July/August 2026

8 – Purebred PIGEON The show hall was closed to the public on Thursday when all of the judging was done. The birds are judged right in their cages. They have a scoring system that they use to score the birds. Each bird is scored individually but they still have class winners and champions, etc. The exhibitors’ name was not on the coop cards so the judge does not know whose bird he is judging. The best score you could get on a bird was 97 (excel- lent) the next level was 96 (outstanding), 95-93 (very good), 92-91 (good), 90 (sufficient), and 0 (not sufficient). It is very similar to the system that the Rare Breeds Pigeon Club uses in America. The thing I like about this manner of judging is that a breeder can have multiple 97 and 96 birds in the same class which tells something about the breeder if he is able to breed multiple high class birds versus producing only one winning bird. In America we can win in small classes with lower quality birds and the beginners don’t know that it isn’t a good bird. On Friday at noon they opened to the public. By that time they had a large catalog printed with all the show results. They had a large crowd waiting to get in! They charged a $10 admis- sion fee to enter. It was the first time I ever had to pay to get in a pigeon show. That is something some of our shows in Amer- ica might consider doing. People would say we can’t charge admission to enter a pigeon show if we want to attract more new people to the pigeon hobby. But, if somebody wants to come to a pigeon show they will come regardless if they need to pay a couple bucks or not. If it would help make our shows better and make the clubs better off financially. Why not? The clubs would be able to promote the shows more because they Almond Fantail Black Schmalkaldener Moorhead - 93 pts Holle Cropper - Cream Bar 93 pts Black Reversewing