Coming Away Empty-Handed at the Poultry Show

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GILMER, TEXAS — A young boy, maybe 6 years old, is pulling a rusty red wagon with two rabbits in a cage. He is wearing a straw hat that nearly swallows his face, a Western shirt with images of a bronc rider, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. He is adorable. The little cowpoke is peering intently into a cage filled with white geese. He is surrounded by folks looking at cages and pens filled with all kinds of poultry, waterfowl, goats, rabbits, and dogs. This is the first of three annual East Texas Poultry Trades Day events held at the Yamboree Livestock Pavilion in Gilmer. Exhibitors have filled three of the pavilions. The atmosphere is cacophonous, redolent, and charming.

My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I drove the short distance from Three Geese Farm to the show just to look around. We purposely did not bring any cages or carriers in which to bring home more critters. That eliminated any possibility of an impulse critter purchase, always a hazard.

These are the most chickens I have seen in one spot outside of a Pilgrim’s Pride broiler house, of all colors, sizes and shapes. There were Easter Eggers, with light blue eggs; Wyandotte, with laced feather patterns and light brown eggs; Plymouth Rock with black-and-white “barred” feathers and big brown eggs; the classic Leghorn with fat white eggs and white feathers; and so forth.

Asking prices were reasonable, though higher than the $15 apiece we paid about a year ago for our four Cinnamon Queens — June Carter Cash, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline. These girls provide an egg apiece nearly every day, though occasionally one of them takes a morning off. I conservatively estimated that in a year’s time, they have gifted us 104 dozen — 1,248 — eggs. My back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that it has brought the price of a dozen of our farm-fresh eggs down to about $10 a dozen. That accounts for the cost of their fancy coop, and chain-link fence around it to keep them safe, organic chicken feed, various treats like dried mealworms ($40 a bag!), etc. Clearly, like all hobby farmers, we are not in this for the money. We give away about 75% of the eggs the girls lay. People are starting to run away when they see one of us coming with a carton.

OK, not really. Most everyone loves farm-fresh eggs.

My BMC makes sure the girls have a varied diet. This morning, she fed them leftover spaghetti, which they love, along with grapes, for which they clucked their little hearts out. Spinach, squash, anything our research indicates is safe for the hens, ends up heading to their yard.

Back to the poultry show. Mixed in with all those chickens, including a handful of crowing roosters, were some cute baby pigs wearing pink or blue bandanas to identify gender. The Nigerian dwarf goats huddled together in their cage, likely cowed by the noise. A woman was selling golden retriever puppies. We quickly moved on, fearing if we dallied a puppy would be coming home with us. Not today.

I plan to build or buy a smaller coop soon, preferably the latter. Then we could add a few more hens that lay different colored eggs from our girls, whose eggs are speckled brown. Possibly some Easter Eggers, aka Ameraucana. Before introducing new hens to the current quartet, the new birds need to spend time being close to each other, but not too close. This quarantine lessens the chances for spreading diseases and lets them get used to each other, so no unnecessary pecking occurs.

Another poultry trade show is slated for late June. I hope to have things ready by then. And maybe we will look into getting a few goats as well.

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