Chicken champs win in class and show
Levi Hill/News-Sun
What makes chickens talented banjo players?
Don’t know? Well, you can bet River Caviness and Cadi Godwin know. The pair know all about chickens and proved it Wednesday at the Lea County Fair.
Cadi, a veteran of the barnyard, perhaps won bigger than anyone else in the coop, taking two Grand Champion titles with her broiler chickens and her layers. She also snatched up the win in the chicken showmanship competition in her 14-18 age class.
“I’ve been doing this almost nine years,” Godwin said. “I started in the third grade.”
This is her sixth or seventh Grand Champion win in all that time. But she said she never expected the double win Wednesday, nor adding the showmanship award to the day’s bounty.
“It feels good. I’m very pleased with myself,” she said, adding the secret to winning is wanting it. “You have got to want it enough to do anything to keep them (the chickens) up to standard.”
Speaking of bounties, Caviness was gathering up about the ninth egg his chickens had lain that morning when the News-Sun caught up to him to ask him why his layers were so good as to snatch up the Reserve Grand Champion title in the layers category.
“We picked the ones that look most alike,” the first-time chicken competitor said.
Not only was this his first year showing, but his first year competing in showmanship, where he won his age class (9-10-year-olds). In fact, Caviness got a special nod from the showmanship judge Steven Beaty after the competition.
“He was very good for being that young,” Beaty said, adding he looks for the competitor’s knowledge of their bird breed when judging. “We are looking to see who knows the most about their birds.”
Caviness said his mother, Dusti Caviness, knows a lot about chickens and drilled him on chicken trivia to prepare for the competition. Caviness said he knew the answer to every question except one.
When asked if he likes eggs, because his chickens are such prolific layers, Caviness said he loves them. But what he can’t eat, his mom either sells, or feeds to his pigs, which he also competed in for the first time this year, winning a second, third and fourth-place ribbon and making the top five in swine showmanship.
“Chickens are a lot more work,” he said. “Pigs are easy. Chickens, you have to know a lot of stuff.”
And if you’re still wondering, chickens make good banjo players because they are natural-born pluckers.
Other poultry showmanship winners Wednesday were Rowdy Caviness in the Peewee Division (5-8 years) and Cade Nave in the Junior Division (11-13 years).
