Thanks Jeff and Cheryl. The blue cockerel, Cooter, was hatched on October 1st of last year and is a little over 8 months old. I had planned to keep him, but am really happy with the chicks I got this year, and since he will probably be molting by Nationals, I decided to show and sell him now. Debbie Mock is his proud new owner.
The black was hatched this past December 16th and was right at 6 months old. He was named, Shadow, at the show by his new owners and our newest junior members, Colton and Hannah Brush. I had originally planned to take Shadow's brother to Canfield, but the night before the show I noticed he had several broken feathers so I grabbed Shadow out of the pen the following morning and off we went. Thankfully, they will be showing him in the junior class :-) ... I hope :-/
Crazy story...Just as I pulled Cooter out of his show cage to show Debbie, a lady walks directly up to us, grabs Cooter's head, and twists it around to kiss him on the mouth! She literally stuck his beak in her lips and smacked her lips. As I'm standing there, totally dumbfounded with my mouth dropped open I'm sure, she looks over at me and said something like, "I just love this chicken!" I really can't remember the exact words she used (help me out here Debbie if you can remember). Again, I was standing there not knowing how to respond to something like that. After she walked away, I looked at Debbie and said, "What the heck was that?" I'm not sure those were my exact words, but something like that.
It has always been a concern of mine that one of my show birds could pick up something at a show and bring it back home to my other birds, and since I don't have a good place to quarantine, I've always elected to sell them at the show. Debbie...I certainly hope you quarantine him for a little while. There is no telling what that bird may have picked up there.