been the only entry in a class in a APA show? How do they judge you then? I am asking because i visited a small local 'single' show for the first time . There was onlya few ducks in the show. Almost all were call ducks , most of them white. And 2 muscovies. No Geese at all. No other ducks in classes. So If I had a light duck, a medium duck and a heavy duck and entered all of them, what would they do ? Would they judge by a point system . Would they disqualify because there was no competition? Would you automatically win?
It depends on the shows classes. If they have a class and there is only one bird in that class, then it wins. My daughter shows for 4-H and she wins alot because there are not many waterfowl for competition. There are quite of few shows that will have donated money prizes, and those usually require a certain number of birds in the class to be competing for the prize to be won.
They judge it just like any other time. Giving it the score it would have got competing against others (because your not really competing "against" them just more against the individual bird). They also might go ahead and give you Best of class or stuff like that.
I know its not relevant to you- but here in Australia it is up to the judge to decide if the bird is actually worthy of a first place if it has no competition. In most cases- it is automatic- but it has happened that a judge will only award it a second place- or even no place at all if the bird is too different from the standard.
At the last show we went to I had the honor to clerk for a wonderful waterfowl breeder and judge that has spent literally decades breeding bantam ducks. I was so thrilled to listen to him as he judged the juniors. There were some classes that had one or two birds and others like the Call class that had 60+ birds. He handled most of the ducks, which is kind of rare, and we even took a few of them outside into the sun to see their color in the light. After all of this, he placed many of them numerically, but there were small numbers of breeds like Pekins and he placed those 1, 2, 3 but when we got to the two muscovies that weren't any particular color, he placed them 2nd and 3rd and went back and a Pekin won Best Heavy. You are competing against how well each particular bird meets its breed Standard, so it takes a lot of knowledge on the judge's part, but if you birds meet their Standards they are likely to win their classes and then go on to win best waterfowl, normally if you show is judged according to the APA rules.
