08/29/2026
We all get into the hobby of chicken keeping for one reason or another. Some people stay at their initial participation level, and some people change focus as their experience grows. Neither option is right nor wrong, it’s simply individual preference and what appeals most to them.
I entered the hobby at the same level as my parents did. Hatchery birds to supply eating eggs. I didn’t care what the bird looked like, as long as it did its job, and laid an egg. As those birds got older, I realized I needed more birds, and that I could just let my original birds create their own replacements. As time went on, I found that individual patterns or colors appealed to me, and started focusing on breeds and specific varieties, rather than mutts that provided breakfast. After a while, I found out about poultry shows. At that time, it was just a “maybe one day” dream. That was how everything in my world morphed into what it is now…
Fast forward 14 years, now that “maybe one day” is every day, it’s sometimes hard to think back to the beginning, before I learned about individual breeds, specific varieties, what determines if a chicken is a specific breed, and what makes a chicken worthy of being exhibited or even used as breeding stock.
In the advancement of our participation levels, we learn to identify, select, choose, and cull. We start analyzing and thinking more critically. We learn there is a written standard of perfection for each accepted breed as well as each variety. The farther we climb in our experience, the more details we learn, and the more attention those details receive. Our eyes become trained. Identifying becomes second nature.
Once you learn about lobe and shank color, hackle striping, head shape, tail angle, sheen, feather quality, structure, and the specific traits of a breed or variety, it’s HARD to sit back and appreciate a bird for its “prettiness” when your brain and eye is trained for selection and perfection.
As soon as someone sends us a picture of some fluffy little thing they consider cute, it’s like our brain switches into “work-mode” and starts picking it apart. The first thing we do, is pick out all the things wrong with it. Tail angle, feather coloring, shank color, leakage… etc What we forget to realize, is that our friend or random person, was simply including us in their world, and hoping to share something that they liked with us.
Nolie at Mojo Homestead FL Official , is my favorite example, as she has grown to know that no matter how cute something truly is, my first response will be to pick it apart from an exhibition standpoint. Once I get past all the “nope’s,” she then reminds me to see that particular abomination for its beauty through someone else’s eyes. I love the fact that she has the patience of a saint, and is willing to share with me, and wait until I have gone through my course, to remind me that there is beauty in all of God’s creatures.
Am I wrong for picking her cute little pets apart? Nope! That’s what my eyes and brain are trained to do. Nolie knows that when she need an extra set of critical eyes, she can come to me. She also has learned that through her patience, and not blocking me when I call her “favorite” an “abomination”, that she can now better evaluate her other birds, as she has been patient and listened to the how’s and why’s when my “work mode” was in full-swing.
So, why does an “exhibition person” pick your bird apart, and tear it to shreds? Because THAT is what we’re taught to do. It’s what the judge will do. For breeding and exhibition, we are taught to pick the bird apart.
From a breeding standpoint, we are taught to pair birds that are lacking in a specific area, with birds that excel in that trait. For exhibition, we are taught to select only the best to present to the judge, for his / her opinion. It’s so engrained in our heads, that it’s honestly the first thing we do, and without even having to think about it.
We (exhibition people) aren’t out there purposely sucking the joy out of your little cuties; it’s just that selection and perfection has been beat into our heads to the point where we automatically rinse and repeat without even thinking about it.
(Pic is of my Birchen & not-Birchen Cochin Bantams, as exhibited at the Kentuckiana Poultry show in May 2026. I was experimenting whether the judge would pick Type over Color.)
