{"id":17044,"date":"2016-08-15T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/young-animal-raisers-find-colorful-variety-in-chickens\/"},"modified":"2016-08-15T08:00:20","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T15:00:20","slug":"young-animal-raisers-find-colorful-variety-in-chickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/young-animal-raisers-find-colorful-variety-in-chickens\/","title":{"rendered":"Young animal raisers find colorful variety in chickens"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014<\/strong> In addition to the bustle of the rides, rich smells of the fried food and twang of music on the stages at this year\u2019s Tanana Valley State Fair are the adorable sights of the hundreds of animals raised for livestock competitions.<\/p>\n

There are pigs, goats, rabbits and turkeys to name a few, but one of the most diverse collection of animals are the chickens.<\/p>\n

They can be found in the Cluck Hut, neatly arranged in rows of tidy cages where they\u2019ll cluck and crow at fairgoers. You\u2019ll find everything from fluffy silkies to small, feisty Old English game bantams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the really fun things about chickens, there are so many different blooming varieties,\u201d said Susan Ashcraft, the assistant superintendent of the Cluck Hut and 4-H leader. \u201cYou start with one kind and then you find another kind that you want to raise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chickens, she said, are an inroad for many young people to raising animals, which in turn teaches responsibility and appreciation for hard work.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s definitely true for an animal lover like 13-year-old Eva Wise, of Fairbanks. This is her fourth year showing chickens at the fair. She began raising chickens the year before with her family, and didn\u2019t really know what she was getting herself into the first year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never intended to do showmanship the first year and I got pressured into doing it because everyone who was signing me up said, \u2018Oh, you should do it. It\u2019s so much fun.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t really sure, but they convinced me and that\u2019s one of the best decisions of my life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Another competitor took her \u201cunder her wing\u201d to teach her the basics of showing chickens, and Wise said she\u2019s been hooked ever since. And now she\u2019s helping others learn the ropes, along with spending just about every hour of every day tending to her chickens at the fair.<\/p>\n

This year, she\u2019ll be showing a pair of Rhode Island Red bantams named Reyna \u2014 a sassy bird that Wise is hoping will do particularly well \u2014 and Julius Caesar, four Old English game bantams and some Belgian Bearded d\u2019Anvers bantams. Judging is set to start today \u2014 which happens to be Wise\u2019s 14th birthday \u2014 and will run through Wednesday.<\/p>\n

For many, chickens are a so-called \u201cgateway animal\u201d that\u2019s a relatively easy entry into the world of raising livestock.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true for Wise, who has branched out into turkeys \u2014 she\u2019s showing three Sweetgrass heritage turkeys \u2014 and two goats named Pearl and Sally. Her sister, Katie, specializes in raising ducks, and the two disagree on which animals, ducks or chickens, are the best.<\/p>\n

Their dad, Deral, is proud of the development, he said raising livestock have been big boosts to his daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey show more responsibility and leadership, and are becoming leaders themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The benefits of working with animals and the lessons picked up along the way aren\u2019t lost on Wise either.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good thing to be into, it\u2019s a confidence booster,\u201d she said. \u201cYou would never know it, but I used to be a really shy person and here I am prattling on about chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014 In addition to the bustle of the rides, rich smells of the fried food and twang of music on the stages at this year\u2019s Tanana Valley State Fair are the adorable sights of the hundreds of animals raised for livestock competitions. There are pigs, goats, rabbits and turkeys to name a few, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":17045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17044"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}