Category:Louisiana Tape Boxing Association

LTBA Tape Boxing is a decades-old Louisiana resident effort of preservation and improvement of various gallus gallus breeds mental and physical traits through application governed by accepted standards and practices in which two similarly bred birds, known as gamecocks, are allowed to engage in combat with protective measures taken to insure their safety, for the primary purposes of preservation and improvement of the breeds. LTBA Tape Boxing does not intend nor is it reasonably foreseeable that the chickens would be injured, maimed, mutilated, or killed. The fowl do not suffer unjustifiable physical pain or suffering caused or permitted in LTBA Tape Boxing from injuries such as punctured lungs, broken bones, and pierced eyes caused by artificial spurs that are designed to puncture and mutilate, not even are they subjected to their own natural spurs, nor is it reasonably foreseeable that the fowl would be injured, maimed, mutilated, or killed. Such severe injuries WILL NOT occur from artificial or natural spurs because the birds' legs are NOT fitted with razor-sharp steel blades or with gaffs, but rather their own natural spurs are protectively covered up. In addition, should either bird want to escape from the other for any reason, the LTBA referee intervenes and complies.

The LTBA Code of Conduct requires a courteous and gracious attitude at all times during an LTBA Event and in all of LTBA Tape Boxing Events there has never occurred any disturbing facets of the standards and practices. Gambling and wagering has never been and is not allowed at the LTBA Tape Boxing Events. Firearms and other weapons have never been and are not allowed at LTBA Tape Boxing Events. Alcohol or profanity have never been allowed at any events and no liquor or profanity shall be allowed in the future. Any type of controlled substance (illegal drugs) is strictly prohibited and LTBA Tape Boxing Events have never had or been connected to any kind of violence or any type of illegal activity.

The Louisiana Tape Boxing Association's mission and purpose is the perpetuation and improvement of game fowl breeds and their respective mental and physical traits through application governed by accepted standards and practices through traditional generally accepted agricultural practices, with gene banks to preserve genetic material from the breeds for the preservation of genetic health and genetic diversity in Louisiana poultry livestock breeds. These breeds are part of our state and agricultural heritage and represent a unique piece of Louisiana's traditional biodiversity. We in Louisiana have inherited a rich culture of poultry livestock breeds and the loss of these specific breeds would impoverish Louisiana agriculture and diminish the human spirit within us. For the sake of future generations and the breeds themselves, we must work together to safeguard these treasures for future generations.

The Louisiana Tape Boxing Association goes to great lengths to assure the welfare of the fowl for the continuation of genetic diversity for future generations. LTBA Events have never been organized or conducted in which it was intended or reasonably foreseeable that the chickens would be injured, maimed, mutilated, or killed and that same code of conduct will continue to exist at any future LTBA Tape Boxing Event. LTBA participants have never possessed, trained, purchased, or sold any chicken with the intent that the chicken be engaged in an unlawful cockfight and that same code of conduct will continue to exist and be required among any future LTBA participants. But just as a pigeon must fly or a horse must run in order to determine the physical health and potential worth for the propagation of the breed, so must the fowl show full health and vitality and the full breadth of their phenotype in order to determine their true worth and value as desirable in the quest of continuation and improvement of the breed. Just as the value of the pigeon and the horse increases as the full health and vitality and the full breadth of their phenotype becomes known, so does the fowls' value increase as an agricultural product with the potential of improvement of mental and physical traits of his progeny.

The LTBA's mission of the preservation and improvement of gamefowl breeds mental and physical traits has prompted the LTBA governance to provide information and assistance to individual breeders and owners of Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry registered flocks in need of assistance in contacting and providing information and testimony, to their parish or other local officials, on the values, functionality and the lawfulness of the Tape Boxing Standards as conducted within the parameters of LTBA Approved Events.