soon. I will make an entry tomorrow that will include a slideshow of all the other birds I took pictures of at the show. Until then, everyone have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by to see and hear my ramblings!

Two posts in one day...Baby chicks!

I have a serious depletion of layer chickens here. I spent the whole year concentrating on trying to hatch show birds, and wasnt all that successful at that. Now I got to step it up and get busy. I already have the Rhode Island Reds that were given to me, but it is looking like about half of them are boys. Boys are of no use to me, they don't lay eggs, so they will have to go eventually.

A neighbor down the road that has chickens called up and asked me to hatch, said we could split the chicks. He has cuckoo marans. They are in high demand right now. They are the 'IN' chicken to have. They lay dark brown eggs and everyone loves a fresh brown egg. He brought me enough to fill the incubator, 36 eggs. Out of those, a few were not fertile and after candling them after about a week passed I took those out. There were a couple that did not develop all the way and died in the shell. Other than that we had a very very VERY successful hatch. I have never had such a good hatch. 27 babies hatched. One has a problem with its feet, but it seems to still be trying hard to get around. I am going to see what I can do to make it some corrective shoeing to fix the toes. One foot is curled the other, the toes are laying flat, like when they first come out of the egg. I have fixed babies before. I had a splay leg many years ago with my speckled sussex babies. Way back when I didnt have a clue what I was doing. I got her up and on her feet. She is still out there in the yard today, turning eight years old about the end of this month.

Hatching babies is a good way to help me through the winter. It keeps me happy. I can sit and watch those babies forever. It always makes me smile. Every now and then I pick one up and cuddle it, put it back and get another.

Here are some pictures of them hatching, and now, this morning in the brooder. I also have a video, although it didnt turn out very good, it is dark and grainy, but I thought I would post it anyway. I caught the baby just at the right moment. :)

















He is bringing me 24 more eggs hopefully in a few days. I would have filled up the incubator again, but I have been getting eggs from my plymouth rock bantams so I am putting those in there.

Snow

As usual I am behind on blogging. I am really not as good at this as I used to be!

We had some winter weather here last week. There was not an abundant accumulation of snow. What did happen was it fell when the roads were right above the freezing mark and then after dark it all froze over to ice. It didnt get above freezing for days. With the wind blowing constantly it did dry up some streets, but a lot of them remained slippery.

Ian has and always will make it to work come hell or high water, or ice in this case. He leaves so early that it isnt a problem of other people being out. That afternoon when it hadnt melted though, I was worried about him getting home without playing bumper cars with everyone else on the road. He did take the truck. I didnt want him in his tiny little car against all the SUV and other trucks out there. Better the truck take it than him. As it turned out I had nothing to worry about, he made it work and home with no problems.

Here are a few pictures I took the next morning. Nothing to write home about, but the roads were treacherous for sure.













I don't know why people refer to the word 'pansy' when talking about a person who is a sissy or whatever. Pansies are TOUGH little flowers. I watched my four pots of pansies freeze and come back from it for two weeks straight. This deep freeze finally did them in though, they can't take the nights in the teens night after night.

We have a warm up in store for us, and I for one can't WAIT. I am very excited about it. Tending animals in this brutal cold is no fun, and you know its not fun for them to be out in it. Breaking up ice, pouring hot water on solid blocks of ice day after day, just so they can have water to drink. Not my idea of fun, and I am sure they dont like it much either.

The Weather

My husband makes fun of me sometimes for watching the Weather Channel. Lately, there have been some stories on there about how extreme the weather has been this winter. It isnt just here in the United States though. England and Poland are getting a heavy dose of extreme winter too. It has been said now that this is the longest coldest stretch of winter since 1985.

I have seen a lot of folks say, "Where is the global warming?" in jest, but in fact if you believe in global warming, you know that it isnt always warm weather that results from it. Balance is thrown off and it can be excessively cold in places it didnt used to be so cold, like what is happening now. The polar ice caps may be melting, but we are freezing our tushes off at the same time, moreso than usual.

I like the Weather Channel. I will admit it. I like it for several reasons. One is the obvious, you get your weather forecast. I like the stories in other parts of the country that pertain to their weather, and the coverage of other countries weather too. There is something soothing about this channel. If I get up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, I will often turn to this channel. Why? Because you don't get SO interested in it you stay awake. Its not BORING, its just not a LOUD overbearing channel. Does anyone else ever notice this? It seems like some of the channels Ian watches are loud. Sports channels are loud. The UFC fighting stuff is loud. There is always someone shouting...Joe Rogan to be specific. Even Ian finds him annoying.

