Colorado State Fair ready to welcome livestock
The Colorado State Fair is preparing to swing open the gates and mark both America’s 250th birthday, and also the 150th birthday of Colorado.
The Aspen Acres Fire in southern Colorado sent livestock seeking sanctuary, be it through a cut barbed wire fence or by trailer to the safety of the Colorado State Fairgrounds in Pueblo. Now, with livestock exhibitors just weeks away from arrival, the staff is preparing for a safe and successful fair.
Andrea Wiesenmeyer, Colorado State Fair general manager said all evacuated livestock has returned home or to other safe locations and they’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of fair livestock.
“There are no animals in the barns anymore,” Weisenmeyer said. “CART (Pueblo Community Animal Response Team) as a team in conjunction with our team and emergency management has been going through and not just cleaning stalls that an animal was in, but for safety purposes, we want to make sure we’re doing our due diligence and we really cleaned any place in any area where animals were. In the sheep and swine (barn), for instance, which we did use, even if there were stalls we didn’t use, we cleaned every pen in there to make sure we were doing our due diligence in making sure we were ready for state fair.”
The state fairgrounds housed 1,339 head of horses, cattle, poultry, goats and sheep. Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture Kate Greenburg said it was a community effort between CSU Extension, the Pueblo Community Animal Response Team, Front Range Veterinary Medical Reserve Corps, the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office and volunteers.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture had staff from the divisions of animal health, animal welfare, brand inspection and communications. Colorado State Fair Livestock Event Coordinator Robyn Toft said the livestock office is still taking some open and junior entries through the Aug. 10 deadline, but they currently have 1,983 entries from 484 exhibitors.
A STATE AND NATIONAL CELEBRATION
This year at the CSF, Wiesenmeyer said visitors can expect red, white, and blue to celebrate the nation’s birthday with splashes of yellow to celebrate the state’s 150th. She said llamas and alpacas have returned to the fair, complete with a costume contest class.
With last year marking Kirsten Vold’s last year as a stock contractor, Frontier Rodeo Company, an 11-time stock contractor of the year in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, will be bringing stock to Pueblo.
“When you talk about legends, obviously, the Vold name is right up there at the top and Frontier is right behind them,” she said.
She said education for buyers at the Junior Market Livestock Sale is also planned to help buyers and guests understand what it takes an exhibitor to get to that point and qualify for a sale spot.
“We’re really excited about some of those education pieces,” she said. “I’ve also been doing some digging on the sale history because we think that’s a pretty special piece of what we do here. (We’re) taking that sale and adding some education and elevation and we’re excited about how that’s going to look.”
The junior livestock arrivals begin Aug. 26, the Colorado’s Electric Cooperatives Jr. Livestock Sale is Sept. 1, and open, National Western Stock Show Catch a Calf, llama and alpaca, zebu, and various other livestock classes continuing through Sept. 8. Due to ongoing cases of Vesicular Stomatitis in the state, the State Veterinarian’s Office has determined that all animals coming onto the fairgrounds must have a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection issued no more than five days prior to arrival.
