Cows and pigs and chickens, oh my!

MOSES LAKE — Clairese Snyder is clear on why she picked chickens as her 4-H project.

“They’re one that can’t drag me,” the Quincy resident said, as she held her brother’s Speckled Sussex hen Saratoga. “They’re easy-ish to catch. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the pigs, but they can be a little difficult to control.”

Also, she said chickens have the distinct advantage of not triggering any of her allergies, which is always a plus. With her own birds, Snyder said she’s won blue ribbons in showmanship, breed and market at this year’s Grant County Fair.

“So there’s that,” Snyder added.

It’s the third day of the fair, and Snyder is just one of the 4-H and FFA kids wandering around the Grant County Fairgrounds in-between fitting and showing, holding something furry or feathered or cleaning a four-footed project with soap, a scrub brush and a vacuum cleaner.

Cooper Correia, a FFA student from Coulee City who took the Grand Champion during the swine competition Thursday, said he’s been showing pigs for almost 10 years, and started doing it because it’s something his whole family does.

“It’s a good hobby because it’s really competitive, and I’m a really competitive person,” he said. “It’s just a fun thing to do.”

Correia, who intends to play baseball at Big Bend Community College when he graduates from high school, said it takes a lot of work every day to be ready to show a pig at the county fair.

“Sometimes you just don’t want to do it, but you realize you’ve got to do it if you really want to win,” he said.

Marcie Hundtoft busily swept the inside of one of the cattle barns where her cow, a Brown Swiss milking cow named Buttercup, stands underneath a clutch of ribbons — including Supreme Champion for FFA and 4-H — chewing on fresh alfalfa hay.

Hundtoft, who will start at Ephrata High School in the fall and is thinking about becoming a large-animal veterinarian, said she’s been showing animals for four years, though she started her first year with poultry.

“For me, it’s almost like my pride and joy,” she said of Buttercup. “It’s fun for me to raise cows. It’s like having a fun chore.”

Hundtoft said she expects Buttercup will spend the rest of her life chewing grass and having “a nice, easy pet-cow life.”

“I like helping animals. I do enjoy being around any sort of animal,” she said.

In the Youth Building, Connie Roth and her daughter Cecelia sit at the Boy Scout booth, in front of the names of the several hundred Eagle Scouts from Moses Lake since 1931. Connie said she was moved to volunteer for this year’s fair because of her family’s long involvement in scouting.

“My son’s dad and uncles are there,” Connie said. “That’s a lot of Eagle Scouts. Scouting has been a strong part of the community for a lot of years.”

But for Cecilia, this is the first year in a while she’s not showing an animal — she has shown rabbits in the past — and can actually relax and enjoy the fair.

“This is really weird because the past two years we’ve done animals, and so this year, being able to be away, it’s nice,” she said.