Crufts of poultry world to be staged in Shropshire
Shropshire has been chosen to host the Crufts of the poultry world, The National Poultry Show, next year.
When Tom and Barbara Good kept chickens in the garden in the 1970s television sitcom The Good Life, they were seen as slightly eccentric.
But today more and more people have "chooks" in their back garden or in the orchard or on a piece of land.
Shropshire has so many chicken enthusiasts – or fanciers to give them their correct term – that The National Poultry Show will be held at Telford International Centre in November 2014 after a quarter of a century at Stoneleigh in Staffordshire.
Smaller poultry shows such as the regular event at the Park Hall Showground, Oswestry, attract more and more people.
At a recent pure-breed poultry show at the showground enthusiasts arrived from across Britain to see a range of fowl from big fluffy Orpingtons to little Dutch bantams, a row of pens containing Rhode Island Whites next to rose-combed Rhode Island Reds, and single-combed Rhode Island Reds.
The events are organised by poultry writer Andy Cawthray and Richard Corbett of agriculture and property experts Roger Parry & Partners.
Mr Cawthray said: "In the past breeds on show have included La Fleche, sometimes called "the devil fowl" with their horn combs, a pair of Owlbeard bantams and even Bresse – considered by molecular gastronomist Heston Blumenthal to be the best terms of taste and texture during a search for his BBC series In Search Of Perfection."
Mr Cawthray, who runs his Chicken Street business from a smallholding in Whittington, said the number of people keeping chickens in their backyard was certainly increasing.
He said: "I think everyone is at last waking up to the fact that we should know where our food comes from. We can all grow vegetables but chickens and geese and ducks are really the only livestock most of use can keep at home.
"It is wonderful for children to have a pet that will also provide them with their breakfast every day and also teach them about the responsibility of caring for something."
But he warned that keeping chickens was not a cheap way to cook up an omelette.
He said: "One laying hen will lay 200 eggs in a year. The basic cost of feed, floor litter and health supplements is surprising."
The next event at Oswestry Showground on October 26 will be followed by a day-long seminar by poultry genetics specialist and writer Grant Brereton a day later.
Mr Cawthray writes regular advice pieces in his own blog thechickenstreet.wordpress.com and for an online magazine found at www.yourchickens.co.uk
