Wild hogs couldn’t keep Haupts away
Manson man has been showing pigs at the Clay Co. Fair for 5 decades
SPENCER — He might wander from home, but never far from his pigs.
Don Haupts, 97, from Manson, has been exhibiting pigs at the Clay County Fair for the last 52 years. That means he first stepped foot into the CCF show ring with his pigs in 1972, when he was 45 years old.
“We’ve shown in other states, too — (in Des Moines), at Illinois and Nebraska, but then we got to showing here, and we’ve been here ever since,” said Haupts. “It’s the best barn we’ve ever shown in. There’s no comparison. It’s so open, and you can get in and out easily.”
Haupts grew up around pigs on a farm near Manson, and when his children got old enough to be in 4-H, the Haupts family got started in the purebred business with Spots and Durocs.
He said years ago they used to sell a lot of pigs at the Clay County Fair — people would purchase their pigs right out of the pens, while others would ask what they had at home, and order some on the spot.
He said they sold as many as 25 pigs at one fair.
“Then about 1990 the hog industry started to change, so we brought less and less pigs to the fair because we couldn’t sell them,” he said. “That changed the whole course.”
Haupts said they have shown Hampshires, Yorkshires and Berkshires over the years and had good luck with them.
“We’ve kept with (Spots and Durocs). Every breed’s got its purpose — they’re all good, but we’ve stuck with those two breeds after the industry changed. We couldn’t keep that many sows around,” he said of their need to downsize.
Today, Haupts lives in town but works with a young partner (Andy Hock) to raise pigs together on his farm. Between the two, he said they try to hold the herd to around 20 sows. Their pigs are raised in an open area consisting of long concrete runs, so he said they get plenty of exercise.
Haupts has weathered grain prices either helping or hindering profitability of hogs, depending on how much it cost to feed them out. Hog diseases have also changed the course of raising hogs, he said, and he’s had to make sure to select breeding stock that he could handle, based on heredity behaviors in pigs.
“They get used to us,” Haupts explained. “They know us, but if I picked out a stranger to show a pig, it might not trail like it should because it doesn’t know that person. Even humidity levels will change a pig’s behaviors.”
He said he’s learned tips that can help load hogs more easily, such as putting a piece of carpet on the ramp of their aluminum trailer.
“When they would go up the ramp it would rattle a little and it scared them, and they wouldn’t move as easily,” said Haupts. “But with that carpet on there, the ramp doesn’t rattle. It works good for loading.”
He said pigs really can be trained to lead, because he said he’s seen it.
Clay County Fair
Haupts said when he and his family first began showing at the Clay County Fair, it was a completely purebred swine show.
“As the industry changed, there were less and less purebred breeders, so the fair board and superintendents devised a plan to get the youth involved, and it’s just bloomed,” he said of youth showing in CCF 4-H and open class competitions.
Haupts said he keeps returning to show pigs at the fair because showing pigs is in his blood. But he said there are other reasons, too.
“The people that run (the swine show) are so helpful and so good to us, and we just decided this was it — we were going to make this one,” he said, adding that it’s a lot of work, starting with choosing what they want to bring to the fair.
Haupts said showing at the fair gives him the thrill of competition each year.
“It’s the thrill of taking them out of the ring and hopefully getting placed as high as you can, and the higher you get, the more thrilling it is,” he said with a laugh.
Haupts and Hock (along with Hock’s son, William, 17), all received Grand Champion awards at this year’s Clay County Fair — Haupts for his Grand Champion Duroc boar, and the Hocks for their Grand Champion Spot boar.
Haupts’ sons also enjoy helping show pigs each year at the CCF — sons who live local to him, and also a son in Florida who comes home to the farm where they grew up southeast of Manson, to be a part of it.
“They enjoy it; they remember their (4-H/FFA) days,” said Haupts.
It’s been a lot of years since he was a 4-H’er with the Lincoln Wonder Workers club as a kid. But it’s where he got his first taste of swine competition, and he’s never looked back.
“I’m looking forward to coming back next year,” he said of competing in the swine show at the Clay County Fair.
SIDE NOTE: Haupts graduated from high school in 1944, then enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17. He has been a member of the American Legion for 79 years, having served stateside as a medic toward the end of World War II. The war was over long enough that he never had to serve overseas, but he said another couple of months could have changed the course of his life.