Poultry

Starting up a poultry project can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Poultry birds are low maintenance; enhance your self reliance and are handy to have around; they clean up kitchen scraps, forage for insects and can provide you with either eggs or meat. This project will help you raise chickens, turkeys, ducks or geese; the selection is up to you.

Resources available:
• 4-H Poultry member’s manual
• 4-H Poultry project resources
• Many backyard chicken raising websites
• Neighbours and family

Topics include:
• Conformation
• Proper housing facilities
• Husbandry and health
• Different breeds

You can learn:
• How to choose the breed that best suits your end goal
• How to show chickens
• How to market your products: eggs, meat and even feathers

It could be fun to combine your Garden project and a Poultry project to see what results you get. Taking on the poultry project is also something that you can do even if you don’t live in on sprawling acreage; poultry don’t need much space to be happy and productive.

Club Activities with Poultry Projects

4-H members who choose Poultry projects get to show their project animals at their Club’s Achievement Day, members present their project animal for conformation and also have the chance to display the showmanship skill that they have developed through the year.

AchievementDayClipping2005-1 — Brome club Achievement Day, a larger group than usual raised chicks that were then showed at our Achievement Day, so it was a big highlight.

Local fairs also have poultry classes in which 4-H members can enter their poultry projects.