I am not that boring. I don't just watch the Weather Channel. I do watch movies that can have a lot of loud bangs and crashes in it, but that is part of watching a movie like that. What kind of shows do you watch? Does your husband or wife watch shows where there is a lot of yelling and banging? Maybe Jerry Springer...or Maury...lol.

We have a weather forecast for snow this evening. I am torn because it has been so cold, a little snow might make it prettier than how dead and frozen everything looks. On the other hand, Ian has to drive an hour away to work in it, and that worries me. No matter how bad the snow is, he will try to get to work.

I wonder what the grocery stores will be like today. I have to go out and pick up a prescription from Kroger and a few essentials like milk and cereal, orange juice and sandwich meat. I bet there will be a lot of people getting off work this afternoon and headed to the grocery stores to STOCK UP for the snow coming. It will stick no doubt. The temperatures have been below freezing for days and days now so the ground is frozen. The thing is, usually it doesnt last long. It melts in a day or two. I could be wrong this time. Our temperatures have been extreme for what seems like an eternity. It might not melt as fast. The weather forecast calls for wind too. Maybe that will dry up the roads so Ian doesnt have to ice skate to work.

Now that winter is officially here, I am hoping to direct my attention towards blogging more. There just isnt much else to do. The holidays are over. Now its just a waiting period until Spring.

There are the poultry shows coming up. I do have that, if I have any birds left to show. Remember Rocko? The bantam silver spangled hamburg rooster I bought from the show in Dalton from a top breeder? Well, yesterday, he went down hill...at a screaming pace. His comb lost its color and his wings began to droop. He drank vitamins, electrolytes, and antibiotics I put in the water. This morning when Ian left for work at 4 am, he was dead. I have no idea what caused it. It was so fast. Maybe it was just something random. Maybe he had some sort of organ fail on him, something internal just quit working right, I don't know.

Apparently I am not supposed to have silver spangled hamburg bantams. I have had a heck of a time with other birds of this breed. I have had two with colds that I was able to nurse back to health. I have one girl now, she is in pretty bad shape. I thought she was going to make it, seemed she was getting better, but now it is all going downhill this morning, very quickly. I will not give up on any animal though. I have seen some come back from the brink of death. Several years back Tim, my first and best japanese silver phoenix rooster, got sick. he wouldnt even stand, he was so weak. I was able to save him. I believe he had botulism. He is still alive today, strong and doing well. He will be five years old this Spring.

So, right now I am left with two hens that are healthy of this breed. Actually, they were both a touch sick with colds a couple of weeks back, but I have been able to get them completely well. Both are laying well, and unfortunately now I have no show quality rooster to breed them to. I don't know what I want to do. Should I try again and buy another rooster from the guy, or should I just give it up. The bantam barred rocks are doing very well and I already have two fertile eggs in the incubator from them. They are a good future show line for me. I do love the silver spangled hamburgs. There is not a flood of those at shows like some. I have discovered one of the breeds of chicken I love and wanted to show, is VERY popular and there are just so many to compete against it becomes overwhelming. That would be the brown red modern bantams. So I am abandoning showing that breed, for now anyway.

Shelby will be showing some birds this season. She has never shown, but she has Rayne, her sweet little house rooster. He has such a good disposition and good type I told her she should show him. She will be showing the barred rock trio and a few other seramas in the youth. I hope she will bring home some ribbons and maybe a trophy and it will inspire her to get into it more, maybe have her own line of seramas.

For now, I will be showing the same guys and gals from last year. I will probably show a few of Buckbuck and Babes offspring this show season, but not at the first show in Jefferson. There is a one weekend lull between shows and it is really hard to keep everyone looking their best for long periods of time, so I will wait til there are the three shows in a row for that.




A moment of silence for Rocko. For what he could have been. He wasnt with us long, but I will miss him.

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 was another wonderful Christmas. We missed my younger sister Erin coming this year but she was in good hands with her boyfriend DJ. They went to New Orleans to visit his family. They had spent Thanksgiving with us, so I guess it is only fair to share her with others on Christmas. ;)

My parents came on Christmas day. John (Ians dad) and Christi (Johns wife) came on Christmas day. So it was a small gathering but having just the few made it more intimate and we were able to visit each other better. It seems sometimes the bigger the gathering the less time I am able to give to everyone to talk and visit. So this was actually just right and very nice.

