Oct 8: Fair: Poultry, Pigeons, and More!

Let me first apologize to anyone on dialup, you are going to hate me for this one. Sorry, you know how I am at poultry shows. CAMERA CRAZY!!!


There were two barns of pigeons and three barns of poultry, and in a few of them half the barn was taken up with sheep or something else I'll show you later.

First off, some pigeons. I don't know a darn thing about pigeons and most of my pics ended up blurry but there were some interesting colors:




I didn't get to count the poultry or anything, but it was a decent size show. I mean, for being a "fair" rather than an open show, it was pretty impressive, considering State Fair had all of like 50 birds or something. There were several hundred there, but I talked to the show superintendent for a while and he said normally they would have several hundred more than that, but numbers are down because of the bird flu scare. Sounds like here a few years ago when Newcastle dropped the show ranks a bit.

There were plenty of very familiar looking birds, which I didn't really make a point to photograph because they didn't look any different than what I see at shows here. There were breeds that are the same but due to differences in the Standards appeared VERY different. And there were things I'd never seen before. Unfortunately there were no coop cards, so nothing was labeled with breed or variety. Sometimes I can figure it out, other times... not a clue. But I took a lot of pics anyway.

Familiar birds or things I'm guessing:

Presumably a Mille Fleur d'Uccle, but the American ones tend to be a lot more pale in body color. Don't know if there's a difference in the SOP but I think this guy looks really pretty!

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, not a color I've seen too often.

I think these are Old English Game Bantams, which I know are much stockier over there.


Self Blue Cochin, not a color I've seen on this breed.

Muffed Old English??

Silkies there were not as rounded and had much smaller crests, they would not place well at an American show.

A call duck, but I don't know what color. This is the female. The male was like a gray but without the claret breast.

Ohiki?

Yokohama

A gray Runner, Reserve Champion Waterfowl. You would never see this color of Runner win anything around here, I've never even seen a good one, so this guy really knocked my socks off.

In the sale barn, these were labeled Ko Shamo.

In the sale barn, ROSECOMBS YAY!!!! There were no Rosecombs in the show itself.

Sebrights for D. :-) There were none in the show, these were in the sale barn, not exactly great birds...

Best in Show, a Rouen. Looks different than American Rouen, a difference in the Standard perhaps. The owner was adorably delighted, apparently it's a rare win there like it would be here.

Things I can't identify:

A Blue something...







Whew!

And there was an egg show too!




And then, on the way out, I was mortified to find... VERMIN! Okay, I'm sure their owners don't consider them such, and I've had a number of rodent pets in my life... :-)

These little green boxes had mice in them, and the lady at the table would take the mice out and examine them. I didn't know people showed mice.

And rats! There were some HUGE rats there, ugh! Would this be a bad time to mention the dogs and I wreaked havoc on a nest of rats today? Hmm.


And that concluded my visit to the fair. I wish there had been more time, I would have liked to have been able to meet and talk to some of the exhibitors, but the whole thing felt sort of rushed because we had other plans that day.

Next stop: Cambridge.