Totally agree with you Dave. one of the biggest problems I have when trying to help people who have never had chickens before (or never shown before) who want to get into showing is that they treat the judge as if they were god and think that if you enter your entire flock then at the end of the day the judge will have culled your flock for you. sometimes it can be hard to convince people that they should not cull based purely on placings at a show. it can be equally difficult convincing a beginner that it is not always the best show bird that will have the best progeny for showing.
It has actually been interesting for me as i have been starting to show my dorkings. Every judge has something different to say about them and I have had some interesting discussions with judges and other exhibitors about my birds. I have been pleased to see that most of the judges appear to know the basics of what they should be looking for in dorkings not always the case with all birds -a judge actually once admitted to me that although he had just judged the guineas at the show, he really hadn't had any experience or training judging guineas so it was a bit of educated guessing). I do appreciate when judges check the standard when evaluating breeds that they are less familiar with. Since I want to become an APA judge some day it is interesting for me to look at my birds in their show cages and try to look at them purely from a exhibiting standpoint and see how close my placings are to the judges choices and what points they were choosing as the most important verses what i had chosen. its a good exercise for me to do occasionally so that I dont get too mired in evaluating the birds only as breeders and how they fit into my breeding program.
