Five years of effort and lots of persuading others to come and show their self blue large fowl Ameraucanas has finally seen them recognized as a standard variety! They won the approval vote of the APA board on Friday night (Jan. 24, 2020) at the semi-annual meeting at the Pearl River Classic in Columbia, Mississippi. Going through the recognition process will cause one to be more appreciative of the varieties already recognized within their breed!
This recognition process was a joint effort by many who contributed to make it happen! A special thanks to each: Susan Mouw for all the paper work which started the process;
the five who signed the affidavit stating that they had bred the self blue for 5 years while maintaining an APA membership:(alphabetical order by last name); Barbara Dodington, Debra Hogan, Christina Korfus, Jean Ribeck, Paul & Angela Smith;
Oklahoma State Poultry Federation Shawnee, Oklahoma for hosting first prequalifying meet on Dec. 10 & 11, 2016 with (in exhibitor list order) Shannon Rowe, Howard Story, Paul & Angela Smith, and April Howington exhibiting 6 cocks, 6 hens, 5 cockerels and 8 pullets and judge Jim Sallee recommending them;
Dixie Classic Knoxville, TN. for hosting second prequalifying meet on December 2 & 3, 2017 with (listed by exhibitor number) Barbara Dodington, Pat Dukes, Lindsay Helton,
Paul & Angela Smith, Sherry Klaus, and Holly McDonnell exhibiting 5 cocks, 8 hens, 6 cockerels and 6 pullets and judge Brian Knox recommending them;
North American Poultry Breeders Show in Shawnee, Oklahoma hosting our first qualifying meet on November 17 & 18, 2018 with (exhibitor list order) Sherry Klaus, Shannon Rowe, Chris Cross, Paul & Angela Smith, Matt Cooperrider, Lorri Story, Howard Story, and Dakota's Chickens (Dakota Weimar) exhibiting 6 cocks, 14 hens, 5 cockerels and 12 pullets and judge Amanda Stallman for recommending them;
Ohio National Columbus, OH. for hosting final qualifying meet on November 9 & 10, 2019 with (in exhibitor list order) Patricia Dukes, Barbara Dodington, Susan Mouw, Lindsay Helton, Jean Ribeck, Paul & Angela Smith, Eric Waterman, Shannon Rowe, Chris Cross, and Dakota's Chickens (Dakota Weimar) exhibiting 6 cocks, 10 hens, 10 cockerels, and 16 pullets and judge Tom Carey for recommending them;
the entire APA board for their approval vote;
also to each person who purchased self blue Ameraucanas from those who showed their birds in the prequalifying & qualifying meets as these purchases helped to provide for the expense of showing.
It was truly a team effort which I was honored to be part of!
Now that the self blue Ameraucanas are officially recognized, we need to make sure we enter them correctly in the shows by using the name self blue and encourage others to use the correct name. Now they are eligible to win BB (best of breed) and higher, Best AOSB (best all other standard breed), champion large fowl or show champion.
We also need to watch out for self blue that are getting too light in color (off white with a light blue tint), like APA district 3 director, well known judge, and 32 year breeders of self blue d'Anver bantams, Tim Bowles, said could happen. Last weekend at the Ft. Worth poultry show a white/self blue cockerel with a yellow beak and red on his wings was placed as BV instead of being DQ, while there were several very nice self blue with correct color in the show.
Paul Smith