For the past four years, Rossville Rustlers 4-H Club member Leah Hudson has inspected her small flock of chickens to pick the best three to
enter in the poultry division at the Shawnee County Fair.
She makes her selection based on which chickens have the most
feathers, look the prettiest and are in the best condition. Her judgment has
proven pretty good — one year she brought home a purple ribbon.
This year, however, Leah’s birds will stay in their pens when the
county fair rolls around in late July.
The Kansas Department of Agriculture, Division of Animal Health,
issued a stop movement order on June 9 that targets poultry and other live
birds in an effort to prevent the spread of the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian
influenza.
The order resulted in the cancellation of all poultry-related
shows and events through Dec. 31 in Kansas, including county and state fairs,
swap meets, exotic sales, live bird auctions and other poultry activities where
birds of different flock commingle. More than 2,000 4-Hers will be affected
statewide.
“It wasn’t really that much of a shock,” Leah, 12, an
eighth-grader at Rossville Junior High, said, noting a positive case of avian
flu had been found earlier this year in Leavenworth County.
While live birds will be restricted from county fairs, egg
exhibits will still be allowed.
Lynette Hudson, Leah’s mother and a leader for the Rossville
Rustlers 4-H Club, said she appreciates the KDA’s efforts to try to protect the
state’s poultry industry and its decision to pull live birds from the fairs.
As a parent, it takes that hard decision off us,” she said,
adding she also understands the disappointment of senior 4-Hers for whom this
year was the final opportunity to show their poultry projects. “But, I’d rather
not take (the birds) and get them exposed.”
K-State Research and Extension staff, county and state fair
officials and poultry industry representatives are trying to find ways 4-Hers
enrolled in poultry projects can still showcase their work without having their
birds present.
Brooke Gray, 4-H youth development program assistant at the
Shawnee County Extension Office, said Extension staff and others are working on
options to the regular way 4-Hers participate in the poultry division at the
Shawnee County Fair, which will run July 30-Aug. 2 at the Kansas Expocentre.
“It’s still a work in progress,” she said, adding 4-Hers might
create a poster with photographs of their birds, give a talk or complete a
project notebook as substitutes for exhibiting their birds.
Although Gray said she didn’t know how many poultry exhibits were
entered in last year’s Shawnee County Fair, Cara Robinson, 4-H project manager
for the Meadowlark District of K-State Research and Extension in Holton, said
about 30 4-Hers typically exhibit poultry at the Jackson County Fair.
Robinson said those youngsters are being encouraged to enter
posters, notebooks with photos and information, record books or videos
explaining their poultry projects at this year’s fair, from July 27 to 31 at
the fairgrounds in Holton.
“The majority of them also have other projects, like food or
livestock,” she said, estimating last year’s fair brought in about 2,700 4-H
entries.
Denny Stoecklein, general manger of the Kansas State Fair in
Hutchinson, said about 1,200 pigeons, chickens, ducks and other types of
poultry were on display at the 2014 state fair.
Stoecklein said the ban on poultry gives the state fair —
scheduled Sept. 11 through 20 — the opportunity to educate visitors about the
avian flu while offering alternative ways 4-Hers can enter their projects in
the poultry division. As an example, he said a youngster could use a stuffed
toy bird instead of a live bird during the poultry showmanship competition.
“People won’t walk through the poultry barn and see an empty
building,” Stoecklein said.
Details on how to handle the poultry ban at the state fair, he
said, will be discussed this week during a conference call that will include
the state fair poultry superintendent and officials from K-State Extension and
Research and the Kansas Department of Agriculture, Division of Animal Health.
