Summer heat challenging 4-H, FFA fair animals

It’s too early to say how well Mikey fared in the hog judging Tuesday.

But his owner, Morgan White, 16, is happy he filled out enough to make it to the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo.

The porker weighed in at 293 pounds for this year’s market swine classes for 4-H and FFA youth.

That’s close to the 295-pound limit and could mean more money when he’s auctioned off at the end of this week’s fair. Morgan will use the money to pay back a loan she took out to raise him.

Three others in her Kennewick FFA club weren’t as fortunate. Their entries were sent home for coming in below the 240-pound minimum. Even her brother’s hog didn’t make the cut.

“He was 10 pounds under,” she said.

Those petite hogs may be the result of this summer’s extraordinarily oppressive heat.

Fair officials from around the state have reported unusually large numbers of animals failing to make weight for competitions.

How does the heat play into that?

Just as people tend to lose their appetite when they’re hot, hogs, lambs and cattle also go off their food when temperatures are high.

Youth as young as middle school spend months caring for a variety of animals, from rabbits to goats, as part of their 4-H and FFA club projects.

They and their families invest money in the animals, particularly the large ones, to ensure they are fed, healthy and well-groomed in time for fair season.

The idea is the better the animal, the more it will fetch at auction, contributing to a youth’s spending money or even a college fund.

“It’s a lot of responsibility. When that pig or sheep doesn’t make weight, it’s a big letdown,” Natlie Kinion, a 4-H youth development specialist with the Washington State University Extension in Benton and Franklin counties, said in a news release.

Temperatures in parts of the state exceeded 90 degrees for more than 20 days during the summer. The Tri-Cities had 30 days in June and July when temperatures exceeded 90, including stretches of 100-plus days, according to the National Weather Service.

Tina Bush, hog superintendent for the Benton Franklin fair’s market swine classes, said there were 243 entries this year, up from 226 in 2014. But about 30 were sent home for being underweight, a number she said isn’t far off the average.

However, that doesn’t include the dozens of pigs that were signed up ahead of the fair but ultimately didn’t show up, potentially because their handlers knew they wouldn’t weigh enough.

Swine and sheep are particularly susceptible to excessive heat, WSU Extension officials said. For pigs, any temperature above 80 leads to problems because they have lots of body fat and aren’t able to sweat.

“We had numerous days when the temperatures far exceeded that,” said WSU livestock specialist Don Llewellyn in a release.

Morgan and her fellow FFA club members did what they could to help their animals beat the heat.

Along with providing ample drinking water and shade, they hosed the pigs down twice a day with water.

She noted, however, the pigs had to do their part, too, to fatten up.

“My pig was kind of a brute and would push the others away to get food,” Morgan said.

While the summer’s heat was a reminder of the challenges of working with Mother Nature, not all is lost.

Morgan said some club members who were disqualified will take their pigs to another fair in the region, potentially selling off another to spend more bulking it up to earn as much as possible at auction.

Regardless of the struggles, 4-H and FFA members work hard to care for their animals up until they’re sold, Bush said, as evidenced by the students sweeping out the pig pens and spraying water to keep them cool.

“It’s a good group of kids,” she said.

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 10:21 PM with the headline "Summer heat challenging 4-H, FFA fair animals."