Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (90 page)

As the birds dry, arrange their feathers for proper shaping, especially around the base of the tail. Complete drying takes 12 to 18 hours, depending on the density of the feathers.

To further whiten a white bird and give it a nice sheen, when the plumage is half dry, sponge it off with hydrogen peroxide. When the white bird is completely dry, a light dusting of cornstarch will help keep it clean.

A fine line exists between grooming and faking. Grooming is the process of making a bird look its best. Faking goes beyond grooming to alter a bird’s appearance for the purpose of hiding natural defects. Arranging feathers while they dry is grooming; bending, breaking, trimming, or crimping feathers to change their natural angle is faking.

Faking has two purposes: to fool judges and to deceive potential buyers. No one knows how common the practice is, since expert jobs are hard to detect and even more difficult to prove. The deceitful practice evolved into a high art in the days of the old-time
stringmen
, who traveled the show circuit exhibiting and selling their string of birds far from home.
The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry
, first published in 1934 in England, describes their methods in detail and shows what to look for if you have suspicions.

Even today someone at a show may pull you aside to reveal “tricks of the trade,” which are not only unethical but will get your bird disqualified if you have the bad luck to show under a judge who’s knowledgeable enough to spot the fake job. Many judges, however, are reluctant to disqualify a bird that shows signs of having been tampered with, mainly because faking is so difficult to prove. A cock, for example, may have a scarred comb because it got into a fight or because a side sprig was deliberately snipped off or the comb otherwise reshaped.

One faking practice that’s both common and impossible to detect (unless you see it done) is the removal of stubs, or downy feathers on the legs or between the toes of a clean-legged bird. Some clean-legged breeds, including Wyandottes, readily sprout stubs. I once saw a fine Cornish cock disqualified at a show for showing stubs while its well-known and embarrassed owner stood by swearing the bird had shown no sign of stubs the day before. That may well have beentrue
oiling the legs prior to judging likely loosened the scales enough to let the stubs slip out. The irony is that if this fellow had surreptitiously plucked the stubs, his bird would not have been disqualified.

Other clear cases of faking include using chemical solutions of various sorts to loosen or tighten plumage; starching tail feathers to make them stand up better; stitching a wry tail to straighten it; applying a coloring substance to the beak or earlobes (some substances, like lipstick and rouge, are easy to detect because they rub onto plumage); and rubbing a caustic chemical on undesirable white earlobes to make them blister, scab over, and turn red.

Borderline cases of faking most often involve feather color. White is the most likely color to be faked, since white plumage commonly looks brassy. Brassiness may occur for environmental reasons (such as too much sunshine or pigmented feed) or may be hereditary. Altering feather color by means of “softening, deepening, intensifying, or otherwise changing the natural color” is faking. Bringing out natural color by washing a bird, controlling its diet, or keeping it out of the sun is conditioning, not faking. Is rinsing a bird with bluing or rubbing it down with hydrogen peroxide faking? Not if your intent is to bring out the natural whiteness of its plumage. But bleaching a bird with harsh chemicals to whiten naturally brassy feathers is faking. Just as bleaching human hair causes the hair to become brittle, bleaching a bird’s plumage makes its feathers brittle. One criterion used to determine faking in white plumage is feather brittleness.

Feather pulling and beak trimming are additional practices that may be either grooming or faking. If you pull an off-color feather in plenty of time for a new one to grow back, hoping its color will be correct, that’s grooming. If you remove an off-color feather on the sly 20 minutes before the judging starts, that’s faking. Trimming the upper beak of a bird that’s been housed where it couldn’t keep its own beak worn down is grooming; trimming a crossed beak to hide the genetic defect is faking.

The intent of faking is to make a bird look like something it is not. An unscrupulous exhibitor uses faking, rather than selective breeding, to make his birds appear superior to others at the show. An unscrupulous seller uses faking to peddle genetically defective culls to unsuspecting buyers. Either way, faking is fraud.