John and Cristi brought their pups...I say pups, but well, you will see. ;) Darby, Johns dog, is an Irish Wolfhound and Cristis new puppy, five months old, is a deerhound. Her name is Cassie. My Mama, she loves Darby. She saw him when he was much smaller and was amazed at how large he is now. She wants one of those big dogs, but I don't know if Daddy would be able to stand it. They have the 'grand dog', our dog Tip, and right now that seems to be enough. They even keep her when Ian, Shelby and I go somewhere that is overnight or longer. She always comes with us when we go to visit. She is like a grandchild they can spoil and then give her back. ;)

So we had a very nice Christmas dinner and even though it was cold John and Cristi managed to see a little bit of the llamas, a glimpse of the pigs, chickens and so on. I think my Daddy was a big taken aback at the screened in porch arrangements. I do have many small chickens in cages in there stacked up. I made sure there was no smell though. Everyone was cleaned out the day before Christmas and it just smelled like pine shavings. It was very clean and orderly. I sometimes worry what everyone thinks, but Ian says...and its true, Ian says, we don't live like other folks, and thats whey we moved out to the country. We like the way we live, with our animals and our country life, and thats just fine. I agree, we have to be comfortable with ourselves and live like we love to live, and we do.

John and Cristi had to get back home that evening to the other dogs to let them out and feed them. As the evening wound down I was getting pretty sleepy and Ian was asleep by around 9 pm, and I was not far behind him. My parents spent the night with us, and I left them with the tv controller and was asleep not long after. Isnt it pitiful? Ian and I both sacked out before my parents. Whats this world coming to? LOL!

The next morning I cooked a nice breakfast for us all. Once it warmed up a bit, as warm as it could be this time of year, we went outside for a stroll around the back. The animals were all glad to see us and were very receptive. Daisy, one of our pot belly pigs, even let Mama pet her.

Here are some pictures from Christmas and the day after. We had a really nice Christmas!

And The Beat Goes On

I don't know why I made that my header for this entry. Its as good as any, because no matter what happens, life goes on, except for lately here amongst the chickens things haven't been going so well.

Wintertime, is a time for colds, infections, just not feeling so good in general. I mean, you wouldn't feel your best having to endure the outdoors in winter. My heavy girls and boys do well, they have big bodies and very rarely get sick. It seems when it rains it pours though. I been bagging and tagging left and right.

About a month ago I put my young up and coming show polish I had hatched over the Spring in the double wide pen that used to house sultans. For whatever reason, polish seem to grow really really slow, so their body mass is not substantial until after they are way over a year old, even then, they aren't like the heavy breeds. And Serama, well, they don't survive winter, period. You have to bring them in where it is tolerable. I have worked hard to enclose the porch with plastic and I have two utility heaters running full blast in there. It does indeed keep it tolerable.

So on with the deaths. A few weeks ago I had one young silver laced polish die. This was before I even moved them to the big pen. Then, just a few days ago, I go out to feed and water and the first thing I find is two more of my young show line dead. This came the morning after we had that horrible storm blow through with high winds, so bad it actually lifted the front posts of the run in up out of their two foot holes and I found them sitting out of the holes the next day. I don't know if the little ones were frightened to death or what, I probably would have been. It was a bad night that night with all the rain and wind and it was cold too. So, I moved what was left into the porch, IMMEDIATELY. I already have a boy and a girl in with some seramas in the porch. I have three left of the ones out in the pen, along with a young white crested polish cockeral, the only one left that survived that bunch of chicks I bought from the guy down in Jenkinsburg, if you may remember. I am sorry if this entry seems discombobulated. I feel as if I am up and down and all over the place so I hope anyone reading this can follow what I am saying.

So here are the ones left of the polish...from the double wide pen. They are doing well, in the porch.






The silver laced polish girl in the second picture is fine. I just turned on the light in the porch so most everyone was settling down for the night and she was sleepy.

Then, there is Buzzbomb. Do you remember him? He was my best serama breeder. He was cursed with being a serama. I say that, because he loved his freedom, so much, I think depression killed him. A couple of weeks ago, we had a cold snap, so I brought Sheila, his mate, and him in. He immediately became withdrawn, sinking his head down into his body. He was that way for two days. Soon as I let him out...he snapped right out of it and down the steps he bounded off to do fantastic chicken things for the day with Sheila by his side. I had seen this not once, but twice, so I know he wasnt sick. Once a chicken is sick, its touch and go. I do everything I know to do to save them, but most of the time the result is death.

This past week has been brutally cold. He would not have survived some of these nights in the twenties. So I brought them back in. He withdrew again. He would eat some, and drink some, but after five days I noticed he was painfully thin. I started antibiotics, vitamin and mineral supplements and a shot of penicillin in the leg. There was no signs of improvement and yesterday morning I found him passed on.

