Purebreds in high demand at chook auction

The Poultry Club of Tasmania held its annual auction at Longford Showgrounds on Sunday through Elders and there were some excited purchases lugging crates and boxes to their car by the end of proceedings.

Five-year-old Sophie Maloney of Exeter was enamoured with the silkies, and her dad Mark, a regular exhibitor and Devonport Poultry Club vice president, couldn’t help but indulge.

“We bought five silkies and there’s every chance this will get her interested in chooks,” Mark said.

Brett Harding of Hadspen purchased a trio of white sussexs and another three lots of pairs to add to the growing collection on his property.

“We love our chooks and breeding them – they have a big run and mostly free-range,” he said.

“I’ve got a mix of breeds and like most people we love having free-range eggs.”

Poultry Club of Tasmania president and Elders auctioneer Damien Whiteley

Today’s sales went really good, despite numbers attending down a little on last year.

Prices were up on fowls, with ducks bringing the best money best white runner females which will go to Victoria fetched $310 for a pair of femailes, large soft feathered fowls made up to $250 for a pair and old English game bantams also sold really well today clmpared to what they usually do.

There was a good variety of birds including a couple of rare breeds such as luxworths and frizzle pekins, faveroles, some of these large birds are becoming really rare.

Brian Bennett secretary Poultry club of Tasmania said: “We’ve been running this now for close to 20years and while it’s one of the smaller ones the main aim is to sell most birds which we easily do.

“People are continuing to lean towards keep attractive, purebred poultry rather than the old crossbreds.

“They’re from reputable breeders and its by invitation, plus we restrict numbers to a maximum of 250 lots and because of that have a very low pass in rate.”