2026 Class 8 - Black Eyed Self Colour ASC

Judges Comments:

Always an interesting class, because we're trying to get the lack of markings and the clarity in the colour without the suffusion.

The bird that we put up at the start was the bird in Cage T owned by Geoff Russell from South Queensland. We went to work the birds, we realised it had a very short primary tail, There's no secondary. If it's a primary tail feather, there's no secondary tail feathers to support it, so the judges were unanimous in disqualifying this bird. We had to put it out I don't think there's any red on my shirt, but you know your heart bleeds for a breeder who breeds a quality bird like that. That lovely bird that had to be DQ'd.

Cage K owned by Gary Gazzard from New South Wales, showing good variety, this bird stood there all day. Good long bird, nice feather, excellent variety.

Cage B owned by Gary Gazzard from New South Wales, the breeder here has done an exceptional job getting the length of feather, the width of shoulder, But the variety has been put down a little bit. I know it's a little bit of colour suffused through the body and you can see that from back there.

Cage F owned by Holmes Family from South Australia, a hen, excellent variety but not the power of the first two.

Cage R owned by Ray Slade from Victoria, has excellent variety but didn't quite have the shoulder of the ones above it.

But well done to the black-eyed breeders. Difficult variety, well done.