Here is my show report I wrote for the ABC website from this past weekend:
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160th BOSTON POULTRY EXPOSITION
Location: Four Winds Farm, North Oxford, MA
Judges: Don Nelson, Butch Gunderson and Merele Watson
This is only my second poultry exhibition ever and my first time showing ameraucanas. I selected only two birds to take, my blue wheaten cockerel, Mr. Magoo and one of my black pullets, Prissy. My plans were to also take two of my araucanas but that changed when they looked like porcupines rather than chickens due to molting.
I prepped my selections the same way as I did for a previous show. Prepared dog crates for indoor housing in my basement and brought the birds in for a bath and blow dry a few days before the show.
Mr. Magoo getting cleaned up
In his show coop
Prissy's turn, yes, I use Pantene shampoo and conditioner on my poultry.
Prissy was pretty muddy coming out of the coop and I had forgotten how big her beard and muff was.
In her show coop
I drove from Vermont early the morning of the show and arrived timely to coop in. Cooping in was busy and cheerful, word had it one of the judges had the flu. Getting through all of the birds took until 1530 or so.
View of the exhibit hall
Stats: there were 1230 birds entered and this was the listed breakdown: 735 bantam, 242 LF, 241 waterfowl, 12 pigeons. I saw half a dozen or so turkeys but they were not in this list.
So there were several empty coops and my ameraucanas were the only ones, no competition showed which was a bummer. I really wanted to see how my birds would do against some others.
Large fowl was judged by Don Nelson. He clearly enjoyed his job and was smiling no matter what breeds and who's birds he was looking at. I wrote a sad face and 'in molt' on my empty araucana coops. When the judge came around the corner he laughed at that. ASOB was last and the judge gave BB to Magoo and RB to Prissy. He never came back for a second look for AOSB champion and stayed with the moderns and pinned a modern hen as class champ. I think my birds will look better next year as full adults. Any comments are appreciated.
I did not see any bantam ameraucanas but there may have been some, I just did not see them. I did see a few bantam araucanas.
HOWEVER, for your viewing enjoyment (or not) these birds were listed as ameraucanas in the Juniors:
There were two males like this:
I do not know what color they were supposed to be, the tags just said 'ameraucana'.
And this yellow legged, single combed, wattled, non bearded pullet was next to them.
A different judge (Judge Gunderson) did the junior birds and this displayed female was DQ'd for comb but no notes were written about the other faults. And one of the males was DQ'd for comb and again no notes left for leg color nor why the coop tag did not specify type. The other male, same color, was not DQ'd.
If they are a specific type, I do not know enough to say which. I don't remember an AOV class for ameraucana.
There were two other pullets there both called red brown. They were bearded and muffed but I think one had green legs, the other one had slate legs. Again, I don't know enough about that color type to make a comment other than the obvious faults.
Over all I was a bit surprised some people showed filthy birds and I saw a few with scaley leg. I imagine they had more than that. Over-all the majority of fowls were in very nice shape. Many did show birds that were prickly with molt.
My birds were well behaved but I think Magoo was the absolute loudest crowing male there. Prissy was fussing a lot by noon and I figured she wanted to lay an egg but was too shy with the other birds and strange setting. She laid one in the car on the way home though. Lots of people stopped to look and I met some others who stopped to chat about ameraucanas. Always good to meet new friends!
There was an outdoor tailgate area with lots of fowls for sale, a meal vendor and plenty of close by parking. The landowner had a gorgeous flock of barhead geese which were stunning out on grass.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~
160th BOSTON POULTRY EXPOSITION
Location: Four Winds Farm, North Oxford, MA
Judges: Don Nelson, Butch Gunderson and Merele Watson
This is only my second poultry exhibition ever and my first time showing ameraucanas. I selected only two birds to take, my blue wheaten cockerel, Mr. Magoo and one of my black pullets, Prissy. My plans were to also take two of my araucanas but that changed when they looked like porcupines rather than chickens due to molting.
I prepped my selections the same way as I did for a previous show. Prepared dog crates for indoor housing in my basement and brought the birds in for a bath and blow dry a few days before the show.
Mr. Magoo getting cleaned up
In his show coop
Prissy's turn, yes, I use Pantene shampoo and conditioner on my poultry.
Prissy was pretty muddy coming out of the coop and I had forgotten how big her beard and muff was.
In her show coop
I drove from Vermont early the morning of the show and arrived timely to coop in. Cooping in was busy and cheerful, word had it one of the judges had the flu. Getting through all of the birds took until 1530 or so.
View of the exhibit hall
Stats: there were 1230 birds entered and this was the listed breakdown: 735 bantam, 242 LF, 241 waterfowl, 12 pigeons. I saw half a dozen or so turkeys but they were not in this list.
So there were several empty coops and my ameraucanas were the only ones, no competition showed which was a bummer. I really wanted to see how my birds would do against some others.
Large fowl was judged by Don Nelson. He clearly enjoyed his job and was smiling no matter what breeds and who's birds he was looking at. I wrote a sad face and 'in molt' on my empty araucana coops. When the judge came around the corner he laughed at that. ASOB was last and the judge gave BB to Magoo and RB to Prissy. He never came back for a second look for AOSB champion and stayed with the moderns and pinned a modern hen as class champ. I think my birds will look better next year as full adults. Any comments are appreciated.
I did not see any bantam ameraucanas but there may have been some, I just did not see them. I did see a few bantam araucanas.
HOWEVER, for your viewing enjoyment (or not) these birds were listed as ameraucanas in the Juniors:
There were two males like this:
I do not know what color they were supposed to be, the tags just said 'ameraucana'.
And this yellow legged, single combed, wattled, non bearded pullet was next to them.
A different judge (Judge Gunderson) did the junior birds and this displayed female was DQ'd for comb but no notes were written about the other faults. And one of the males was DQ'd for comb and again no notes left for leg color nor why the coop tag did not specify type. The other male, same color, was not DQ'd.
If they are a specific type, I do not know enough to say which. I don't remember an AOV class for ameraucana.
There were two other pullets there both called red brown. They were bearded and muffed but I think one had green legs, the other one had slate legs. Again, I don't know enough about that color type to make a comment other than the obvious faults.
Over all I was a bit surprised some people showed filthy birds and I saw a few with scaley leg. I imagine they had more than that. Over-all the majority of fowls were in very nice shape. Many did show birds that were prickly with molt.
My birds were well behaved but I think Magoo was the absolute loudest crowing male there. Prissy was fussing a lot by noon and I figured she wanted to lay an egg but was too shy with the other birds and strange setting. She laid one in the car on the way home though. Lots of people stopped to look and I met some others who stopped to chat about ameraucanas. Always good to meet new friends!
There was an outdoor tailgate area with lots of fowls for sale, a meal vendor and plenty of close by parking. The landowner had a gorgeous flock of barhead geese which were stunning out on grass.
