Best place to find SOP?

[WooingWyandotte]

Marans are pretty recent additions, so you'd need a new version of the SOP for them.

Ameraucanas were admitted in 1984, with 8 varieties, black, blue, blue wheaten, brown red, buff, silver, wheaten and white. I believe lavender has been added recently, too.

Cocks, 6.5 pounds, cockerels 5.5 pounds, hens 5.5 pounds, pullets 4.5 pounds. They can deviate a little but from standards weights but not too much.

All varieties should have slate blue legs. Black and lavender can have dark slate legs or black legs. Bottoms of feet should always be white, never yellow.

Those are some basics.

Google images searches are helpful. Look for photos of birds at poultry shows or show quality birds of the breed/variety you wish to see. Or go to poultry shows and see if they have your varieties. After judging, the tags with placement of best of breed, best of variety, and 2nd, 3rd and so on will remain on the cages until the show is over. That is a really good resource. Also, try to get acquainted with breeders of your chosen breeds so you can get advice. This forum is a good resource for that, but also online searches could lead you there.

Best of luck!

I'll definitely make a note of all of that, thank you! I did purchase my Ameraucana's as hatching eggs off of a nearby breeder that is on the breeder list of ABC, so I'm hoping the pair I have is decent (black rooster, blue hen). I went to my county fair and was not too impressed by the birds there, there was not any Marans to take note of anyway and very few Ameraucana's with even a few listed as EE's. There was even a bird with a really bad eye infection!

I joined a few APA/ABA FB groups so I'll keep an eye out for any nearby shows.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Or go to poultry shows and see if they have your varieties. After judging, the tags with placement of best of breed, best of variety, and 2nd, 3rd and so on will remain on the cages until the show is over. That is a really good resource.

I was going to suggest the same thing! Many judges also put notes down on the cards like sprigs for comb sprigs, stubble if a clean-legged breed has leg stubble, type or comb if there are other issues there, etc., so you know what to look at on each bird for flaws. You can often find the standard for sale at a bit of a discount as well, though there's no guarantee of that. And shows are just generally a lot of fun to go to and drool over all the gorgeous birds anyway, though it may lead to trouble if you have a limit on how many birds you can own and fall in love with another variety there.

 

[WooingWyandotte]

I'm afraid that this can be very difficult.

It is weird to me, but it doesn't seem that the poultry associations make much effort to publicize champion birds from their shows so that the public would know what a really top quality bird looks like.

I agree, I'd love to see some recent examples of really nice birds!

 

[WooingWyandotte]

I was going to suggest the same thing! Many judges also put notes down on the cards like sprigs for comb sprigs, stubble if a clean-legged breed has leg stubble, type or comb if there are other issues there, etc., so you know what to look at on each bird for flaws. You can often find the standard for sale at a bit of a discount as well, though there's no guarantee of that. And shows are just generally a lot of fun to go to and drool over all the gorgeous birds anyway, though it may lead to trouble if you have a limit on how many birds you can own and fall in love with another variety there.

I'd love to tour every poultry show I could, haha! Too bad time and budget won't allow for every beautiful breed I could possibly own.

 

[JedJackson]

I'll definitely make a note of all of that, thank you! I did purchase my Ameraucana's as hatching eggs off of a nearby breeder that is on the breeder list of ABC, so I'm hoping the pair I have is decent (black rooster, blue hen). I went to my county fair and was not too impressed by the birds there, there was not any Marans to take note of anyway and very few Ameraucana's with even a few listed as EE's. There was even a bird with a really bad eye infection!

I joined a few APA/ABA FB groups so I'll keep an eye out for any nearby shows.

That's too bad about your experience at the poultry show. Great idea to join the FB groups of those organizations!