After a long trip, we finally arrived at the show in Red Bluff, CA. 

We entered our birds and finally got to meet Larry Stallings, another Buttercup breeder and an APA certified judge. 

Someday we plan to start breeding large fowl Buttercups as well, but currently we remain focused on our mission of improving our bantam Buttercups. Larry brought both large fowl and bantam Buttercups to the show. 

After a great show, a banquet, and a wine auction, it was finally time to head home. 

Before leaving, we traded bloodlines with Larry, which was the primary objective of traveling so far to the show. There are very few bantam Buttercup breeders, so it is important for us to share bloodlines to keep genetic diversity up and help improve the quality of our birds. 

I hope in the future we will begin to travel to more out-of-state shows. It was a unique experience.

We entered our birds in the Red Bluff poultry show put on by the Northern California Poultry Association. The show was in March, 2015.

We figured if we are going to drive from Washington to California anyway, why not enjoy the view along the way? Below are a few photos of our trip. 

Technically, Blue Slate is created when a black turkey has one copy of the "dilute" gene, which causes the blue appearance. A Self Blue turkey is created when a black turkey has both copies of the dilute gene. ​

Therefore, a Blue Slate Turkey is actually heterozygous, which means it has two different genes in the same location, rather than two of the same kind. This is why Blue Slate turkeys do not breed true; the offspring will be 50% Blue Slate, 25% Black, and 25% Self Blue. However, if you breed Self Blue directly to Black, you get 100% Blue Slate. 

The blue color in poultry is quite fascinating. We will touch more on it in a future blog post. 

We are showing our birds today at the Cascade Spring Show in Monroe! This show is put on by the Washington Feather Faciers. We will be posting photos of the show live!