They strutted around and hogged the show, snorting all the while.
And the hundreds of spectators at the HarfordCounty Farm Fair couldn?t get enough of the pigs Thursday.
The spectators, sitting on metal bleachers, cheered on their favorite pigs and eagerly awaited the judge?s decision at the popular swine show at the farm fair.
Children and teenagers work all year to get their pet pigs ready for the show.
When the big day comes, boys dress in khakis and ties, girls in pigtails. The kids ? many of them brothers, sisters and cousins ? wear handkerchiefs tied around their neck.
And they know how to handle pigs.
“I?d be afraid the pigs would run me over, but they use their knees and whip,” said Nancy Blevins, 42, as she watched the competition with her two daughters. “They start out pretty young.”
Competitors vie for the grand champion chair and bragging rights.
“This is tough,” said Debbie Stewart, 50.
Her daughter, Julie, was in her final year of eligibility, at 19, showing off her heavyweight hog named “Bits” (after the salad topping Bacon Bits).
“I think it?s the parents who are more nervous than the kids,” Debbie said.
Julie would often take Bits, at 272 pounds, for jogs to prime his muscles for this show, her mother said.
Bits took second place in the largest-swine division.
“We have to have hogs with the right combination of muscle, leanness and skeletal makeup,” said Dave Mullins, who traveled from White Post, Va., to judge the show. “Their endpoint is to be harvested and into the food chain.”
The pigs will be auctioned off at the fair Saturday night.
“We?re done, but that?s OK,” Debbie Stewart said. “We?ve never done this well.”
