At the State Fair, country comes to town

Quickly, raise your hand if you can look at a hen and tell what color eggs she lays. Anyone? Thought not.

But you can learn. Just take an official Barn Tour at the Maryland State Fair, where you'll be enlightened by guides.

"Check her ears - the color of the hen's ear lobes is the color of her eggs. If they are white, she'll lay white eggs, while reddish-brown ear lobes signify brown eggs," says Kelly Myers Zepp, a guide with Barn Tours, a 10-year-old company that tries to bridge the gap between urbia and barnyards at fairs and livestock shows throughout the United States, Canada and Australia.

Throughout the 11-day State Fair, which opens tomorrow in Timonium, Zepp and fellow guides will lead groups of visitors on free tours of livestock barns, spreading agriculture education fertilized with lots of humor.

Just meet Zepp at the tour's starting point, a highly visible red tent in front of the Cow Palace. Tours, which last about 45 minutes, leave every 20 minutes from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. And do heed Zepp's advice - don't touch the animals and watch where you step, especially if you're wearing open-toe shoes.

In what she considers a trial run for the State Fair, Zepp worked the Montgomery County Fair last week, introducing visitors to some of the wonders of farm life. In the poultry barn, just past the chickens, Zepp showed off America's most patriotic bird, the turkey. When a turkey struts, its brain is deprived of oxygen and the head turns from red to white to blue. "The turkey missed being named the national bird by only one vote [losing out to the eagle]," Zepp pointed out.

While Barn Tour guides supply fairgoers with interesting agricultural trivia and try to dispel notions such as brown eggs being more nutritious than white eggs, their main goal is to provide, in an entertaining manner, a better understanding of agriculture and the vital role it plays in the economy and people's lives.

"Most of us know that hens lay eggs, dairy cattle give us milk, and we get meat from beef cattle, but how many of us realize that we receive more than just food from these animals," says Sondra Wallace, a 16th-generation Texas cattle rancher who founded Barn Tours a decade ago.

Agriculture animals are known as purpose animals, explains Wallace. They provide 55 percent of their body weight in edible and 43 percent in nonedible products. "There's no waste; everything has a use," she adds. "In addition to food, animal products are used in clothing, industry, medicine and chemical applications. There isn't one thing that could be manufactured without some part of an animal."

For instance, tallow (animal fat) is used in making candles, but it is also an essential cooling agent in tempered glass and steel production. "Tallow can reach extremely high temperatures without burning out and very low temperatures without solidifying," adds Wallace, "If steel is cooled too quickly, it turns brittle, and if it's cooled too slowly, it loses its shape. No synthetic product can match tallow."

Stearic acid, a component of many animal fats, is the leading binding agent used in plastic and rubber; pancreas from pigs and cattle are used to produce insulin for diabetics; and the lanolin found in sheep wool coats electrical wires.

"If there's one thing I want people to learn on our tours," says Wallace, "it's how much our lives benefit from these animals."

Barn Tours is returning to the State Fair after a successful debut last year. And fair administrators couldn't be more pleased.

The tours give visitors a more detailed look at livestock. Instead of just walking through a barn and looking at animals, they can ask questions, says Andy Cashman, assistant general manager for the fair.

"Many of the exhibitors would like to stop and answer questions from visitors, but they are generally too busy preparing their livestock for shows," he adds. "Barn Tour guides provide visitors with agricultural information, and they will answer specific questions."

Last year's guides so impressed Jeanette Walke of Baltimore that she plans to join a tour again this year. "I enjoyed [last year's tour] immensely; it was the highlight of my day," she says. "As a city gal, I didn't know much about how animal byproducts are used ... The guides were very informative and prepared to answer any question. I was impressed, and I'm not easily impressed."

But barn tours aren't just for city slickers; the diversity of information appeals even to those with extensive farming experience.

Take Zepp the guide, for example. She considers herself agriculturally well-versed. The 22-year-old, who grew up on a dairy farm in Carroll County that has been in her family for generations, recently graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in agriculture science. But she readily admits that while training to become a Barn Tour guide, she learned things about animals she had never heard of before.