The Naked Truth of the Poultry Show World :: Personal Narrative

The Naked Truth of the Poultry Show World professors comment This students wonderfully vivid, often funny, first-person piece of music brings readers into a minuscule-known world of poultry exhibitors. Who could have imagined what its like to cleanse fifteen chickens and groom them for judging? From this essay I learned a great deal about chickens, and the students talents as a writer made the experience thoroughly engrossing. Most people depend to think its pretty weird that I usher chickens. Theyre right, I suppose. Its an odd hobby. I st artistic productioned showing when I was eighter from Decatur years old, and thirteen years later Im even-tempered at it. I went to a county fair way fanny then, and stubborn that one day I would own some of those cute small(a) bantam chickens. On July 29, 1987, that dream came true, and from then on Ive been a dedicated member of the poultry show world. Why do I show chickens? Well, you could say Im just weird. merely I love everything about it my birds, my poultry friends, the competition, and the camaraderie. The number of chickens that I have varies from gruntle to season. The breeding season usually starts out with about seventy-five birds, and I hatch anywhere from 200 to 400 chicks between March and July. throughout the summer and fall, I gradually sell almost all of those chicks until I am down to just the cream of the crop again. I climb Rosecomb Bantams, one of many breeds of miniature chickens. The adults are only a little over twenty ounces. I work with color genetics to increase new and improved color patterns on these birds (thats what happens when youre an art major who raises chickens), and to bring back old colors that have enormous since disappeared in the Rosecomb breed. I used to name every one of my chickens, back in the old days when I only had a few. But as the population grew, I started running out of names, and out of clock time to spoil all(prenominal) chicken enough so that it was worthy of a name. Now I only name my favorites those that win a show or those that simply win my heart. Poultry shows are a grand part of my life. My show season runs from September through February. I go to about six shows a year, and show about fifteen birds each time.