Hartwood Days Festival- Our Youth Poultry Show Results

It's that time of year again!  Show season is upon us and we're getting started in the right direction with our first Poultry Show of the season.  The kids participate most years in the local, Hartwood Days Festival's Youth Poultry Show.  This year's show was even more fun since many of the kids' friends participated with thier birds.  There are always other animals at the show and since we were picking up four NEW Lionhead Rabbits at the show, we went ahead and entered those as well!

It was a tough decision on who to take this time, as you've read in our post on deciding who to take to a show, you always want to take the bird that is the best representation of the APA and ABA Standards of Perfection (SOP).  For us, it was difficult because most all of our birds over a year are molting.  Our choices were to either take birds that were molting and hope everyone else's were also or take younger birds that hadn't quite filled in yet. 

Alyssa chose to do both.  Alyssa decided to take Clover, her recently acquired Bearded White Silkie from Kippen Paradys Silkies.  Clover is still young, not fully filled out but she's already a beauty.  She came from Paint breeding and has one tiny little black spot at the base of her crest in the back.  We thought she might be too young to place but since the older hens were molting, Clover it was.  Much to our surprise, the judge, Tom Roebuck, seemed to really like her.  Clover was the star silkie of the day!  She ended up bringing home- Reserve of Show, Reserve Bantam, Best Featherleg (class), Best in Breed, AND Best Variety as a white Silkie!  We were thrilled with her results. She's definitely the newest princess on the block!

Since she's not only gorgeous but sweet as pie, Alyssa also used Clover for her showmanship bird.  Alyssa was confident with Clover and is so famililar with the silkie breed, she managed to pull out a 2nd Place Win in the Intermediate Division of Showmanship!

Alyssa also took Rico, our handsome Bearded Calico/Porcelain Silkie Rooster.  Rico won 1st place Silkie Rooster and even better, Best AOV (Any other Variety) of the Show which is the highest he's able to win since his color isn't recognized! 

Alyssa's third bird was Red John, our BBR Phoenix rooster.  Red John also brought home a ribbon, winning Best in Breed!  The judge spent some time speaking to Alyssa and I both about him and even though Red John is in a current molt, he was quite pleased with his feathering and commending her on his tail length and quality. 

Next up was Chance.  We all knew who Chance was bringing to the show.  Blue & Splash Bearded Silkies are his forte and his passion.  The challenge for Chance was that his very best were either molting or broody.  What to do?  After careful consideration and some bathing and blow drying, Chance chose to pull three hens off of their nest. 

Mama Sassy is his oldest and probably most spoiled bearded Blue Silkie hen.  Her name is Sassy but she's earned the term Mama Sassy for her tenure and the amount of gorgeous chicks she's produced here for Chance.   Mama Sassy didn't let us down, she brought home Best Variety of the Blue Silkies. Even coming off of a nest full of eggs she's been on for a couple of weeks now!

Although Blueberry was bred as a Blue bearded Silkie, has shown at the state shows as Blue, and from her offspring, we know she is genetically a Blue, the judge insisted she's a Black as far as showing.  Her coop tags were changed from a Blue bearded Silkie to a Black bearded Silkie.  That's okay!  It's just another opportunity for a win for us in the Black variety and Miss Blueberry took full advantage of it, bringing home Best Variety for the Black Bearded Silkies AND Reserve of Breed overall of the Silkies, next in line to Clover!

Jade was the bearded Splash Silkie hen he chose to bring, as usual.  Jade is one of Chance's favorite birds and she's just stunning.  Even coming off of the nest for the day to attend the show, she showed like a true professional.  Jade won Best Variety as well.  Chance also used Jade for his Showmanship bird and they brought home FIRST place in the Intermediate Division in Showmanship!! He knows his birds, especially his Silkies!

What I loved about the three ladies above is, when Chance brought them home from a long day of being beautiful at the show, they drank a little, ate a little, and silkie swayed thier way back up into the nesting box, moving the other hens out of the way to hop back in the pile up on top of thier eggs! Those are some real hens!

Briana, of course, is our Partridge girl.  She's been working on her Partridge now for some time, if you remember, she won Best Variety and Jr. Champion Featherleg last November at the State Show with her Partridge hen, Toffee.  Her Partridge never let us down, thanks to the mentoring and blood lines she's obtained over the years from such greats as Sandy Thompson from Bat Cave Silkies.

 Our Partridge are in TERRIBLE condition right now, however.  Their pens look like they've been having pillow fights each night with the molting and feathers dropped, not to mention three just came off of the nest from hatching chicks.  Briana really only had one choice to represent her Partridge at this particular show and it was to take Titmouse. A very young Partridge pullet she produced from Levi & Toffee.  Titmouse is beautiful but young and not nearly as full as she's going to get.  Again, with an "It is what it is!" attitude, we bathed and dried her and caged her up.  We should have known that line can't hide it's beauty, even in a young pullet as Titmouse also came home with 1st place Pullet and Best Variety! 

Briana chose her Bantam Salmon Faverolles for her second birds to bring.  Again, with the more mature hens molting, she had to bring a young pullet and a rooster who was molting - but in better shape than his hens so Tiger and Cheetah came along.  I'm not surprised that Cheetah beat Tiger, pulling out Best in Breed since Tiger was missing his sickle feathers!  Cheetah also won Reserve Champion Featherleg, however!  Tiger won Reserve in Breed also which isn't too shabby!

The girls' best friend, Hannah also did very well, winning Best American and Best in Breed with her Delaware and Best Continental AND Best in Breed with a White Leghorn we ended up bringing home with us for our Yokohama project.  She also took 3rd place in Showmanship in the Intermediate division!  All of the kids that showed did an amazing job, I was so proud of how far they've come, especially our APA-ABA Youth kids!

All in all, most importantly, it was a fun day!  The weather was a little gloomy as it rained on and off and the wind picked up to drop the temperatures but when you have friends and farm animals- you know you have to enjoy yourself!  I'm very proud of the accomplishments of the kids and the success of our farm but most excited that they've grown so much in the fancy the past couple of years.  There were jokes made about Chance as he accepted his 1st place Showmanship trophy that he must know he'd won and I thought back to just four years ago when they were nervous and fidgety and couldn't answer half of the judge's questions and I smile!  These wins haven't come easy and have been gained with a lot of hard work and dedication, they deserved them!  Thanks for sharing in our success!  Our next show is in November so be ready for some more (hopefully) awesome results!


Blessings!
Tiffany