Long-time poultry department manager reflects on time with fair

 

 

Long-time poultry department manager reflects on time with fair

Written by Brittany Stovall  in the Herald-Citizen newspaper in Tennessee, USA

PUTNAM COUNTY — It’s where the chickens come to strut their stuff once a year during the Putnam County Fair to win the best of show.

And now in his 31st year of managing the fair’s Poultry Department exhibit, Roy Moss doesn’t have any plans of flying the coop anytime soon.

“I just enjoy it,” said Moss while displaying one of his contest entry chickens, a golden Sebright.

Every year, poultry exhibitors get a chance to enter and compete their chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, peacocks, pheasants, guineas and even rabbits at the fairgrounds chicken house, which bears the name “Roy Moss” over the door.

As a long-time volunteer at the fair, the building was named in honor of Moss for his decades of dedication and volunteer service. He manages the department in the chicken house, working to get the building primed and ready to take the animals, which may be anywhere from 350 to 450 entries, and keeping them fed and watered. He even manages the judging process by securing the out-of-town licensed poultry judges and sometimes giving out trophies, although he doesn’t act as a judge himself.

Under his guidance the number of entries has grown and he works hard every year to make the poultry exhibit outstanding.

And it’s “no vacation,” Moss said — it’s hard work.

In addition to managing the department, Moss enters his own chickens and so does his family, which may win them around $500 to $600 each year in prizes. Moss’ favorite fair memory with the Poultry Department was the time he won the Grand Champion Trophy for Best of Show, a trophy that has to be won three years in a row to retire. The bird that got Moss the trophy that year was his black Old English Game Bantam Chicken.

“It took me eight years to do it, but I finally won it three years in a row to be able to retire it, so the trophy stays at my house,” he said.

The Cookeville native’s love of showing chickens first started when he was a young child.

“I started raising chickens when I was just 7 years old,” he said. “My dad bought me 100 baby chickens and just started raising them there. By the time I was 10 years old, I was showing chickens everywhere.”

Then around 1985, the fair’s then Poultry Department manager decided to retire.

“Mr. Johnson, he retired and didn’t want to fool with it anymore,” Moss said. “And so it just kind of fell into place, and I’ve been chair over the Poultry Department for 30 years.”

And over those years, Moss became known around town as the man to call when it comes to poultry showing — if someone has a question, they are often told to give him a call.

Managing the fair poultry department and entering chickens is a hobby for Moss, who farms and makes half of his living through buying and trading livestock such as cattle, horses and goats. He also buys and resells chickens at flea markets.

It’s a stark difference from when he worked in a factory for seven years, which Moss recalled made him unhappy.

“I was miserable in the factory. I’d rather be out there on a tractor all day in that heat,” he said. “...I’d just as soon be hauling hay as being in an air conditioned building being miserable.”

Managing the department is a family affair. With the hard work and help of his wife, Sally, 29-year-old son Roy Moss Jr., 12-year-old son Dakota and 6-year-old twins Braxton Eli and Carlee Rebecca and some family members, Roy Moss has worked hard every year. Every once in awhile they’ll get volunteers, he said, but the family takes care of all the paperwork and book work.

“Usually, we all kind of pitch in,” Moss said. “I come up here before the fair starts, in the night, and set everything up. Then when we come to the fair, like during the first couple days of the fair — my kids and my wife and my cousin all help. We put the shavings in the cages, put their water cups in and everything. And on Tuesday, when they come to be entered, we have everything done. Then all we have to do is have them blood tested and enter them and put them in their cages.”

To help keep the chickens fed, Moss usually secures about 200 pounds of donated feed each from Tractor Supply and Putnam County Farmers Co-op to keep the chickens fed. But there might be times when he has to buy some as well.

“If we don’t get enough donated, I take the money out of my pocket to buy the feed to feed everybody’s birds while they’re at the fair,” he said.

Once a 4-H’er himself, Moss said Dakota takes part in the fair’s 4-H poultry judging in addition to helping his father.

“Last year was his first time in it,” Moss said. “When he did it he was the third highest individual in all the poultry judging contests.

“He was practically born in a chicken house,” he laughed.

At this point, Moss can’t say whether his kids will carry on the tradition of caring for the poultry department.

“I hope they would,” he said.

Poultry exhibit judging is scheduled Wednesday, Aug. 6, at 9 a.m. at the Putnam County Fair. Fair events are scheduled July 31-Aug. 9 at the Putnam County Fairgrounds.