The Poultry Press will have all the APA approved shows listed. They also have a lot of advertisements from breeders of show stock, plus photos of winning birds with the breeder's name and you can often look them up with just their name and town.
Exhibition poultry dot net lists upcoming shows. That is a free downloadable poultry newsletter. I've never had any problems caused by downloading it. I virus scan it first, and it has always been clean.
Metzer appears to be starting to list all upcoming shows. I don't know how thorough they are or how persistant they will be, but it is certainly worth taking a look at their website.
If you go to the "Where Am I" forum here on BYC, and find your state thread, whenever there is a local show, some one is sure to pop on to ask who is going.
Yes, you can buy good birds at shows. In the sales area, you might not get the breeder's very best birds, but you can get some very good birds with very good bloodlines. That's a good place to start to breed your own flock up. The better you know your breed standard, the better chance you have of buying quality birds.
Also, I absolutely guarantee you, that if you are very serious about breeding show birds, most breeders will arrange to sell you better quality birds. None of us want our potential winners to go to pet homes where they disappear forever to the fancy. Also, very few breeders can keep every high potential chick. If I need 5 replacements and get 10 really promising hatchlings, I would really like to see the 5 I can't use go to a home where they will be shown or contribute to the gene pool of the breed.
Exhibition poultry dot net lists upcoming shows. That is a free downloadable poultry newsletter. I've never had any problems caused by downloading it. I virus scan it first, and it has always been clean.
Metzer appears to be starting to list all upcoming shows. I don't know how thorough they are or how persistant they will be, but it is certainly worth taking a look at their website.
If you go to the "Where Am I" forum here on BYC, and find your state thread, whenever there is a local show, some one is sure to pop on to ask who is going.
Yes, you can buy good birds at shows. In the sales area, you might not get the breeder's very best birds, but you can get some very good birds with very good bloodlines. That's a good place to start to breed your own flock up. The better you know your breed standard, the better chance you have of buying quality birds.
Also, I absolutely guarantee you, that if you are very serious about breeding show birds, most breeders will arrange to sell you better quality birds. None of us want our potential winners to go to pet homes where they disappear forever to the fancy. Also, very few breeders can keep every high potential chick. If I need 5 replacements and get 10 really promising hatchlings, I would really like to see the 5 I can't use go to a home where they will be shown or contribute to the gene pool of the breed.
