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Keeping the Fair Animals Cool

BLOOMSBURG — You’ve heard the expression, “Happy as a pig in mud.”  It’s actually true. Mud helps pigs keep cool, but they do not ...

BLOOMSBURG -- You've heard the expression, "Happy as a pig in mud."  It's actually true. Mud helps pigs keep cool, but they do not have mud inside their pens at the Bloomsburg Fair.

While plenty of people suffer from the heat at the Bloomsburg Fair, the animals feel it, too, especially the pigs.

Melanie Adamski has 100 pigs at the Bloomsburg Fair, including 575-pound Katie and her piglets. Adamski tells Newswatch 16 pigs can't be hosed down because it could put them into shock. She gives them water every hour and cuts back on their feed at night. Also, the cement they sleep on keeps them cool.

"We keep watering them and just keep moving the straw back. They're digging to try and get underneath it to try and find the cement," Adamski said.

When you're dealing with extreme heat and 2,000-pound animals, you must be on top of your game. Jennifer Mapes of Mifflinburg brought 10 dairy cows to the fair. She bathes them at least once a day.

"We can see if one is panting really hard or something, we will take them outside and hose them off and stand them in front of the fan," Mapes said.

Dairy cows like the barn temperature to be between 40 and 50 degrees.

"We actually went out and bought a new fan because it was so terribly hot in this barn," Mapes said.

When it comes to the animals in small cages, their owners make sure to take them out several times a day to keep them in front of the fans.

"Our main priority is keeping the animals cool," Allen Breach said.

In addition to extra fans, volunteers put frozen water bottles in the dogs' cages.

"They'll lay on them, play with them, chew on them. It cools them down. We take them back out once they thaw out and refreeze them," Breach said.

The animals are being watched around the clock and if anyone looks sick they are tended to right away.

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