06/14/2026
Today was tremendous, but in the best way possible.
I stepped far outside of my comfort zone and entered (brace yourself) TWO of my Silkie hens into the Connecticut Poultry Breeders Society show. Even though I've been raising Silkies for a few years, I hadn't had the drive to pursue showing until this year. While I enjoyed raising these personable cotton balls, showing was intimidating and seemed like something I'd never be ready for.
I'm not really sure what changed this year, but I'm glad it did. Truth be told, I was overwhelmed with the number of birds and varieties I had been raising the last couple of years, hence my cutting back my flocks so heavily. It took the enjoyment out of raising them when it became a revolving door of orders, and I wasn't able to focus on much besides "everything all at once" and rarely kept things back for myself to enjoy.
I held onto my most sentimental birds and have since been trying to learn as much as I can about the breed standard, show prep, and conditioning, but there's only so far that you can go without actually stepping into the ring. Today was that day, and I spent most of yesterday wondering why the hell my introverted self from two months ago thought the show ring was a good place for me to try to exist 🤣 but now that we're back home and unpacked and I've had a chance to reflect on the day I can honestly say it was the most fun I've had with my Silkies in years.
The only goals I went with today were to meet other passionate Silkie breeders and to learn from them. And my cup runeth over with both. I was so fortunate to spend the day alongside some of the kindest and most genuine Silkie (and other!) breeders, and they wholeheartedly "took me under their wing" for the day. I have never had so much fun talking about Silkies as I did today, and I learned SO much. I'm very grateful to everyone who took the time to answer my questions and share their knowledge (and food!) with me, and I came away from this event with some amazing new friends and a whole lot of goal setting to do.
The icing on the cake was coming home with my first ribbon! 🎉 As much time as I spent over the last two days trying to get the yellow spots out of Olga's feathers, she still looked a little lightly seasoned around the edges and I was convinced she wouldn't do well between that and the state of her beard. But she surprised me with RV for her variety (paint) and I'm so proud of her for that!
Now all that's left is to decide what the next show is going to be!
Silkie placements
Black hen 5
Paint hen 1, RV
