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I'm not sure why anyone would say that. A person has to read the whole SOP. The first 39 pages addresses all of the issues in bold. Most folks only read the part about their breed and miss the most important parts of the SOP.
Walt
Trust me when I say, I love to go show...but from somone out here in the trenches, there are problems..Walt the standard needs a lot more examples and descriptions..no where in there does it say that red between the toes of australorps is in every other country considered very bad. Ive only ever seen one and I didnt say anything but when the world standard is saying DQ that and it wins a show here, how does that bennifit us?.we could easily wind up with a hord of australorps with red tinge in webbing then what would we do, just change the standard to suit that? they need an a book on exactly what they mean by stubbs, one person will say moisturising can bring out stubbs just remove them, then the other says illigal to remove stubs , yet every other person who shows does it and they say you;ll get in more trouble if you dont. so somone just starting out should learn from people who do it, the standard is great but its to me like a salad, needds some meat and taters.. but I have seen some real snotty people out there..they have a I am above you in knowlege but then they dont do a darned thing to help..I asked pastor roland romig, hes in your APA judges book to help me out..he did to a point ..he would throw around , Oh this guy has the best blk orps or that guy only worth getting his birds dont get those get his..like Im supposed to just know how to get ahold of this guy or something..If I waited for my good freind the pastor to round me up these so called top birds over the last 7 years..I still wouldnt have a darned chicken...I had three hundred dollars in my hand , asked him to find me either a good trio of aussies or blk orps, he tried to selll me those bramahs instead..I had to do everything on my own, want to know about aussies, go to the horses mouth so I went to australias poultry site , for years and asked advise, lots of big talk here(in my AREA AND FREINDS) and no help.....I see the pastor all of the time wave 3 hundred bucks at him for some good orps he would dissappear, come back and offer some spanish minorcas.I dont want the minorcas but thanks..its no wonder people get discouraged and get out and breeds go near extinction..The good pastor roland is still my freind but I get so sick of hearing how great somones birds are and never ever do any of them make thier way back to me..he would rather shove off some bhramas on me that I dont want..so here I am poke and hope and thats how the whole thing is...the descriptions are few and its a poke and hope to read..you get a little out of it..but there are lots more that needs to be covered.people wouldnt have so many questions if they did an addition with more indepth breed descriptions. 25 year ago when we got into this the standard was all we had..I didnt find it much help other than very obvious flaws like side sprigs crooked brestbone , things like that, but there needs to be more to it.a more indepth book, another example there is a vidio out there this mother giving advise on getting ready for show, she cuts her sons birds feathers over his eye to make him look neater..I know better than that but too many confusing things like that..that kids bird won best in show too, so now we can cut feathers?..I could not find any reference in the standard about cutting feathers..so I asked rolamd several years ago...he said you never ever ever ever cut feathers....Roland now calls me for aussies. had a lady that wanted to show aussies, he sent her to me. I thought for a while I had goodt aussies until I met bob whitney, that man is a saint and also a master breeder in my opinion...You see him all of the time in poultry press, he wins all over with his aussies and langshans.. he has been the most help to me ever..I had nice stright combs decent body types and I knew the second I looked at his that his were better, thsat old mass line, mine looked like the pic in the standard and I worked darned hard at that but his were just way better,,he gave me some..I have both the color standard and the blk and white..it needs more to it. maybe a second book indepth descriptions.a paper with breeders that are selling birds so you can darned get ahold of these people...you know, these breeders hold these birds too close and if anything happens they wont have anyone to turn to recoup thier stock..it happened up in canada they had ther only scource in north america of poulet de breese, they lost them all to avian flu of some sort. so wiped out completly on north america..luckily they did let just a few out to a breeder in norther calif..so they could recoup
It sounds like you have had a lot of unfortunate experiences. Maybe you should move to CA. LOL We like to think that we are helpful out here. I think most judges do a good job, but remember that we can all have a bad day and in particular.......many judges don't even bring a SOP to the show ring. That is wrong, as it is a requirement that ALL judges have a CURRENT SOP with them when they judge. Judges can be held responsible for careless judging.
Removing stubs is considered faking. You can have your whole entry DQ'd for faking. If a judge does not see a feather pulled and there is no obvious blood hole, the judge has no way to know, so would place the bird. If I see a bloody hole or evidence that a feather has been pulled, I would DQ that bird.
The red in the feet would be cut under "foreign color" The SOP clearly says for the Aussie "black in young shading to slate in adults. Bottom of feet and toes pinkish white".
People can use any countries Standard, there are about 4 or five around, and they don't all agree and they all have faults like ours. The SOP is always a work in progress. We just finished a major revision with the 2010 version and I am already marking up a book with changes for the next printing. In some cases the changes corrected information that had been incorrect for over 50 years. We don't change it to just change it. We are constently looking at ways to improve it. Send me an email with points you think might work in a better way and we will review them and let you know what we will do. You would also need to supply us with your reasoning for the changes. Individuals can make suggestions to the APA Standard Committee.
[email protected]
Walt
