It was Quinlan and Lorelei’s day at the Washakie County Fair. Now we’ve been to the Beef Show before, but not the Pig Show until today. Rocket and Rose are Hereford pigs, colored like Hereford cattle. Quinlan was on first with the FFA kids. The first timers compete with the experienced hands and what chaos!
They turn the competitors loose all at once. Quite a different strategy from leading a steer out and posing him. Kids should try to maintain eye contact with the judge, not be between the judge and your pig, bring the pig towards the judge by tap tap tapping with your show stick, and showing it off the best you can.
Until some kids get weeded out, it’s kind of like bacon bumper cars.
Quinlan earned 5th place in FFA Showmanship, which is excellent for his first time out!
Then a few classes later, it was Lorelei’s turn.
While she didn’t place, she also did well for her first time out! She has a bit more of the “intensity” the judge was looking for.
Then, after even more classes, Quinlan and Lorelei competed against each other in the Hereford class, where it was just the two of them.
Quinlan’s pig was the winner between the two.
Note to self. Don’t just sit in the bleachers for photos… so many were blurry!
It was all a good start, at the old Pig Show… time to move on to the Sheep Show tomorrow!
I’ve seen ‘Pig Showing’ at Country Shows in the UK. (On TV not in person). The pigs are very hard to handle. They have a stick in one hand and a board the other side of pig, in an attempt to ‘control’ the pig. Some behave, some don’t. All part of the fun of Country Shows.
I have never been to the pig show. (We did judge pigs in 4H back long ago.) Now I know I have been missing out. BTW, beautiful pigs.
I liked the thought of bumper cars with pigs. Can’t imagine trying to get a pig to do anything. They seem like they have their own ideas of what they should do. Ane trying to maintain eye contact with the JUDGES?? Come on.
[I will note that there is a long time (relatively) between when I click Post Comment and the error message. It shows up about the time I check to see if anything happened.]
I can imagine how hard that would be. Great job! they look like professionals in the photos!