contact standards programme members art history photos bantams jens page
the rules old prints trophies history desktops club stand all colours other stuff tips large fowl old stuff

Tips...... Alan Higgs

My method of preparing birds

With hard feather birds, the bath should be at least 4 days before show, preferably 5 or 6 days. Because of the nature of the hard feather it needs this time to recover and web back again. If you have not really tamed your birds and got them pen trained, this bath works wonders. After this handling they will be much tamer.
First wash in warm water with fairy liquid or shampoo, dunking bird right under, wash feet well with toothbrush across the scales. Second rinse thoroughly in second bowl, tipping warm water right through feathers and over head Third wrap well and dab dry, dry under wings and run towel in line with wing feathers and tail
Find a well lit place to hold their attention, this is under a strip light, and they like standing there.
Second drying process with towel and taking care with feathers Finally a hair dryer is propped and run on low setting for an hour, they enjoy the warm breeze, dont put them outside until totally dry otherwise they can catch cold.

My Housing and Incubators

 

My pens consist of 8 indoor accessable pens, double stacked. This also serves as a penning room in winter. The bottom row of pens have pop holes to outside runs on pea shingle. This is inside the bottom row, the pop holes have draught excuders on them. I use the top pens mainly for chicks and growers at eye level. It's good to be able to see them develop at eye level. I save the eggs in old wooden sieves, turning them daily or better still twice daily before incubating. I use two brinsea auto turn incubators, One for incubating and one for the final hatch. I can set eggs every 10 days providing I mark them.
This was my first Cuckoos from Holland, too big by English standards One batch of chicks, mostly Birchens, the only Cuckoo is already identifiable.
Now we have this type of web opportunity, I've put my own images up to start with. But I would welcome similar images and illustrated tips from other Club Members. Send me the images with some dialogue and I will ensure our Modern Game Web Site becomes a really interesting one for Modern Game fanciers all over the world to see
contact the web master