Dairy cattle are Carl Murray’s day job but he turns out to be a dark horse chook breeder.
One of three large black pullets Carl bred and wife Leanne fed and watered at Conjola has remarkably swept the barnyard to become Champion Standard Langshan at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
Number One (that’s only an informal nickname we discussed on the phone) went off under close instructions from Carl with her other two birds of a feather and did it almost all by herself.
“I wasn’t intending to go this time because I was too busy with the dairy,” Carl said.
However friends Damien and Jayne Cooper, to whom they are now extra grateful, were heading to the show to enter their Australorps and Carl asked “if they would mind taking a couple up” for him.
“I had them washed and ready to go, Damian cleaned and groomed them.”
“It was a shock actually, you don’t expect to win.
“Langshans are a very big class, every poultry show there are more of them than any other breed, so the competition is huge.”
That Chook (whatever her name turns out to be) won her class at the Sydney Royal against 15 others, then won against all other black Langshan class winners.
To then become Champion Standard Langshan of Sydney Royal she beat all the blue, white and croad class champs.
Caged up for 16 days at Homebush and not allowed out until the day after the event finished, she is now having a free run on the grass at home getting ready to compete at two more swansong poultry shows.
Carl - also known as Milton Show’s chief cattle steward and nephew of famed late thoroughbred trainer Bede Murray, whose stables were located on the same flats as the dairy where Super Chook pecks - breeds “around 35 to 40 Langshan chickens a year”.
“She is young and very good, born about July or August last year. I knew she was the best one of the three.”
But competition life is short. “They are easy to manage as pullets when their feathers are in bloom but as hens after competitions they never quite seem to get it back.”
So now he and Leanne are aiming for a poultry show at Moss Vale in May, then the National Langshan Show, a two to three day event at Dubbo in June with a bit of partying with friends.
“If I can get her to those shows I’ll be happy - and then I’ll breed from her,” he said.
All he has to do in the meantime is choose a name.
