Showing Poultry - Raising Poultry - page 358

with a specific breed, get involved, so that you can also become a breeder and perpetu-
ate traits of the breed you enjoy.
Post-Show Date — Isolate!
Never, under any circumstances, bring your birds home from the show and place them
right back in the pens with the rest of your stock. You must house birds returning from
a show in a separate place, as you will almost always be bringing home a virus or bugs
of another sort that you don't want to share with the rest of your birds. Sometimes it
will be lice or mites, varieties of which are, with only a few exceptions, fairly easy to
control. But it's not uncommon for your birds to pick up serious diseases such as la-
ryngotracheitis, coryza, Newcastle, pox, and numerous respiratory ailments caused by
mycoplasmas.
SHOWING POULTRY
Duane Urch, Urch-Turnland Poultry, Owatonna, Minnesota
D UANE URCH began showing in 4-H in 1949, and 2011 marked his 62nd year exhib-
iting in the Minnesota State Fair. This is a record that probably will never be topped.
Duane has been active in the poultry world in many ways. His early start in 4-H
showing advanced to selling hatching eggs by 1958; he then expanded to his own ex-
hibition poultry business.
My first contact with Duane was in the mid-1970s when he was secretary of the
Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities. He eventually became SPPA pres-
ident and has served in many capacities in the poultry world, promoting exhibition
and preservation. Duane has been an American Poultry Association director for more
than 30 years and a licensed APA judge for more than 20 years. I can blame him for
some of the breeds I maintain, as he would corner me at a poultry show and show
me the birds he had entered and encourage me to take them on and perpetuate them.
Many times he would enter breeds not recognized by the APA to encourage others to
raise them, hoping to increase their numbers enough to get them in the APA Stand-
ard . Duane, along with his wife, Phyllis, can be seen at many poultry shows; they
have sent thousands of chicks to 4-H exhibitors and poultry fanciers all over the Un-
ited States.
The Urches are poultry show people to the core, with no sign of slowing down.
They have spent a lifetime attending many shows each year either as exhibitors or
with Duane as judge. Their high-quality breeder flocks and their desire to breed for
the proper standard have put them at the top of the show world for many years. They