Silkie combs & toes ..showing ..Little rhody show today

[melissa508]

I attended the little rhody show today, there were several sikies being shown. I took the time to really look each of them over & quite frankly, I was surprised that there were very few, if any that were perfect...they were beautiful to look at, but as far as perfect according to the ASBC standard..no.

The main 2 problems i saw were roosters combs & toe placement. Several of them had several pointy spikes on too large combs & I wouldnt refer to those as walnut combs.

The Toe placement was another issue, many of the silkies toes were not perfect, a few of them had the 5th toe very low & actually walked on it, others had the 4th/5th to close together.

When i was seriously working with standard color silkies , if the toes werent placed according the ASBC standard, i wouldnt use them for breeding or sell them for showing. The same goes for the Combs, the best rooster comb I saw there was in the junior catagory, he had a small proper walnut comb with no spikey protrusions.

Is there something ive missed, has the ASBC lowered the silkie breed standard?. I have sent many a birds off to the flea market or given them away free becuase they had those 2 MAJOR flaws , i just dont understand why they would allow those flaws in a show.

On another note, I noticed a few silkies with improper skin coloring.

I have never shown personally because of biosecurity, but many of my birds, both in standard colors & aov have been shown & placed well by their new owners.

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

Quote:
No we haven't lowered the "standard," as the "standard" was actually set by the APA. Unfortunately, as long as the bird has 5 toes it's considered 'showable' without being disqualified. Same with the comb, horns are common on a few varieties and sometimes hard to get rid of.

What you have to realize, is that the "Standard" is the ideal, PERFECT bird, which nearly doesn't exist. Breeders strive to breed birds as close to the standard as possible, but it is EXTREMELY hard to get a near perfect bird.

The ASBC doesn't have anything to do with what is allowed in a show, or disqualified from a show. It's all based on the APA's Standard of Perfection, and their showing rules.

ETA: What you saw at that one little show was only a sampling of the birds that breeders across the country are working on. Attend an ASBC State, District, or National meet before you pass judgment on the Silkie standard! I guarantee you'll change your mind about the above statement.

 

[melissa508]

Oh i didnt realize about the APA having to do with the standard since ive never shown.

I learned its not easy to get an ideal perfect to the standard bird, I myself & others I know have hatched silkies from some of the most well known silkie breeders & we were surprised to see so many culls. I guess its because most people never hear about or see all the culls that every silkie breeder hatches, most people only hear about or see the best of their hatches.

I culled so heavily over combs & toe placement in standard color silkies, that I got to a point where i was very rarely hatching a rooster with a single point on his comb, even fully mature when they like to pop up. The same with toe placement.

I never realized you could show a silkie with spikes or poor toe placement, when i sold one "show worthy"..it had a perfect comb & toes lol


I now live in an area where theres many shows to attend, i am looking forward to seeing what folks are working on.

 

[LilPeeps]

Quote:
There were only 16 silkies shown at Little Rhody today, and there was only one silkie male shown in open and one in junior. Both birds (especially the jr bird) were PQ and were not up to standard. There would've been about 20 more silkies in the show were it not for something unforseen coming up for one of the exhibitors. The standard has not been lowered, it's simply that not everyone brings truely SQ birds to a show, especially a spring show. Toe placement isn't much of a fault, as long as they're all there, it's ok. Horns on a comb also aren't a very big fault, and birds with them could potentially do quite well in a show, provided everything else is correct. There is a show in CT on May 9, I know there will be many silkies shown there. Generally, the larger the show, the more birds of a specific breed will be shown, and thus the better chance of seeing birds up to standard.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

At one time horns were supposed to be on silkie combs--this dates back quite a few years ago---long before I had chickens, but this has been told to me by several breeders from back then.

Out of 100 points, toes only account for 2 points total, not much. Duckfoot (which is how you described one bird's toes) is supposed to be a DQ, but very few judges are very picky about it. Otherwise, as long as the bird has the correct number of toes judges don't pay much attention to feet. THey are pickier on foot feathering

Comb size is not mentioned in the standard, just the ideal shape and colour.

Standards are set by the ABA and APA; pretty similar, but not word for word identical. I breed to ABA standard since silkies are a bantam. The ABA also seems to have its act together far more so than the APA.

 

[StrawberryHouseMouse]

You guys keep culling those birds and give them to me lol

Seriously I got a crap load of buff silkies given to me yesterday. And the only problem I could see with them, was that they had a few blue feathers on the bottom. Talking about one or two. (Buff silkies) Some of them were so light blue you could hardly see them, more of a porcelain.