The Allen County Fair starts Tuesday and continues until July 25, with the animal auction on July 26. Mike Talbott, director and 4-H educator at the Allen County Extension Office, spoke with editorial writer Stacey Stumpf about some of the 4-H livestock events at the fair.

Here are excerpts of the interview.

1 What livestock programs are going to be on display at the Allen County Fair?

Actually, all of the livestock projects that we offer here in Allen County will be on display; that includes the rabbits, the goats, the horses, all of the cattle from dairy to beef. It’ll be the pigs, and it’ll be the chickens and llamas.

2 What leads kids to get involved with 4-H?

Probably the biggest drive is the need to have a positive experience with, in this case, raising animals. Some of them are raising them as pets or companion animals, obviously horses and llamas, and some of the other animals tend to make better pets or companion animals than others. Others are there because they want to learn what it takes in their developing skills to go out and care for an animal on a daily basis, to be responsible for that animal’s well-being, their health, their feed, if they get sick, what it’s going to take to actually keep that animal healthy and productive. Generally there is a family involved … behind the child.

3 Allen County is becoming less rural that it used to be. How has participation changed over the years?

The majority of the 4-H members in Allen County actually live in Fort Wayne city proper. … The majority of them are not raising animals, they are taking the arts and crafts, the woodworking, the environmental science, the plant science, the home-foods type projects. Photography is one of our top projects and just demonstrates the breadth of the 4-H program. The livestock program in Allen County has been one that has continued to hold its own. … What the shift, though, has been from the larger animals; we’re seeing fewer of the beef animals. We’re seeing more dairy beef because it’s a little cheaper project to get into to buy a dairy beef animal. We are also seeing a lot more of the smaller animals in terms of the rabbits, the chickens and the goats because they are smaller and you don’t need 100 acres out there producing hay and everything else to be able to raise those kinds of animals.

4 What happens to the animals after the fair is over?

It’s a good lesson for a lot of the kids. If it’s a companion animal, it’ll go back home – back to farm and be there where it was happy and content before the week of the county fair, and go back and kick up their heels and go, “thank goodness that is over with.” …There are a number of the animals, though, that because as Americans we do eat meat, these animals are going into the meat system, and so we on Monday the 26th hold the county livestock auction to offer those animals for sale. … Last year we raised a little over $130,000 off of that auction from the various buyers that were there. The other opportunity we have had for the third year now is we have partnered with The Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry. There are certain places around northeast Indiana that will take these animals, and they will process them, and then the meat from those is donated into the Community Harvest Food Bank system. So, it’s a win-win situation; the kid gets to sell their animal, they learn about this is the true market system in which I am supplying animals into a market.

5 What was your experience with 4-H as a child?

My experience growing up in Tippecanoe County (was) as a nine-year 4-Her, and then I was a 4-H volunteer for about three or four years while I was going to college at Purdue. I did not take any animal projects; I did other non-livestock projects in my career when I was there in Lafayette and Tippecanoe County.