ALEXANDRIA, Ind. — Across much of the Midwest, safety measures to prevent the spread of avian influenza will affect 4-H members whose projects involve pigeons or poultry.

Indiana’s Board of Animal Health banned all bird travel in late May; at least nine other states have done the same, including Ohio, Michigan and Iowa in the Farm World region, plus both Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska and several states in the East.

"It’s pretty upsetting because it’s my last year, and it’s one of my favorite projects," said 10-year Indiana 4-H member Karley Fridley, trying to make sense of it all. "But it’s to keep our birds safe, so I respect that decision they had to make."

Yet another life lesson from her 4-H involvement: They are a part of a larger industry, and this is an important step in maintaining the health of their poultry. Fridley and other poultry youth will still have ways to demonstrate their yearlong poultry projects, even with the rule against commingling birds.

In Indiana, the statewide 4-H Youth Development staff at Purdue University is encouraging the individual counties to find ways to work around the bird and poultry ban, but they aren’t dictating solutions. "As far as county fairs, they basically operate separately," said Aaron Fisher, who oversees Indiana State Fair 4-H livestock projects in his role with Purdue extension. "We’ve supplied lots of ideas, and we hope they are creative." He said the Indiana State Poultry Assoc. has generated some of the ideas.

Michigan State University extension has created a website page with suggestions to help county fairs choose alternatives, at msue.msu.edu/poultryshows

Fisher has been using email to gather ideas from different counties and share those suggestions with all the other counties. He says there is time to make plans and communicate the new options to Indiana poultry project members. "There are a couple of county fairs in the next week or week-and-a-half, but most are in July."

Fridley isn’t sure what she’ll do when the Madison County Fair begins. Her local extension office has sent word of what participants cannot do and has communicated some options available to those doing poultry projects. "I do like the way they came up with a solution so you can do showmanship," she said. To the uneducated, showmanship might conjure an image of well-groomed dogs being led around and closely inspected by judges. But for bird showmanship, it’s less about the chicken – or pigeon, or duck – and more about their human.

"You bring up your bird and put it in a cage. Maybe you wear a laboratory coat," Fridley explained. "The judge calls you and may have you get your bird, but not always. It’s more about how much you know about your bird species. Sometimes they ask what you feed, about the gestation period, names of certain feathers and so on."

So this year, depending on the county fairs’ decision-makers, showmanship may be much the same but with a large photo of the bird in hand. "The barn’s going to be really quiet this year," she joked.

She is thinking of showmanship, but it also affects fun activities such as rooster-crowing contests or turkey obstacle courses. Fridley also wonders events where judges assess the quality of eggs and youngsters participate in egg-decorating contests. Fear not, Fisher says. "It is acceptable to have egg classes at the fair, as well as dressed bird classes – just no live bird classes."

County fair organizers hope 4-H poultry members still participate. If they do, visitors to the local fairs can still get some education about ducks, geese, pigeons, turkeys and chickens – even if the live quacking, cooing or clucking examples are not present.