Anyone ever been a 4H poultry Judge?

[BBK]

Where i'm from, they check all birds B4 entry on mites/lice, the over all appearence, these birds don't get in all. They don't want any diseases that THEY could have avoided. they can NOT come in if they were not pullerum tested.

The showmenship... they have questions for beginners, jrs., seniors, and advance. My son has 2 pages of questions that he needs to know. also a page of the body parts, he needs to know. He needs to know where the bird came from. Different colors it comes in, I know there's more info. Now if his bird is off, her needs to tell the judge what's wrong with him/her. if not he gets points off.

They need to walk their bird back and forth on the table, show both sides of their face. They need to point out all of the body parts and the vent. and while they're doing that they talk about the diseases they could get and why they're checking all of these body parts. It takes a 3/4 of an hour or more.

They need to be dress in a long sleeve white shirt tucked in and nice pants. Full shoes too. not sneakers or sandles/flipflops.

There might be a little more, can't remember. the kids take the birds into the garage, place them in a cage, and each of them go through the whole thing almost everyday for practice.

melinda

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

I've watched the judging for 2 years

Our fair has production categories and breed categories. Breeds are judged to meet APA Standard, production on production. We work wih the kids to get them in the category where they have the most interest.

Infectious conditions are evaluated by the superintendent before the bird is allowed in.

Each judge is different. Last year's judge would give second place ribbons to breed birds that were too far from standard for his taste, even if they were the only ones in that lot. This year's judge would comment on the bird's defaults so the kids knew what they had to work with ("I wouldn't keep this one for breeding or take it to State Fair...etc."), but would still award a first place if they were alone in the category as long as the bird appeared well cared for and in good condition. (he didn't want to discourage a kid) This year's judge did not seem as expert on the various breeds.

Last year's judge weighed every production bird and seemed to judge the broiler class on uniformity of weight alone. This year's judge did not use a scale and also rated cleanliness and "meatiness" (he described as a combination of filling out the right parts and fimness). In other words, some very subjective things.

Showmanship this year involved more general questions about chicken health and terms, rather than knowledge of specific breed characteristics and individual faults. Last year's showmanship was all about breed knowledge and the exhibitor's ability to critique their own bird.

So I think there is a lot of room for you and the county poultry leader/superintendent to focus on the things this group of kids knows or needs to know.

Good Luck, and thanks for doing this for the kids! It is often difficult to find people willing to be judges. We parents sometimes treat them like ball umpires, so I can understand why!