THE POULTRY SOCIETY

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 13016, 2 July 1906, Page 3

THE POULTRY SOCIETY

In spite of Saturday' Being a very wet day there was a considerable number of visitors to the Poultry Show in the Drill Hall, and in the evening there was'va good considering tne weather. The Garrison Band ;provided music fpr; the evening. '■■'.:■'" '" The cits were brought in for the second day,and though they were not iiuanerOUs 1 *? they were a great attraction, and a finevlot of animals. The heaviest' cats were indeed heavy ones, the winner, a fifteen-pounder, a handsome as well as a big one. The prizes were allotted by the judge, Mr R. Warrington, as follows :—Xcrtoiseskell and white, Mrs Powell; brown tabby, Mrs Whiting, Mts Hill; black, J. Lillico, Miss M. Anderson; largest, Mrs Whiting (151bs), Miss F. Mee (141bs); silver tabby, E. Fox, Mrs N. Fairbrother; other variety, A. E. Wood, Mrs M. Chiles, Miss Dooley. Considerable interest was taken in the exhibition of plucking , and trussing by Mr Townsend, one of the Government graders, who gave two exhibitions, one in the afternoon, the other in the evening, on fowls entered in the dressed poultry classes, four or five in each of two classes. Mr Townsend, before beginning assured the onlookers that there was no cruelty in what he was about to do, although they might think there was, for the first thing he did was to dislocate the - bird's neck, after which it could feel nothing. This explanation was really needed, for in some cases- he had finished plucking a fowl before it had done i" kicking" and at least on one occasion someone sang out " Why don't you kill the fowl?" Mr Townsend is ,an expert plucker, using both hands with equal terity; and he plucked five fowls within 15 minutes. There was not much comi petition in these table fowl classes, and there had "been soine difficulty in getting entries for them at all. In the young bird class (under 5 months) G. Blair entered the first and second prize birds, and T. Clark the third. In the class for' birds over 5 months, Cyrel Burns was .first, Blair second, Clark third. The Show was closed at 10 p.m. and the local exhibitors at once' began to unpen their birds, and* cart them home, those that came by rail remaining jn the pens till next day. The Society are to be commiserated for haying struck two wet evenings, otherwise the Show must have been'the best the {Society has yet held.