Showing chooks takes the hobby to its highest level.

This section outlines the art of poultry showing including stock selection, standards, preparation of your birds, transport and penning your birds on show morning.

Stock selection
Winning a prize starts way before the day of the show, in fact it starts in the breeding pen. Well fed and well bred birds produce strong, healthy chickens that grow into adult birds of similar or better quality than themselves. It is almost impossible to breed winning fowls from poorly bred or kept breeding stock. But without knowing the characteristics of your chosen breed, it is impossible to select the best ones for show. Therefore it is important to know the Standard for your chosen breed. This is a word picture that describes in detail the important features of each breed, the colours and the faults which are to be avoided. Most standards give a points rating for these things that, when added together total 100 points. Most countries have their own books of standards that may be obtained through various poultry associations. Once you have read the standard for your breed, have memorised and applied it to your breeding program, you are well on the way to raising high quality birds for show.

During the year when your new chicks are growing, it is important to weed out unthrifty chicks and those with serious defects or deformities. Any such birds should be culled long before reaching adulthood. Failure to take such measures often results in such birds being used later in the breeding pens with resultant problems being promulgated each successive season. This is counter-productive.

We now come to selecting individual birds to take to the show. Armed with the knowledge gleaned from the breed standard, it is possible to select the very best chickens for the showpen. Be very critical at this point, birds with broken feathers and other visible faults seldom win prizes. Remember that the condition you present your birds reflects on YOU as a fancier.

The first selection of show birds is usually made when the birds are in the shed. You must know breed type, general and specific faults for your particular breed. Important factors to consider are:

1. body type for your breed
2. uniformity of color
3. physical development
4. quality of plumage
5. general health
6. general and specific breed faults

When selecting a team, it is best to choose a number of birds for preparation. These birds are then separated from the main flock and moved to a clean shed or into show cages. Carefully appraise body type, colour and showing qualities for a number of days before deciding which specific birds to take to the show.