Those whites were good birds, but they hadn't been kept in show condition. They were pretty ratty looking, really, and the cock bird was missing the tips of a couple of his toes, possibly chewed off by mice.
So the original birds, Wonder Bread and Princess, were never shown. But they had some babies that were very, very good and won a lot of trophies.
Bob stopped showing when he was 19 and other things in his life began to keep him busy. That was 2004. This was one of his remaining show birds back then.
By 2007 she was the last white OEGB on the place. I was showing a different breed. This old girl was just here to live out her life. One year she bunked with a Dominique bantam and I raised two of their crossbred babies, One Spot and Two Spot. I still have them. Like their mother, they are pushy, stylish little hens. I started to wish we had a white OEGB cock so we could raise some purebred babies while the old hen was still alive.
I couldn't find one. In a pinch I ordered some babies from a hatchery. They were beautiful birds, but way too big to show. I kept one and put him in with the old hen. She laid 7 eggs that year and all of them hatched (thank you, Katherine, hatcher extraordinare). I kept two of those babies and kept looking for the right male for the old hen. A friend found one in Oklahoma at a show and brought it back for me. This was him last fall.
I really hoped the old girl would live another year and lay even a couple of eggs so I could raise some babies. She did. This is a picture of her I took this afternoon.
She looks a little raggedy because she's old, she's getting ready to molt, AND she has laid 42 eggs this year. She has 22 babies already, there are still a few eggs in the incubator, and she's still laying. Her eggs are very small, her babies tiny little pipsqueaks, but like her they are pushy and proud. I hope at least a couple will be proper show birds. I like showing my Dominique bantams, but I love hauling snotty little white OEGB to a show. They have such at attitude.
7 comments:
I cannot imagine white birds staying clean here. They ARE pretty.
Holy Moly..they are gorgeous!
Jane x
I have a lot of admiration for Banty's too. The ones I've known had more than enough attitude to make up for their size. Those white ones are very classy. Congrats to your mother hen. She sounds like quite a master of hen-ness.
I was soooooooooooo afraid you were going to say that she had passed on! But no...she is still here, truck'n along and being everything you could ask for!
Linda
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To quote Walt Leonard, renowned poultry breeder, exhibitor and judge: "White birds win in shows more often than any other color." You have to work a little harder to house them so they don't get dirty, and you have to wash anything off them that might stain their feathers, like poop from another bird. My Dom bantams are extremely easy in comparison, I can usually just wash their feet and legs for a show, they don't require a full bath every time. A white bird that has been well taken care of, though, really sparkles. Also with colored varieties of chickens each set of feathers (neck, tail, wing bars, etc.) have a color that they're supposed to be. It's really hard to find a bird that has the right color on all its feathers. White is easy. Even black is hard because there has to be a green sheen, for example.
I not only looked for some Old English Whites here, but also placed quite a few bucks on one called 'Gollum'.
http://www.world-championship-hen-racing.com/
It came in last and I lost!
Cheers...Bernard
What? Uncle B, you're betting on chickens? That is a fun site. I bet the 4-H kids could train their birds to race. We used to set up an obstacle course on a table at the county fair and the kids would race their birds through that. It was fun, we had little ladders for them to climb and checkered flags at the end.
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