AgFest rocks ’80s look
Lodi students hone animal competition skills
With the Thursday afternoon sun shining in the sky, teenagers and younger children moved rabbits, goats, sheep, and more around the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds.
Some had yet to show their animals to the judges, while others — such as Lodi High School sophomore and FFA student Joslyn Horton — had already shown theirs the day before.
Although Horton’s 215-pound swine placed last in showmanship, she said, it placed second in its market class and will go to auction on Saturday.
“You have to do market once your animal makes weight, so you can sell your animal,” Horton said.
While Horton’s pig met the minimum requirement for the weight class, she said, other swine weighed in at more than 280 pounds.
“It all depends on the breed of your animal and how you feed it,” Horton said.
Horton fed her pig, a Hampshire, a mixture of corn and soybean meal known as “show grain.”
“It’s formulated for show animals,” said Brent Newport, Lodi High’s FFA advisor. “Helps develop the right amount of muscle and fat.”
Although this was Horton’s
first year competing at AgFest, she enjoyed meeting people from other schools and watching how they showed different animals.
“It’s fun, you get to meet a lot of new people,” Horton said.
A short walk away from the pig show ring, other Lodi High students prepared to show their market rabbits to the judge.
For Tatum Kell, a Lodi High senior and former FFA vice president and historian, this was her third year showing rabbits at AgFest.
“This is my last year wearing this jacket,” Kell said with a bittersweet smile.
As she waited for her turn in front of the judge, Kell checked on her three rabbits she named Snap, Crackle and Pop.
“I couldn’t think of any trio names that matched,” Kell said.
Weighing in at 4 pounds, 10 ounces, Kell’s show rabbit Snap fell well within the limit for single-fryer rabbits, she
1 said, which weigh between 3 ⁄2
1 and 5 ⁄2 pounds.
As the majority of the meat in rabbits comes from the loin, Kell said, special care is required when raising and feeding them.
“Since rabbits are so small, you have to put a lot of care into making sure they have meat and not just fat,” Kell said.
Although she showed chickens during her freshman year of high school, Kell said she quickly found her passion for raising rabbits and has shown them at every AgFest since.
“I don’t get attached to them, but I love competing,” Kell said.
Later that afternoon, other students got ready for the animal costume contest. The pigs were first, and 14-year-old Jakob Hixson, of Lodi, won first place.
Hixson, a member of Live Oak 4-H, kept with the 1980s theme of the costume contest by dressing as the late painter and PBS star Bob Ross, while his pig sported a piece of foam board made to resemble an unfinished painting.
“I wanted to throw my love for Bob Ross into the costume contest, and we ended up winning,” Hixson said as he fed marshmallows to his pig.
Another member of Live Oak 4-H took first place in the goat costume contest, specifically 10-year-old Jessica Holloway and her goat Sage, who dressed as Little Bo Peep and her sheep, respectively.
“I wanted to wear this costume that I wore for one of my plays,” Holloway said, gesturing to her blue dress and white bonnet.
Although this was not Holloway’s first year competing in the costume contest, it was her first year winning it.
“Last year, I did it, but I didn’t win,” Holloway said. “I was a jockey rider and my goat was a jockey horse.”