Joe Kline / The Bulletin Alea Minar, 11, holds some food for her turkeys while letting them roam outside their enclosure at her family's home in Bend on Tuesday afternoon. Alea was raising the birds for the Deschutes County Fair, but can't take them after all poultry events were canceled due to bird flu. "It's sad that we can't bring them, but I know it's for the well-being of the birds," she said.

Deschutes County Fair will be missing one feathered feature this year because of bird flu: poultry showing.

But that doesn’t mean young exhibitors will be missing out on the fair altogether. Instead, many have found other ways to stay involved, by falling back on different animals on the farm or learning to raise new ones.

After a flock of birds near Tumalo had to be killed when bird flu struck earlier this year, officials decided it was best to keep domestic flocks at home. There are different types of bird flu, but in Deschutes County, it can be easy for wild birds, who are carriers, to spread the virus to domestic birds if they use the same body of water. Candi Bothum, Deschutes County 4-H program coordinator, will hold a meeting tonight to discuss how 4-H members can stay involved if they were planning on showing birds.

“The main focus is to come up with how they can experience the county fair without having their projects there,” Bothum said. She also knows a lot of kids will now show other animals instead.

Sisters Alea and Alyssa Minar, of Bend, have been raising chickens through 4-H to show at the fair for the last four years. This year, Alea, 11, decided to venture into turkeys with the support of their mom, Kathy Minar, who leads their 4-H group, The Explorers.

Alea’s decision to raise turkeys took a lot of time and research. To find young turkeys this time of year was tough; a lot of farmers wait to hatch turkey eggs closer to Thanksgiving, Minar said.

Still, Alea ended up finding a few young turkeys to raise for meat. After the time spent learning how to care for a new animal, it was difficult for Alea to find out the turkeys would have to stay home.

“I was pretty sad that I couldn’t bring my poultry,” Alea said Tuesday. “But I understand, if we want to keep our birds healthy.”

Alea’s plans now are to sell three of her turkeys to a friend , she will keep two to mate and her mom will also buy one for the family to use.

“I have to support my daughters,” Minar said. Alea will learn how to process the animals for meat.

The girls have several rabbits they’ll be showing and they plan on leasing pigeons from a family friend so they can show those birds as well. Pigeons and doves will still be included in the Deschutes County Fair because they have not been shown to carry bird flu; chickens, turkeys and ducks cannot be shown.

Because the decision to cancel poultry events occurred after participants would have started raising their birds, the deadline was extended for kids with poultry to buy another kind of animal to show.

Minar said the cancellation came as a surprise, but they weren’t shocked. Her daughters were set to show poultry at a National Poultry Association event in Washington a couple of years back when that event was also canceled because of a bird flu outbreak. The Minars know it’s a necessary precaution to keep the animals safe, and because their chickens aren’t meat birds, they consider them pets. For now, they’ll continue collecting and using their eggs and bring them to fair next year if the event is back on.

For some families, though, who are selling the majority of their birds for their meat, having the poultry showing canceled comes at a greater cost. Birds are fairly inexpensive animals to raise, compared to larger animals such as sheep or cattle, and children can still get quite a bit of money from selling their birds. Minar said it’s not unusual for community members to bid turkeys up as high as $30 a pound to support the kids. If a turkey weighs about 30 pounds, that’s quite a chunk of change.

Lance Hill, a teacher at Redmond High School and adviser to its Future Farmers of America chapter, said many of the students who were raising poultry have now switched to show sheep or goats. When they got the news about poultry showing being canceled, a lot of parents stepped up to help their kids purchase a new animal to raise by the extended deadline so they could still show at fair.

“For them to step up and do this under our direction is ideal for the kids,” said Hill on Wednesday. He didn’t want the FFA members to miss out on the “rewards of going to fair: the responsibilities and skills learned.” Plus, he added, he sees that families with students in the Redmond chapter always at least break even when the animals are sold.

One of the students who was raising poultry is Kaleb Walker, a 17-year-old junior. For the past two years, Kaleb has shown the prize turkey at fair, but with the cancellation this year, his parents bought him a lamb he will show.

“I was a little disappointed, but then I got an opportunity,” Kaleb said. “It’s actually a great opportunity.”

His sisters show goats, so there was an old pen at his house in Redmond he was able to fix up for the lamb. Although the process of switching over was fairly last minute, Kaleb said the support from his family, fellow FFA members and Hill has made learning how to raise a lamb fun. In fact, he likes the lamb so much, he’ll probably show one next year too along with a turkey.

One group was hit especially hard by the decision. The 4-H club, Chicken Tenders, led by Paula Buchanan of Bend, consists of mostly children 8 to 10 who only raise chickens. Buchanan said it would be especially hard for young children to switch to a new animal quickly when they have only been learning to raise chickens. She’s afraid her group might disband because most of them can’t show this year; only two of the children in Chicken Tenders belong to another group where they have learned to raise steer they can show.

“For 8-year-olds, two years is a long time,” said Buchanan Wednesday, referencing the length of time the children will have to wait in between showing at Deschutes County Fair. Her group already lost one member when the cancellation was announced.

This year’s Deschutes County Fair will take place July 29 through Aug. 2. Oregon has seen significantly fewer cases of bird flu than other states, where such a large number of birds were affected there is a nationwide threat of egg shortages. Oregon’s cases of bird flu occurred in Douglas County in December 2014, affecting 130 birds, and in mid-February near Tumalo in Deschutes County, affecting 70 birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, kfisicaro@bendbulletin.com