Lesson 687 – Photos from a Poultry Show

What’s the number one thing that people do when they go to a poultry show (except of course sneeze from all the dust at the end of the day)?

Why it’s take pictures! Chickens are notoriously difficult to take photos of. This is because they don’t have stereo vision like we do.  Instead, they sense depth by constantly moving a focused eye. It’s like taking snapshots from a whole lot of different angles and then crunching all that information into a scene that lets them evaluate a possible threat.

And let’s face it, a million people walking by your cage is a pretty big threat. People who try to take pictures of chickens end up getting a lot of blurry photos, it kind of comes with the job.

I did get a few clear shots. See this guy checking me out with his eye? He’s doing that threat evaluation thing.

Here’s another one. He’s asking “Are you lookin’ at me?” in a gangster voice.

Lesson 474 – Diversity in the flock

When we got our first baby chicks, they were all brown. Didn’t surprise me, as far as I knew all chickens were either brown or white (like the ones at the petting zoos I had been taken to as a child.) It wasn’t until I brought home Isabelle (our Silver Sebright) that I even knew other kinds of chickens existed.

Today I wanted to show you some of the photos I took at the Northeastern Poultry Congress just to give you an idea of the diversity there is in the chicken world.

Female Black Polish

The female Black Polish (as opposed to the photos of the male yesterday) wear Dandilion puffs on their heads.

Unfortunately I don’t have the names of the breeds for all these birds but I loved the pattern on this one, enough to take a closer look.

And then we have this stunning breed. (There’s a mama hen somewhere who loves this little guy.)

Some of the birds were big on tail bling.