Fair chicken showing goes virtual and...stuffed

MOSES LAKE — Poultry judge Emmett Wild stands across the table from the two young women in FFA jackets. He looks serious, as do the two teenage exhibitors, even as they each tightly grip a stuffed chicken. “Check your bird for external parasites,” he commands. Jeslan Valdez, 16, lifts up a wing of her stuffed chicken, slides a finger along the underside to show where she would look, then quickly lifts up the rear and brushes her hand against it. “What would be the signs that your bird has parasites?” Wild asks. “It would be stressed out,” Valdez said, continuing her response with a list of signs and symptoms her bird would clearly show if it had mites, lice or anything else that can make its home on a real, live chicken. Valdez and her fellow FFA poultry shower Paige Ball, both FFA members, are showing off stuffed chickens in the Poultry Barn at this year’s Grant County Fair following a request from the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s chief veterinarian to hold off on live poultry shows until 30 days after the last confirmed case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which was most recently detected in a small, backyard flock in Jefferson County on July 26...