Block your ears and visit the poultry barn
Dean Young doesn’t remember when he got so involved in the poultry department. “I guess it was when Doug Johnston, past president and director and exhibitor of Ayrshire cattle, poultry, horticulture, fruits and veggies, and home cooking for more than 60 years, asked if I’d like to help him out in the poultry house as he had so many other things to tend to,” Young recalls.
As time went on and Johnston began to slow down a bit, Young found himself spending more and more time looking after poultry. “Then one day, he simply left it all to me and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”
Not so many years ago, the poultry department was almost defunct. It seemed local “feather fanciers” had disappeared. At least they didn’t turn up at local fairs and, where once the poultry house was filled with birds of every colour and size, aquatic fowl, pigeons, and rabbits, just a few dozen graced the old-fashioned cages, at least, here in Ayer’s Cliff. But there was change in the wind. Projects to build a new lodging, modernize cages, and devise a plan that would tempt veterans and newcomers in this field, especially young people were discussed, argued over and finally, slowly, a new building took shape. Modern cages now grace the aisles and a bevy of young folk regularly bring a wide variety of feathered friends to the fair.
How did all this come about? “It all started when Doug Johnston was still active out here, in the 80s. He was also very involved with the Hatley 4-H Club and the first thing we knew, there was a plan to buy ten-day-old chicks for any club member promising to bring his or her half-grown chicks to the fair. But these baby chicks could not be meat or egg production commercial types. They had to be rare or exotic breeds — birds that would stir the imagination with fine feathers, varied colors, some wearing feathery topnotches, others with feather-covered legs and claws, some large egg-laying meat types, others, called game birds, with longer legs and a broad chest. Recent years have brought breeds with the strangest names to this fair, some characterized by their fluffy beards and frizzy caps, others covered with spots like a polka-dotted ball gown. Of course, the result has been more and more exhibitors coming to fill those long aisles of cages, with ducks, geese, pigeons, and rabbits and perhaps a guinea pig or two thrown in for good measure. The noise level here could be called a symphony by some modern-day composer but it’s more a cacophony of crowing roosters, quacking ducks, honking geese and, oh yes, turkeys showing off their wattles and giving visitors the evil eye.
The turkey auction sets up out on the track, organized by the Hatley 4-H Club on the last day of the fair. The top five turkeys are wheeled out to center track right after the parade. Proceeds from this popular event, which has seen prices rise into the thousands (beef and dairy exhibitors gang up to outbid each other), have raised very surprising amounts of money. Only five are auctioned, winners from one to five. And, although we don’t have exact figures, we do know thousands of dollars have been raised and forwarded to Children’s Wish Foundation since the auction began a few years ago.
Getting back to rare breeds of poultry, just a quick glance in the fair book where classes for numerous breeds are listed we find Milefleur, Seabright, Japs Black, Langshan, Araucan, Silkies or Quail, in the bantam section. In the standard size, bred to lay or for exhibition, we find such breed names as Plymouth Rock, Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds, Hamburg Silver, Orpington, Buff Minorca, Laghan, Austrolops, Lakenwelders, Blue Andulsian, Eygptian Fayoumis and Cukoo Marans — just naming a few unusual breeds one might see.
So, block your ears and set out on a short adventure visiting the poultry house at this fair. Cards on every cage identify the breeds on display and there’s usually someone around to answer questions. One of this years 4-H turkey’s. Keep an eye out at the fair to see how this turkey places.