I was so disappointed, very little participation. I posted pics of young birds I have had to try to get the thread moving but it only brought the negative comments I posted.
Pam, I'm sorry about the way that you were treated on that thread. I have hung out on so many threads with the pros, trying to learn, that I think I can see a bit of both sides. No, there's no excuse for someone just being rude. Some of them definitely have better people skills than others, so express their frustration in different ways.
The following is simply my opinion on how I see it. I hope this doesn't upset you, Pam, because I don't mean it that way.
According to the thread description, "the faculty will judge all submissions", but that didn't seem to happen. It was probably too much to expect all the master breeders and judges to spend their time doing that on a regular basis and I can understand that, but it has been disappointing. I do feel like there is a clique of favorite breeders on these type threads and others- often newbies- usually get ignored. Laura, didn't Walt offer to come to your house to evaluate your Campines?
On the other hand, many times, the participants submitting photos did not follow the protocol, so that probably did not help either. It does say " When submitting a photo, please state the age of the bird. Sharing any other details about the birds growth, line, maturity rates, or weight is encouraged." I know Walt asked for photos to be a close up side view. He also said that he could only comment on what he could see in the picture and that he would not respond to the same question over and over. He suggested taking a video of the birds and submitting freeze framed shots.
I've always put chickens in a cage or kennel and held the shutter down to get a shot good enough for evaluation.
I think that that if people did not take the time to take a photo as requested, the evaluators did not feel that it was worth the time to comment. Or, if the photo didn't show enough to evaluate, the couldn't comment on something they couldn't see.
Another point was that the thread description says that this is a thread for "advanced education". Any serious breeder should have a copy of the APA SOP and should have read the first section and be familiar with their breeds' description. It isn't a thread to teach people the standard for their breed. It's a thread to clarify and answer questions about those standards and how they apply to the birds you are breeding.
There are certain things that breeders can say that make it sound like they have not read the SOP. Pam, when you asked about squirrel tail, that made it sound like you do not have the SOP because that information is clearly available in the first section, with illustrations, and tail angles are listed in each breed description. Maybe you meant to ask if your bird's tail angle was far enough forward to be considered squirrel tail, but your question made it sound like you didn't know what squirrel tail was - which anyone who has read the SOP would know. I had a feeling that when you asked that question, the pros weren't going to take you seriously.
Yet another red flag for the master breeders are the use of certain words. If you use these words, they know that you are new and consider you not serious enough to spend time helping. I've had trouble with this myself. I always have to look up terms in the SOP Glossary in order to make sure that I use the correct terminology. Pam, you used one of the words they dislike the most: "Roo"! Other bad words are leakage and lockdown, plus others I can't think of right now. Kind of goofy, it's simply semantics but it makes a difference to them. They don't like referring to chickens as babies or other terms of endearment. Walt also hates any comparisons to dog etc. breeding, since poultry breeding is different.
I think that the long time breeders have spent so much time helping so many people over the years, and most of those newbies don't follow their advice or don't stick with it, so it was a waste of their time and effort. This has caused them to be burned out, hence more wary and judgmental of newbies and certain things like I've described may make them think a person wasn't serious enough to help.
Pam, you deserved to be treated better but because of the way you presented your info, you were perceived wrongly.
I also wanted to say I'm so sorry for your loss of Lady Gaga.
