Cheep Thrills

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Cheep Thrills
There's no profit in it, but the ornamental poultry circuit draws flocks of devotees.

Sachs, whose dedication to showing poultry isn't quite what St. Amour's is, has stayed in Darlington. "He can look at all the chickens for three or four hours and then go home," says St. Amour. "I can spend the entire day talking." In fact, last December, amid the chaos of moving in together, Sachs gently suggested St. Amour take some time off from attending shows.

"The hackles went up on my neck like a rooster," she says. "I do think I'm addicted to the shows. If I miss one, I'm really in despair." If the decision came down to human versus bird, she laughs, "It's bye-bye, Carl."

Wearing a sweat shirt that reads "Royal Society of Egg Layers" and sporting chunky, chicken-shaped earrings, St. Amour finds her coops in the exhibition area and gets to work bringing in her birds. She has with her eight Cochins -- five white, two black and a blue. The birds are big -- the Standard calls for Cochins to be from 8 to 11 pounds -- and their feathers make them look even bigger.

St. Amour carries them in one by one, tucked under her arm in a modified football hold.

There are familiar faces here, human as well as avian, and St. Amour nods, waves and occasionally stops to chat. As she catches up with one woman, a casual friend she sees only at shows, the talk turns to a fellow fancier who died during the winter.

"I'm dealing with my own loss right now," the woman reveals. Her grown son recently died. "They say it gets easier with time, but I don't think so."

"It takes a long time, but it does start to get easier," St. Amour reassures her. St. Amour's own daughter, Susan, then 22, was killed in a car accident in 1978, just months after moving to Arizona to continue her education.

The women chat a little more, but there are birds waiting in the Toyota, so St. Amour heads outside.

Once the birds are in their new homes, St. Amour steps back for a quick assessment. There is the white pullet that won "Best of Breed" at the Susquehanna Poultry Club's smaller show a week ago. A black hen who won "Best of Breed" at a show in December. And the blue Cochin that St. Amour declares "a beauty" despite a clearly visible flaw: While, according to the Standard, every feather she boasts should be laced in a darker blue, this bird lacks the distinctive outlining.

"I was going to take a marker and put lacing around every feather," St. Amour jokes, then trails off. Faking does happen -- cake dye is used to disguise discoloration, lipstick applied to brighten a comb -- but it's rare. And, at this point in her competitive career, St. Amour just doesn't care that much about winning. Back home, her living room holds a few trophies, but most of her plaques are still waiting to be put up. When she was still in the old farmhouse up the hill from her bungalow -- St. Amour's family lived there before it fell into disrepair in the waning years of her marriage -- the walls were covered with ribbons, which are usually given for lower-level wins. Now, "I don't even bother to pick them up anymore," she says.

She's got time to stroll, so St. Amour decides to check out some of her 68 competitors. There's John Burgess, who worked in Fort Belvoir's Army night vision and electronic sensors lab until 1995 and has been raising birds in Fairfax County for 10 years. Two of the 16 birds he's brought today have been grand champions at other shows. And not far off is Tom Roebuck, an energetic, 41-year-old retired Marine who is president of Cochins International and will compete against St. Amour with his large Cochins.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't competitive," he says. "That's just the nature of being a Marine."