showing birds at none sanction show

Wow, that sounds like a MESS. See if you can find a copy of the Standard of Perfection and refer them to BYC!

 

Join the fair board they will be more than happy for the help. contact the APA and see if there is a licensed judge in the area that can help.

 

have you sent your grievance to the fair committee ?if your going to have a show you might as well get chicken people to judge it, even if they aren't experts on all the birds, maybe I'll put my darlings in our county fair see how well the do for reject birds lol.

 

File a grievence, contact who ever headed it up. That is just pure craziness! I haven't been to a show that I didn't see something wrong with but that is WAY rediculous! What ever you do don't sit back and be quiet about it.

 

I would just see if you can somehow volunteer for next year. Get in there and help them get the poultry section on track. As you say, the majority of the people typically involved are volunteers and they generally welcome people that can volunteer to help that are knowledgeable in a certain area. It sounds like it was judged similar to how things online are judged, he just went with what he thought were the prettier birds, not by the standard. I'm sure they would welcome the involvement of someone that actually knows about poultry.

You could also try to find people from other nearby poultry clubs or the state poultry club to help advise you. I think the suggestion of getting a list of the closest APA judges is a great idea too. Even if it is not an APA show, I would bet you could find one to help you out. I feel your pain, but some of it is just the nature of small fairs. It is generally just a lower level of competition and knowledge. The last county fair I showed at, the "judge" placed one of his own birds ahead of mine as Grand Champion, LOL. Do what you can to get involved and help get the show on track. There are probably people out there that thought the same things you did that would love to help as well.

 

I know exactly where you're coming from. Two years ago at our little county fair here a trio of Sex Link pullets won best of show, "because they were pretty". The judge was a cattleman and had no knowledge of chickens at all. Well, this year we had our 4-H poultry club leader on the fair board. Like someone else said, they were happy to have the help. We were able to get a judge who was very knowledgeable in poultry. We also had many more birds than ever before. If we are willing to work, I think we can have a pretty good little show here from now on.

Maybe you could start an area poultry club and begin to educate people about breeds.