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Faking is Dishonest, whether pulling feathers or coloring them

by Connie Abeln
(Missouri)

I totally disagree with the suggestion of pulling an off-color feather rather than coloring it. Pulling an off-color feather is faking, too.
Here is the definition of faking:

Faking - the dishonest practice of concealing a defect or disqualification from a potential buyer or a show judge

If you are just in it to win it, then go back to the casino. Real breeders have the guts to show their birds as they really are. Sometimes an off-color feather is only a point or two off the final score. A breeder wants to know where their bird actually stands in the overall competition, even with its faults. Breeders go to the judges to help them decide what direction they want the breed to go.
A false win can undermine the breed, particularly if the faker is selling their birds as winners to other breeders.

So often, people who fake are showing themselves not to be true breeders, but just competitors. Let them compete somewhere else, where their competitive nature doesn't potentially ruin the genome of a breed.

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Oct 13, 2023
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Thank you for your input
by: Valerie

I appreciate that you brought this up. When I wrote this article and was still new at showing, this was the advice I was given, but I agree with the points raised here and I certainly don't wish to steer any new to showing to cheating! I removed mention of pulling feathers from the article.

Oct 11, 2023
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Pulling feathers sure sounds like horse coping
by: Anonymous

And it all strikes me as cheating. The idea that a judge would suggest cheating is just shocking.

Jan 21, 2023
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Thank you for calling out fakers
by: Middy

This cannot be too highly stressed. One woman told me a judge told her to pull out feathers that were the wrong color! I was very new to poultry in those days but it sounded like the poultry version of horse coping when I compared that advice to the standards - ABA and APA.

If it were acceptable to pull feathers, then why are discolored feathers considered a bad mark against a bird's score?

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