Boris the bronze standard turkey. Credit:Wolter Peeters With up to 30 birds, Ms Heath is one of a new breed of poultry fancier, raising and exhibiting heritage bird varieties that she said were at risk of dying out. The art of exhibiting poultry also faces an uncertain future as the memberships of clubs dwindle. The Exhibition Poultry Association of NSW has 91 clubs - a number that has "largely remained static" over the past 15 years, according to the association's secretary Janet Doust. "Although the past two years has disappointingly seen some clubs close as their demographic ages without any younger members stepping up to do the tasks invariably required by volunteer organisations."

"I'd never kept chickens before. In fact, I'd barely kept a house plant before": Belinda Heath, with Boris the shy, neurotic turkey. Credit:Wolter Peeters 'Lone chook freak' Ms Heath keeps her flock of birds, including a "shy, neurotic" turkey named Boris, in her backyard chicken coop in Wentworth Falls due to the risk of predators. "Foxes are the greatest nemesis," she said. "It's the day you forget to lock them up is the day they come." Abraham the silver-laced Wyandotte rooster. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Spying a wedge-tailed eagle overhead, Ms Heath added: "Aerial attack is a problem too, at least up here." Ms Heath initially thought she was "a lone chook freak" before discovering a number of online groups, based in the Blue Mountains dedicated to poultry breeding. She later joined the Lithgow & District Poultry Club, part of an influx of mostly women who have quadrupled its membership in just a few years, while lowering its average age. Fellow club member Kara Cooper, a poultry breeder from Mount Victoria, became a chicken person as a child, caring for "horrible, sad-looking" battery hens that had no feathers and their beaks removed. She later developed a passion for exotic birds: "I always love the bearded chooks, you know, the fluffier, odd-looking chooks."

'Dying art' Ms Cooper said the club's new members had sought to bring poultry breeding into the digital age to attract more people. "It really is a dying art. When we joined, all of us ladies, there were four or five men in the shed." Ms Heath and Ms Cooper will be exhibiting birds at the Lithgow Poultry Club's annual show on Sunday. Judges look to a bird's demeanour and appearance, marking against the standard set for its breed, Ms Doust said. "It is basically one person's opinion of a fowl in the minute or so it is in their hand and in front of them in the pen.

"Things like presentation and pen training can help a bird but the bird must firstly conform to the standard for its breed and colour." The rewards of winning are not financial, she added. "No one ever became a millionaire breeding purebred show fowls." Ms Cooper said the bantam breeds she showed were low maintenance. "You don't have to prep too much," she said. "Just make sure their bums are clean, give them a good wipe down, make sure their toenails are nice and clean." Cruelty concerns

The RSPCA has expressed concern over the practice of dubbing, which is a traditional practice that can involve the removal of the comb, wattle and sometimes the earlobes of poultry. The minutes of the EPANSW's 2016 annual general meeting raised the prospect of "likely intervention" by the RSPCA. The association's president Bruce Raines noted in his 2016 report: "With ever increasing attention towards animal cruelty, the time has come for Game Clubs throughout Australia to adopt new breeding or show standards. Perhaps a class for dubbed and undubbed males." An RSPCA spokeswoman more recently said that any surgical procedure should only be carried out for the benefit of the animal, not its human handler. "The practice of dubbing, often carried out by lay operators without anaesthetic, is a cause of pain and distress," she said. "Blood circulating from the comb to the wattles helps the bird to regulate its body temperature during hot weather. Removing either wattle or comb clearly serves no benefit to the bird."

The Australian Poultry Standards currently allow dubbed fowl to be exhibited at shows. Loading "The RSPCA believes that these, and all other standards that refer to dubbing must be amended to exclude dubbed animals from exhibition," she said. "This would send a clear message to poultry stud breeders and exhibitors that dubbing is a cruel and unacceptable practice." Ms Heath said she did not practice dubbing "and I think, speaking personally, it is a lesser concern than chick maceration or the conditions that a lot of meat broilers are kept in industrially".