Poultry show
A poultry show is a livestock show that focuses on exhibition poultry, such as chickens, ducks, geese, guineafowl, and turkeys. Pigeons are sometimes shown too. Shows can be standalone or held with agricultural fairs. Birds are trained for the cages and groomed before the event.
The first poultry show in the United Kingdom was in London in 1845. After cockfighting was banned in 1849, poultry shows were promoted as an alternative. The British Poultry Standard, the world’s first poultry standard, was published in 1865. The Crystal Palace Poultry Shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries drew huge crowds, with thousands of cages. Charles Darwin attended and showed pigeons, and Queen Victoria entered Cochins at a Dublin Show in 1846. The Crystal Palace shows continued until the building burned down.
The first North American poultry show was in Boston in 1849, but there was no standard yet and judging could not be done. A poultry association formed, and a later show attracted about 12,000 birds, but judging was canceled again due to crowding. In 1874 the American Standard of Perfection was adopted by the American Poultry Association, giving North America its first official standard.
Today, poultry shows are usually organized by poultry clubs, some connected to national bodies like the American Poultry Association or the Poultry Club of Great Britain. Others, such as Australian clubs, are run at the state level. Birds are judged against a local standard, a guide describing the ideal form of each breed.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:53 (CET).