We often read and hear stories about how stressed show birds can get. Often they breed poorly in the next season and sometimes they even die. This is a terrible thing to happen to the best birds in the collection. Much can be done nutritionally to reduce stress and these techniques will complement the training programmes that are common in the fancy.

It goes almost without saying that show birds should be getting a good vitamin supplement such as one of the Daily Essentials products. Birds with inadequate vitamins will be much more likely to pick up infections from other birds in the show hall and the stress of travel and exhibition increases this risk even more. Our new product Flourish will further boost the immune system of these birds.

Another product will also help to combat the stress of showing. Spark (Energize), added to the show team's drinking water for three days before a show, builds up a store of energy in the bird's liver and muscles that is released slowly during show day. Even if the bird eats less at the show than normal it will still have the energy to display itself to its best potential. Exhibitors report that birds are far more relaxed and exhibit much better posture when Spark (Energize) is used. If the stress of the outing causes some diarrhoea then the electrolytes in Spark (Energize) counter any losses of these vital bio-chemicals.

The show team will recover much faster from a show if Spark (Energize) is administered for another two days after the show.

A final nutritional issue with show birds is that of weight control. Many exhibitors find it difficult to stop their show birds from becoming overweight and some resort to starvation techniques that dramatically add to the stress and risks of showing. A considerable amount of weight control can be achieved by varying the amount of protein in the diet.

Birds will eat less of a high protein feed and more a low protein feed. So feeding a high protein feed will result in less of a tendency to obesity. However care must be taken that in increasing the protein level the fat levels are not also increased. Do not use oilseeds (sunflower, safflower, rape, hemp etc.). Instead use pulses or softfood with Daily Essentials3 and ProBoost SuperMax added. These will all increase the usable protein level of the diet and so will have a positive effect on weight control.