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Some use a bit of laundry bluing in the last stage.Originally Posted by Gary
Washing White Chickens
Anyone care to tell me the best way to wash my White Leghorn bantams? Tried several ways, but can't seem to get them as white as I want. Gary
Some use a bit of laundry bluing in the last stage.
Stages
Evy. How many stages are there? I'm going back thirty years when I showed, and all we did was wash with dish detergent and rinse with clear water. Gary
Gary, I'm no expert but this is how we do it. We use 5 5gallon buckets. The first has very warm water that has had either dog or horse shampoo added to get manure out. Second bucket has warm water that has had 1/2 to 1 cup of white vinegar added to cut the soap out. The third is warm water plain. Fourth is warm water with conditioner for dogs or horses added. And the final bucket has warm water with glycerine added, about 3 oz.
I've used this method for several years with no problems. Try to avoid bleach or bluing.
Had my whole string of white wyandotte bantams disq due to bluing.
But let me add, if that bird isn't white to begin with nothing will work. The real white starts in the breed pen and continues thru care while the bird is growing up.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Banty 53: Thanks. Things sure have changed since I last was in this hobby. Gary
How would a judge know you used Bluing? Nothing in the Standard suggests such a disqualification.
Probably used too much. I don't believe there's a standard for blue Wyandottes yet, is there?
I remember a couple of us hurrying to wash & blow-dry a crying young girl's very blue white Silkie before a show.
For the record : bleach is just bad for feathers, drys them out terribly.
I've seen chickens that were washed with too much bluing and they appeared blue in color. Basically altering the color of a bird is considered faking but regardless, a blue bird in a white bird class doesn't fit either.
It doesn't need to be nearly that complicated. A wash bucket with two rinse buckets is fine. If you must use bluing or any other "secret" ingredient, it works just as well in the wash water as anywhere else, but vinegar, glycerine or conditioner are basically a waste of time and money. Nothing will take the place of housing the birds properly so that they stay in show condition in the first place. I rarely show chickens, but I first started out washing them in the slop sink in my basement. It made it easier to wash each individually with running water, which stayed clean and at the right temperature. I don't have to worry about the weather or lack of daylight, and I can set up a few cages to let them dry overnight if needed. Later I pulled out the sink and put in a raised bathtub. It's great for washing more birds, equipment, disinfecting, soaking the tortoises, bathing the dogs, etc, etc. It's one of the best things I've done.
Cowboy Magic Greenspot remover spray on stains and allowed to soak for 5 minutes, then wash with Plum White shampoo. If the stain is still faint, use the cowboy magic green spot remover again. If a bird gets a cecal dropping stain on it, you can use the cowboy magic green spot remover to get it out. Spray on the dropping until the feces runs off with the spot remover. When it is gone, wipe off and let them dry or blow dry them. Same with blood stains. Cathryn
I think of those elderly ladies who come out of the salon with their snow-white hair tinted blue or pink, and always wonder what the heck the hairdresser is using!
Has anyone tried hydrogen peroxide on white chicken feathers? It's used to bleach dark hair blond, but it also lifts out stains. Not sure whether it gives white feathers a yellowish cast, but maybe worth trying on a "test" chicken.
Washing White Chickens
I have to disagree with some of the above posts. First, as has been stated above, you must start with a white chicken. You cannot wash creaminess out of a chicken. The best way to assure that your Leghorns are white to start with is to breed them white and then to raise them in such a way that they have access to sunlight. This will not only allow the sun's ultraviolet rays to bleach the creaminess out of the feathers but will cause the comb, wattles and face to become bright red.
The use of glycerine and vinegar will do nothing to whiten your birds, but that is not their intent. Vinegar is used in the first rinse water to remove the soap used in the wash water. It is absolutely indespensible that all the soap is removed from the feathers and nothing works better to that end then vinegar in the first rinse. The action of both the soap and the vinegar, however, removes, to a large extent, the natural oils which coat the feathers to protect and condition them. The glycerine, then, helps to replace this natural oil but it must be used in the final rinse or it too will be removed.
