showing mixed breeds.

[donrae]

I think it took the creator of the Cream Crested Legbar 25 years to develop that breed. Breeds take years and years to develop, not just crossing a few birds a few times.

Here's a thread on someone working on a new breed, you can see where they started and how far along they are

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/600281/the-aloha-chicken-project

Making a new breed, or even a new color of a breed, is quite the labor of love.

 

[Vamvakas]

You can show mixed breeds but they wont win anything. Would be cool seeing champion mix breed award though, this would allow more people entering shows.

 

[poltroon]

Not conformation classes, which is what bird shows are. Birds aren't shown in performance classes, like horses.
Just like mixed breed dogs can be shown in obedience, but not conformation.

The whole point of showing a bird is to see who has the bird closest to the breed standard, the standard of perfection. This is impossible with mixed breed birds.
Same with any animal, the whole point is to see who had the animal closest to the ideal for that breed.

Actually, mixed breed horses are shown in conformation classes - for example, dressage in-hand classes. There is a functional conformation and movement standard. The animal's parentage is not a barrier to entry or success.

With birds, you are measuring against a breed standard rather than a functional standard, and most bird shows are divided so you are going against a breed standard. As another poster mentioned, mixed heritage is actually not forbidden but you are judged against the standard for some breed, which a typical mixed bird will generally fail to meet to the point of being disqualified.

County fairs often have classes like egg production and meat pens, where specific mixed breeds are often desired, and the standard is very function-driven. But that's a whole different thing.

 

[enola]

Mixed breed horses are also shown in Sport Horse In Hand classes.

Get of Sire classes can include mixed breed progeny to prove a stallion's prepotency.

Then there are Half Arab and Anglo Arab classes, both performance and conformation.

 

[centrarchid]

I think it took the creator of the Cream Crested Legbar 25 years to develop that breed. Breeds take years and years to develop, not just crossing a few birds a few times. 

Here's a thread on someone working on a new breed, you can see where they started and how far along they are

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/600281/the-aloha-chicken-project

Making a new breed, or even a new color of a breed, is quite the labor of love. 

Developing a new breed is explicitly my intent. Plan developed five years and effort expected to take 20 - 30 years. After carefully reading of the SOP it is evident a line meeting all criteria for a given breed can be developed that also has a fixed difference from all nominal members of breed. To prevent such would require modifications to existing SOP.