On Saturday morning, Sept. 30, Augusta Locally Grown hosted the city’s first ever Chicken Show from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Augusta Locally Grown, a nonprofit organization that focuses on promoting local, seasonal and sustainably grown food, held the clucky event at the Hub for Community Innovation at 631 Chafee Ave.
Inspired by a chicken show held in Atlanta, Brandi Wallace, lead organizer for the chicken competition and part-time employee of Augusta Locally Grown, said she decided to assemble an in-town, chicken-themed event to propel friendship in the local farming community.
“I figured, ‘Why do we keep going to Atlanta? Let’s bring it here and see what happens,’ and I think we might have just did something with this,” said Wallace. “Most of us are homesteaders and we never leave. All you know is your little circle, but there’s so many other people just like us. So, now we’re finding our own people.”
As a fellow farmer, Wallace, owner of Wallace’s Farm, said she believes gathering chicken owners will encourage chicken breeding, selling and even trading.
“It’s about resources. You can never go wrong with resources and information,” she said. “With all these different types of people, you get access to all different types of birds and you can ask questions or mix breeds.”
Paying at the door upon entrance to the Hub, every chicken was entered into respective categories for $5 each, which totaled about 20 participating chickens for the event and over 200 attendees voting on each entrant.
Competition categories for chicken entrants included: biggest chicken, best decorated coop, most unique chicken, best dressed chicken, best human chicken crow and a chicken race.
“I wasn’t expecting to win, but it felt good though,” said Jerry “Porky” Jameson, who traveled from Thomson, Ga., and won first place for best human chicken crow. “This was nice. I hope this is going to be happening again because we liked it. These chickens are like people’s families at the end of the day.”
For Jameson’s younger brother, Bryar Holbrook, who owns over 50 chickens, the birds are his “entire life,” and he especially loves to hold them.
A few of the first place chicken winners included: Wallace’s Henry for the fastest chicken, Julie Chavous’s Sweetie for best dressed, and Holbrook’s Snow White for biggest hen and Ricky for biggest rooster.
“It felt very good [to win],” said Chavous, a 7-year-old winner from Grovetown, Ga. “I like how funny and cute they are … but I would tell people not to get a rooster, because they crow a lot and they wake me up.”
For Chavous’ mom, Andrea Chavous, seeing her daughter take responsibility for 15 to 20 chickens has been an enormous bonding and learning experience.
“She’s crazy about her chickens, so we thought this would be really fun,” she said. “It’s definitely been something unique, and I didn’t even know some of this stuff was out here, so it’s nice to know about the resources.”
As a parent, Andrea Chavous said she also believes in the importance of teaching children how their food is created.
“It doesn’t come from a supermarket all the time; they need to know all the different ins and outs of behind the scenes, and really what makes our lifestyles function,” she said. “She loves getting the eggs, and we’ve hatched the chickens from the incubator process. So, she’s really raised them from little chicks, and she’s just loved that experience.”
For those that do not have chickens, families are invited to attend the competition and watch the judging or enjoy the available inflatables that will also be present.
“Either you have them as a pet or you eat them,” said Wallace. “Chickens are a part of our life, and that means we need to know about them so we can respect them…I believe 84% of farmers are retiring this year and someone has to fill those shoes, unless we’re going to start eating grass.”
For next year’s chicken show, Wallace said she hopes to have even more chicken participants, vendors, veterinarians and even more food and inflatables for attending families.
“I want way more birds and a lot more people,” she said. “Even people that don’t have chickens, but are interested in getting some.”
