Participants in the Lawton District Livestock Show at the Comanche County Fairgrounds had extra time to prepare for the show this year thanks to a winter storm that delayed the show for two days.
The show was originally scheduled for Jan. 27, but was pushed back to Jan. 29 due to bitter cold and icy roads.
The extra days gave Holden Spence, 12, a student at Pioneer Park Elementary School, more time to give his pigs, Max and Chester, the five-star bath treatment, he said. Spence, who is new to livestock shows, said this was his second show and he was excited to show his Yorkshire and Chester pigs. But he was not excited to wake up at 5 a.m. on show day. He said he was too excited about the show to go back to sleep.
“I was excited to get to the barn and get ready,” he said, explaining that he was disappointed when the show was pushed back “because I wanted to get here and not wait another day.”
But Spence put the waiting to good use, which is where the five-star baths came in. Spence said he used hot water, soap, conditioner, a blow dryer and a brush to get each pig ready for the big show. He also had to make sure Max and Chester had clean shavings in their pens during his daily visits to the new pig barn at the Lawton Public Schools farm.
Spence was confident he would win at least one of his classes because Chester was the only pig entered in Class 1 for Chester barrows. Spence and Max would face teammate Adley Dye in another class.
“I think I’m going to do OK against her,” Spence said before the show began.
Dye said she was showing four pigs at Thursday’s show: Pop Rocks, a dark cross barrow; Slim Jim, a Yorkshire barrow; Betty, a light cross gilt; and Elvis, a Berkshire barrow. The Lawton Area Stock Show was her third time to show pigs. She, too, put in extra time getting her quartet ready for the show ring, explaining that she had to wash her pigs multiple times.
“It gave me extra time, but it was also a little bit too much,” she said. “I would have preferred it was on Tuesday.”
Dye, who lives in the country, said she and her mother made the trek into the pig barn twice a day during the storm to care for her pigs. Dye said it takes almost two hours a day to care for Betty, Elvis, Pop Rocks and Slim Jim.
“Mostly my mom took me. It was icy and it would slip most of the time when we would turn. My mom was wondering if we were going to make it,” the 13-year-old MacArthur Middle School student said.
While most students showed four-legged animals, Jayson Holley, 13, a student at MacArthur Middle School, showed one of the 15 broiler chickens at the show, ultimately being named grand champion.
Holley said this was his first time to show animals and he is responsible for caring for about 25 chickens, which are kept behind the school. Holley said he feeds and exercises them.
Why does a chicken need exercise? So they can gain muscle for the show circuit, Holley said.
And just how do you exercise a chicken?
“You just get in the pen with them and walk around with them,” Holley said.
Unlike those showing other livestock, Holley said you don’t bathe chickens, just change the shavings in their pens. And add bacon grease to their food to fatten them up because weight in chickens is very important.
“We weigh them to see who is the heaviest and bring those to the show,” Holley said.
The next big show is the Southwest District Livestock Show in Chickasha on Feb. 11.