Ten-year-old Lydia Drees was disappointed to learn she couldn’t show her live poultry at the Mower County Fair this year, but she was still excited to display her showmanship skills with a replacement bird: a stuffed-animal chicken.

“The bird won’t be flapping, that’s for sure,” she said.

An outbreak of the bird flu earlier this year caused the Minnesota Board of Animal Health to announce that poultry couldn’t be brought to the Minnesota State Fair and all county fairs. But Mower 4-H’ers kept the show going in Austin by competing with stuffed-animal chickens instead of live poultry on Wednesday. The contestants went through the regular showmanship judging activities with the stuffed animals, and some also made projects to present to the judge.

The 4-H’ers, from kindergartners to 19-year-olds, showed the stuffed-animals like they would a regular chicken, showing Judge Mark Peterson how to handle the bird, take it out of it’s cage and more. They also talked about raising the birds and answered his questions.

Although it was disappointing to learn they couldn’t bring their live birds to show, the contestants still found creative ways to have fun.

“The kids have been disappointed, a lot of them had their birds already when they found out,” Poultry Superintendent Richard Andree said. “But they’ve done these projects instead.”

About 35 4-H’ers participated, and Andree hoped they would learn from each other as well as from the judge. He was glad to see such a good-sized number competing, even though the live birds were banned, since many other contests he’s been involved with had smaller numbers this year.

“I’m happy to see them showing up here,” he said.

“It’s a lot quieter in here than normal,” he added with a laugh.

This was Lydia’s third year showing poultry, and her two brothers, Reuben, 7, and Isaac, 13, joined her in the show for their first year. Reuben said he was excited to participate and show because he “just like[s] chickens.” He was excited for the showmanship aspect.

Lydia also made a demonstration using a trifold board outlining egg nutrition and showmanship. She hoped anyone interested in showing poultry would give it a try.

“[Chickens] are not what most people think they are,” she said. “Because most people think that they just poop and they’re stinky, but they’re not.”

Lydia said it’s really fun to show the birds and the judges are usually nice. She likes working with the birds and hoped the judge would see that through the showmanship.

“I like them as chicks,” she said. “I like them in all their stages.”

Isaac also likes working with the birds and was excited for his first year showing, even though they couldn’t show the live birds.

“My sister has done this before and I watched and I enjoyed it, so I’m excited to try it for myself,” Isaac said.

Since he already had a lot of information about poultry, Isaac said it wasn’t difficult to get ready for the show. He hoped people would learn that chickens can be a lot of fun too.

“They can have some very interesting personalities that make them funny, and they can’t really push you around very much,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about them like some larger animal that might not cooperate and pull you around instead.”

Beth Drees, Lydia, Reuben and Isaac’s mom, said poultry showmanship has been a great learning experience for her children.

“It is excellent education, from learning how to care for and raise their animals, learning about different animal breeds and varieties, even the nutrition aspects of both meat and eggs, just biology and science of incubation and hatching,” Beth said. “So it covers a very wide variety. People in town or out on a farm can be a part of it. So it’s very inclusive of anyone that wants to learn about poultry.”

Andree hoped fair goers would still come out to the poultry building to see the hard work the 4-H’ers put into their projects.