The Polish Project

After the freak loss of Bailey's little showmanship hen last week, she was down to her one and only backup bird for showmanship, and right before the 4-H ownership deadline for our county fair.  We were looking for another blue bantam Cochin hen, but didn't find any that would work alongside those she already had. Some cute ones, but not really what she needed.

Then I was talking with the 4-H leader about leg bands and some other things, and she said the club had been made an offer earlier yesterday. It seems that a local breeder was needing to refocus and downsize, and was going to offer the club a small flock of Polish in order to help the youth and carry on the line.

There was a cute little Splash colored hen, as well as a few white crested Black ones. And one Blue rooster.  There were a couple of other families who needed backups, as predators have been on an all out offensive lately, and a few odd things had happened.  But the leader wasn't sure what to do with the rooster, and part of the thought was that the youth would work with the breed.

To be honest, I don't know if she had already had the thought when she called or if it came in our talk, but we decided that one of the hens and the rooster would come here to our place, the birds could serve as my daughter's backup, and any chicks we could hatch out in our breeding program here would be next year's birds for youth in the 4-H club.

So, after teaching this morning, having a run in with the salesman at the tire store and picking up Wyatt's special order lumber, we met up with Connie along her road back from picking up the birds.  These two silly sweethearts have moved in to the quarantine pen as of this afternoon... 

FOr some reason, this boy really tried to escape when they were capturing him, but he rode home in Bailey's lap.  THe goofy hair has her talking about naming him torpedo.  Silly kid, silly bird, I guess, right? I suppose the silly name goes with it.

He really doesn't want to look at the camera for his cameo, though!

Here she is cuddling with the hen, who coincidentally rode home in my lap!  And for some reason, the name Checkers is rising to the surface as her name...

She kind of complied with looking at the camera, but it is pretty hard to see with those crazy Polish crests!

We will do our best to keep you up to date on this project.  Watch for the labels Polish Project, and others noted in this post, and feel free to follow the blog to keep up with the latest. 

Now it is time to let them settle in, and then hope for fertile eggs and a good time at the county fair!