Poultry welcome at Farm Show for first time since 2019
The Butler Farm Show reintroduced chickens, ducks and turkeys for the first time since 2019 as restrictions surrounding avian influenza have loosened.
The lifted restrictions from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture allowed the Butler County 4-H poultry club’s 35 children to demonstrate showmanship on real chickens, which only three had done before, according to co-leader Lisa Bauer.
“Even the little ones did very, very well,” she said.
After the PDA loosened the poultry restrictions in January, individual fairs and farm shows were allowed to welcome poultry at their discretion, according to Ken Metric, a member of the Butler Farm Show board.
“We have such a strong 4-H poultry club with young people, we don’t want them to lose interest,” he said.
Bauer said the poultry club children were ecstatic all week after they were awarded ribbons, since it was many of their first times. The children had previously demonstrated poultry showmanship using stuffed animals, pictures and posters.
A stuffed chicken was used for the supreme master showmanship contest at 9 a.m. Saturday. Bauer said each showman touching the same bird would have created a risk of spreading the disease.
The poultry showmanship competition took place 9 a.m. Wednesday, away from the public to mitigate the risk of spreading avian influenza. Bauer said the showmen had to wash their feet before entering the barn in case they were to track in fecal matter, which is the main spreader of avian influenza. Unlike the other showmanship contests, contestants also used their own birds.
All the birds at the farm show had been tested for avian influenza within two weeks of the farm show, and they had been tested for pollorum disease within the last two months, Bauer said.
“Think preschool classrooms with the flu,” she said. “If one gets (avian influenza), the entire flock is going to have it within 24 to 48 hours.”
The poultry club does not allow the public in its tent this year due to restrictions, but the birds can be seen in the cages or requested to be seen from six feet away as they’re carried by a handler.
Bauer said employees at large chicken production farms wear biohazard suits to enter and care for their chickens.
Bauer said she’s heard rumors the restrictions will be lifted further next year to allow the public closer than six feet. She said the club has already been discussing how to organize the birds next year.
Despite the restrictions, Bauer said the club’s children got creative dressing up their chickens for Friday’s poultry costume contest. About 20 contestants had dressed their chickens as dragons, inmates, superheroes, dinosaurs, a taco and Bo Peep.
Last year, only meat birds, a specific type of chicken, were allowed at the farm show — and only for 72 hours.