To get your well-conditioned and groomed birds to the show, you’ll need an appropriate carrier. Prevent dirtied or damaged feathers by putting no more than one bird in each carrier, and line the bottom with clean straw or shavings.

Don’t use wire carriers for feather-legged and crested birds. A good carrier for transporting show birds is:

Clean
— disinfected between shows

Safe
— no protruding wires or nails

Suitable in size
— not so small a crest or comb rubs the top or foot feathers rub both sides at once; not so large the bird has room to launch into panicked flight

Well ventilated
— more so if the carrier will travel inside a car rather than in an open, windy pickup bed; if you carry chickens in the back of a truck, either cover the bed with a camper top or place each carrier inside a large cardboard box to protect the birds from drafts

Paint your name prominently on each carrier so that, in the scramble to leave and go home when the show ends, no one will mistakenly grab your box. The more expensive your carrier is, the more important some form of permanent identification becomes.

Your birds will show best, and remain healthiest, if you make every attempt to reduce the stress they naturally experience as a result of being transported and shown. The biggest stress-reducing measures you can take are avoiding drafts and long periods without water or feed. Bring along the water and feed your chickens are used to; at the show a bird may not drink water that tastes strange or eat rations with unfamiliar texture or composition.

Electrolytes and vitamin/mineral supplements help reduce stress when offered to birds for several days before and after a show, but supplements should not be used during the show. Their taste could cause a bird in unfamiliar surroundings to go off feed or water, increasing its stress level. On the other hand, adding a little vinegar to strange-tasting water at the rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon (15 mL per 4 L) will make the water more palatable to the chicken and encourage it to drink.

Chickens at show should have water before them at all times, and you don’t always know in advance if the management will provide containers, so bring along drinkers that can’t be dumped. Save small food cans, making sure none have sharp edges. In the side of each, near the top, punch a hole and thread a piece of wire through. Use the wire to tie the can inside the show cage. If water containers are already provided, make sure they can’t be knocked over by a
frightened bird. Stabilize a loose waterer with snugly tied string, a paper clip, a rubber band, or a length of wire.

FEEDERS AND WATERERS

Whether store-bought galvanized or plastic (top) or homemade from a small can (bottom), cup feeders and waterers should be clipped securely to the show coop.

Bring along extra cans for feed.

Birds at show are generally fed scratch to keep their droppings solid. Many shows arrange to have someone travel from coop to coop making sure all birds have feed and water. Sometimes, however, that person is not reliable or has too many birds to tend or the birds themselves dump their water or feed in the excitement. A few shows require individual exhibitors to be responsible for watering and feeding their own birds. The premium list should indicate a show’s feeding and watering policy.

Some shows do not allow exhibitors to feed, water, or handle their birds once they’re on display, since show officials have no way of knowing whether you are tending to your own birds or interfering with the competition. If you see that someone else’s bird needs feed or water or has any other kind of problem, find the owner and let him or her know. Some exhibitors don’t like their chickens to be fed on the morning of the day their class is judged, because they want to avoid bulging crops. Besides, tending to or handling someone else’s bird, no matter how well-intended, may be mistaken for interfering.

When you arrive at the showroom, you will notice two types of exhibitors. One type will be running around tossing birds into their assigned coops. The other will be off in a corner or sitting in the back of a truck or van, calmly examining, grooming, and reassuring each bird before placing it in its show coop. Keep an eye on those quiet fellows — they’re your stiffest competition. They’re also your best teachers.

Take a tip from them, and give each of your chickens a last-minute going over. Polish the skin around the eyes and the comb, wattles, earlobes, leg, and toes of
each bird with a touch of baby oil, mineral oil, vitamin E oil, or a good-quality hand lotion on a soft cloth. Use a mentholated rub on the combs and wattles to open up the chicken’s airways and give your bird a healthy bloom. Be especially careful at this time not to get oil on plumage.