first poultry show of 2011

I know you must be eager to find out how many awards I took home over the weekend. Right? Well, I have to disappoint you and tell you that I didn't win anything. Not even Best of Breed! Oh well. :-)

I had a good time though aside from being cold much of the time, it's nice to see friends I haven't seen for a while. I traveled with JC, who is getting back into chickens (in a big way!) after about 10 years of not showing. I'm getting quite a kick out of her buying lots of birds. ;-)

I took 9 birds to Hollister (3 cockerels, 6 pullets). I also didn't manage to take any photos. Oops! Over-all they are on the young side, and really need another month or so before they are fully mature. Hopefully I'll be able to take more to Eureka next month. Hopefully more cockerels will turn out halfway decent. I was starting to be impressed with them but now I'm starting to be disappointed. I have this notion that I'd show up with a dozen showstopper BBRed cockerels. Hmmm, well... I'm going to be lucky if ONE turns out really good. Dang it.

Anyway, people start talking about hatching this time of year, which makes me go "eeeek!" but really, I think I need to reconsider going back to my old hatching schedule this year. That is, start collecting eggs next month. Egads. Hatching in late summer has its good points (it allows me to sell eggs early in the season, it's easier to raise the chicks in brooders without needing lots of extra heat) but it also means that even by this time of year they are barely ready to show, and anything that I want to sell as a show/breeder bird has to kept over winter so I can see how it matures. That's a pain, I don't want any more birds in mud season than necessary!

Soooo... maybe it's time to go back to the old way and hatch in the spring, and be done with it by late May or early June. I am planning to be in Atlanta again in June for Blade Show, but likely not going to be gone for 2+ weeks this time around, so it'll be a little easier for someone to take care of the babies. Besides, I have a feeling that late summer/early fall might be kinda busy, and I probably won't want to be dealing with babies late in the year.

I need to go through all the birds again by the end of the month. There are more for auction, I'm sure. I should have a very very very limited number of show/breeder birds for sale. Again I'm going to need to focus on hatching BBReds. Maybe I'll even skip a year with the Blacks and the Brassies/Blue Brassies. I know that not showing Blacks will make me extremely uncompetitive, but that's not a top priority anymore anyway (much to the delight of a certain sebright exhibitor!). ;-) Or maybe I should just hatch a bunch of Blacks and kick some booty. Hmm.

Oy, much to think about.