With more livestock being housed in urban and suburban backyards, some owners take just as much pride in their poultry as their dog or cat. So much so that they're primping and preening them for beauty contests. Harvest Public Media takes us to a fun-loving event in Colorado.
Then...
"A chicken show is like a beauty show and they all have the have the right beauty attributes," says Jana Wilson. She travels around the Midwest showing her Sicilian buttercups at poultry shows and making connections with other backyard chicken farmers.
The Bible for showing chickens is the American Poultry Association's Standard of Perfection, which defines all the characteristics that make a breed unique. She's memorized the qualities that judges look for in her Sicilian buttercups. "They have to have a completely closed circular comb. See her earlobes? They're white. In the Buttercup, the Standard Of Perfection says they have to be white. I've had some that have red earlobes, and those are ones that don't go on to the show ring."
Wilson considers herself an ambassador for this out-of-the-ordinary breed of chicken. Sicilian Buttercups are on the Watch list, according to the American Livestock Breed Conservancy. That means there are fewer than 2,500 birds in United States and an estimated global population less than 10,000. Wilson says she's often one of a few, or perhaps even the only exhibitor to show Sicilian Buttercups at some competitions.
"What happens is I'll take these birds to a show and an older gentleman will come up to me and say, 'I haven't seen one of those in 50 years,'" she says.
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