Our state fair opens are supposed to be judged by the SOPs. Last years APA judge placed EEs over AMs in the opens. Judge the year before DQed them. Not going this year, so who knows, but I was disappointed in last years. So yeah, there are some APA licensed judges with issues. Had one at an opens last year (ABA judge) say he was relieved when he saw DS's were real AMs because he hated having to always explain why he DQed someones "AMs". I guess he runs into a lot of EEs.
Our county judge is not licensed and we've yet to figure out what he's using to judge by. He seems to prefer birds from the feed store and doesn't necessarily take condition into account. About the only thing we can say for sure is he doesn't particularly like breeder stock in prime condition. The more likely a bird is to win at a bigger sanctioned show, the more likely he is to give it a red.
Unfortunately our extension agent won't let us hire anyone else, so we direct the truly serious kids out of 4-H and into the opens. Our state 4-H poultry guy isn't happy about it, but not much else we can do.
I've got no problem with kids showing EEs or whatever really at the county fair. They'll do well in the less competitive counties and have some fun. The problems generally come for those who want to move on. If there are no competitive counties who send birds to state (it happens), those same kids can even do well at state, but that's not the norm. All it takes is one kid who knows what's what to show up with some nice birds and the level of competition will quickly reach a level that most of the birds just won't be able to compete at. Given decent options, IME most APA/ABA judges at the state level will reflect that across the board. They want to uphold the SOPs, they just aren't always given anything decent to judge. Last years cage cards on the Silkies at state were brutal. DD's were truly spectacular birds. Without them, the other's would have been judged much more lenient I'm sure.
I'll never forget my DS's 1st hatchery Brahma cock that he was so proud of with all his blue ribbon wins and what not. Then we got to state and had our first glimpse of a breeder Brahma cock.
He learned a lot at that show, took his red, thought it over, decided he wanted to go back and spent the next year researching and acquiring better stock.
It's no longer buying/hatching, raising and showing. Now it's breeding. Throw them out together and be happily surprised by whatever comes out of it.
No way. If we had all kinds of variations coming out, there'd be some breeders with some serious 'splaining to do.
Culled down to the best, selectively paired. We don't/haven't sold any. We've given some away after assuring no noticeable DQs and given carefully selected hatching eggs away to kids so they can get started off right. You know how many ABC breeders we contacted while getting our initial stock that said they had at least temporarily mixed their colors and wouldn't/couldn't in good conscience sell us stock for showing/breeding?
I'm often in the position of advising kids on which of their birds they should enter for our locals. First thing I want to know is where they plan to go with it. If they're just doing the locals I say hey, pick whatever you like or want to show off since we don't know what's the deal with our judge. If they have any thoughts of going on to state though we hit the SOPs. Sometimes they get past our judge, sometimes not. He put a FL EE through.
For those that are interested, if they do happen to qualify we want to be able to wish them luck at state, not explain later why they got DQed. One this year qualified with a black sexlink. Pretty bird, but had to let the parent know, he will be DQed at state. If he can't handle that, don't let him enter. Good rule of thumb, if you can't identify class, breed and variety of a particular bird reasonably quickly, probably shouldn't enter that bird.
