The last three Best in Show winners have a story to tell. When I moved from California to Spring Hill, Florida in late 2015, I got back into birds after a long 8-year hiatus. My friends all helped me out and gave me some birds to start breeding with again.
One of the friends that stepped up was Oscar DeVries from Canada. He gave me a few birds off his foundation cock, 95 PINE 5129, named Shiver, a Jansen. Oscar named the bird Shiver because he had so much vitality that his wings would literally shiver all the time. Oscar bred him until he was 18 years old. I now have 3 direct children off of him, two 9-year-olds, a cock and hen, who are nest mates and a 10 year-old hen. I also have 21 grandchildren in my stock loft off of Shiver, this in a stock loft that ranges from 18-22 pair maximum. Some of them also shiver, a trait I certainly look for in that family.
I am lucky enough to not only have bred the last threeBest in Show winners but to also ba able to say they all belong to the same family! These three winners are all grandchildren of Shiver. Each one a direct descendant of each of the children mentiion above. More aspecifically, the 2017 and 2018 winners' lineage is a grandson of Shiver mated to a daughter of Shiver (nephew to aunt). This year's winner was a Shiver child crossed with my old family from California.