Don’t be afraid to compete in shows if you only have a small stud of birds like myself. You can have success like the larger studs. It’s all about the quality of the birds, not how many you keep.

I enjoy showing my birds whenever I get the opportunity to do so, but I don’t take it too seriously. Any success on the bench has no reflection, as my show team is made up of birds which I am retaining for the following season, but any awards achieved do look good on a birds pedigree. At the end of the day it is only an opinion given by another person, unlike when a racing pigeon takes a first prize, it has won it on its own merits, battling the elements. Although, I do value a judges opinion and try to get the birds under as many different judges in a season as I possibly can.

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                                                              TRAINING.

I start the training of the youngsters one week after they have been weaned. I hang the training cages onto the stock cages every day, but only for about ten minutes each time. I keep on doing this until they are about six weeks old then increase the time to one hour. When the birds are confident enough to jump into the cage while I still have hold of it, I slowly move them around the room and leave them in different positions, but keep on handling them every five minutes or so. I keep on doing this until they are nice and steady and being handled becomes second nature to them. From the middle of September I will leave them in the training cages for about four hours, twice weekly. From the first week in October they will get a full day once weekly in preparation for their first show.

                                                              SHOW TEAM.

I select an initial show team of twenty birds and bench a maximum of twelve, covering as many different classes as possible.

                                                               PREPERATION.

I allow the birds access to the baths at the forepart of the week and then spray any that I think need a little extra cleaning up. Fit birds will bathe as soon as the baths are placed, but I never spray a bird that will not bathe. Sounds strange, but there must be a reason why a bird does not want to get wet. Some days they go straight in and others they wont go near them. The reason I took this approach was because a few years ago, when getting birds ready for a show, a couple of them went into fits as soon as the spray was put onto them. So if a bird does not use the bath, that’s it until the next day. For the last two days prior to a show no access to the baths is allowed.

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