Bluing is used in either the final rinse or the next to final. The human eye perceives a minute amount of blue as bright white. That is why bluing was created; to add to the rinse water when laundering whites (such as sheets) to make them appear their whitest. However, more than a few drops will cause the bird to appear blue and that is where the disqualification comes from. A white Leghorn should not appear blue. I try to add enough bluing so that when the bird is wet (and the feathers contracted) I can see a few areas of very faint blue. As the bird dries the feathers expand, the blue is diluted and the bird appears as white as possible.
You have to be careful and experiment with this because there is a very fine line between bright white and pale blue in the finished bird.
When I began showing Leghorns I was routinely beat because of conditioning (As well as type) and I decided that was not going to happen because it was for the most part something I could control. I still get beat by birds with better type (The last time was this past weekend in Connorsville) but never by conditioning.
I hope this helps you and good luck.
Carl
Valley Green Poultry
Gary I have been washing white bantams for the last 40 years. I found that Ivory dish detergent to wash them then I add a little laundry bluing to there rinse water, you don't want to add to much or your birds will turn green just get your rinse water a light sky blue color and rinse them off in it. I have White Leghorn bantams as well and you can also not be able to get them clean if you are feeding them feed with a lot of corn in it.
I don't show chickens, so I've never washed one. However, with white horses and white dogs, you can not wash them white. They must be maintained in clean conditions so the coat doesn't get stained. It must be the same for chickens.
I use enzyme whitening shampoo on the white show dogs, and that would probably work on a white chicken. Lots of people with show dogs and show livestock (including me) use Orvis as their "soap". When I mix the Orvis, I add glycerine to it. Cowboy magic grass stain remover would probably work well.
Glycerine is a moisturizer that is non-oily. It doesn't whiten, it conditions.
Hello....NEW to showing poultry and this forum.... I am going to assume we can use these methods on white show turkeys?.... Thank you for any help
Yes, but to update a bit....If you try bluing, be sure to dilute it & use sparingly. I've tried to help kids rinse out a BLUE chicken in a showhall rest room an hour before judging. Not easy. Also white chickens tend to yellow when kept in full sun. Do turkeys react the same way...anyone?Hello....NEW to showing poultry and this forum
I don't know about turkeys, but as for white birds out in the sun if they carry the silver gene they won't turn yellow only a very few other breeds of white birds have this gene. White Leghorn bantams and standards are the biggest carriers of this gene. That's why a lot of breeders try and cross these birds in on Old English and other types of white birds to see if the gene will carry over. In 40 years of breeding white Old English and White Leghorns both I haven't seen it carry over to well. A friend of mine and a well known breeder of White Japs has delt with this problem for years. I put my Leghorns up beside his Japs an there is no comparison the Japs have a cream color to them an the Leghorns are snowball white.
With my white Leghorns, the longer they stay in the sun the whiter they get. When my birds come out of the brooder and go into their growing quarters they are a pale butter yellow, like a Pekin duck. I let them out onto pasture during the day and they instinctively spread out in the sunlight. In a few weeks they are snow white and they stay that way for the rest of their lives. I have read about some breeds of white chickens becoming creamy as they are exposed to sunlight but my experience with Leghorns is just the opposite.
Thanx
I've never kept either white breed, and the BB Whites that I have had obviously don't need to be kept in show condition, but I've had Royal Palms that had full exposure to the sun anytime they wanted it, and I've never had a bit of a problem with yellowing in them. As others have touched on, 95% of the battle is keeping them in proper conditions so that they remain clean in the first place, and then using show carriers designed so that they remain that way on the way to. I've never washed a turkey for show in my life, including Royal Palms, except for small touch ups here and there with a wet cloth. I've worked mostly with Bourbon Reds and Narragansetts, which hide a lot of dirt, but it shows up easily on the Slates, and I've never needed to wash one of them either. It might be different with the two white breeds, but I can't imagine that it's really all that much. There is a guy on another forum who raises Beltsvilles, and he sometimes talks about not exhibiting them too often due to not having enough time to wash them after he's done all the chickins. I just have to chuckle a little when I see that. If turkeys needed to be bathed, I'd probably never show one, and if I do say so, the one thing that I do right is to keep my turkeys in good show condition.
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