People say chickens don't have feelings, that they are mindless dumb creatures. I know that poor Sheila was grieving. She was very agitated and upset the day before. She knew. The next morning at daylight she was pacing the cage back and forth, frantic. I pulled Buzzbombs lifeless body from the cage and put it out of her sight. She was upset most of the day. Today she has been better, but I KNOW chickens remember. I could count a hundred ways I know this, but that is for another time. So here is poor little Sheila. Those two were bonded. They went everywhere together. Some chickens group together out there, but they seperate and go wandering their own way at some points during the day. Not these two. I have four girls and one boy out of this pair, and I know it is Buzzbombs son. If you look back an entry or two, you will see a picture of his son. Its the entry with the white cockeral, the other one, the dark one, is his son.

Poor Sheila...





We lost a battle with one of the silver spangled hamburg hens. She came down with a cold that resulted in respiratory distress. She was gasping for every breath. I treated her intensively. I took her out of the porch and into the house in a clothes basket with some towels placed down in the basket. I covered the basket with another towel and put her next to a heater vent in the bathroom to rest. For the next two days I gave her antibiotics orally.

Yesterday I was holding her in my arms, slowly dropping a few drops at a time of medicine into her mouth, as she gasped over and over. It broke my heart. All of the sudden, she spasmed, her wings pointed downward towards her feet, her legs became stiff, and then, she was gone. I started to cry while she was dying. I knew that was what was happening. I have been through it before with Mazda, our first house chicken. It is so heartbreaking to hold them and not be able to do anything but just hold them, comfort them while they pass. That is what I do for every one of my animals if I am able. It hurts, but they deserve the comfort.

So here is her sister, and now she is alone too.




And now, tonight, I found one of my white crested polish girls with a swollen eye. It is swollen shut and puffed out. She also seems to have a bit of runny nose. Once again, I got out the syringes, the needles, the penicillin, gave her a shot. Mixed a cocktail of oral antibiotics and vitamins and gave her a good dose of that. She is resting now, in a carrier in the porch.




Her head is tucked and she is sleeping. Please please, I don't want to lose another.

Then there is this guy here below. Shelby has named him Ellis. Ellis is one of the bantam barred rocks I showed. This little guy started wailing on his brother the other day and wouldn't let up, so I seperated him to a pen of his own. A few days went by and I thought, EH, he can have his freedom out in the yard with the free rangers. You see, he has a fault, as far as show quality goes. He has droopy wings. The muscles that are supposed to hold them up tight to the body do not do their job so well. I had already put the girl with the inverted comb, the silver spangled hamburg that was disqualified, and her brother, back into the yard and they were fine with it, glad to be out of cages.

Ellis, on the other hand, did not fair so well. When I put him out, I watched for awhile. I didnt just throw him to the wolves so to speak. Any rooster low on the totem pole knows his place and won't challenge any dominate rooster. He stayed out of Petes way and seemed to be fine, so I left. That night I went out right after dark just to see where he was roosting. I have several places for the chickens to go in at night. They have their choice of plenty of shelters. Keeps the fussing and fighting down.

Well, I couldnt find him. I looked everywhere. Great. Apparently I had sent him to his doom. The next morning I went out with feed and no Ellis. Not all day. I looked for him in the daylight, but he was hiding really well, or he had run away. I was so upset with myself for doing this. I felt so badly. I had tried to just give him his freedom, and instead sent him to his doom.

Yesterday I went out as usual to feed. I got to the third feed pan and started scooping feed into it and HERE COMES ELLIS! He is crouching like the devil himself is on his tail, but running for me as fast as he can. I was SO glad to see that little guy. He came up to me fast as he could. If he could talk, I knew exactly what he would be saying.

Mama! Please! Save me! I promise I will be good, please get me out of here!!! Please! Pick me up, take me in, I WANT to go back in a pen PLEASE MAMA!

So I stuck out my hand and he came right up to be picked up and was snug in my jacket hanging out while I finished feeding and then we went in. I made him up his own pen, again, and he seemed VERY happy about it all. Here is Ellis, peeking out. I told him it was okay, that I would never ever banish him to the yard again. It was just a relief to see his little fuzzy butt again.








I call this the "WALL O' CHICKENS"...this is part of what my porch is looking like right now. Please excuse the shavings on the floor, I hadn't vacuumed them up yet with the shop vac I keep in there just for that.





I am doing everything I can. All I know how to do to take care of all my babies, but some die anyway. I don't get as upset about every single one as I used to. Some I am closer to than others. Some, like the polish, I never had a chance to establish a bond with them before they died. It just sucked that they died. It was very hard to hatch them and I worked hard to take care of them, and will continue to do so with the remaining ones.

If you are still with me and reading this, thank you for listening. Sometimes I just have to get it all out, it makes me feel better.