Rooster Crowing & Chicken Calling Contests at the Iowa State Fair
Clucking, crowing, and plenty of laughter—the Youth Rooster Crowing and Ladies Chicken Calling contests are Iowa State Fair classics. Held in Pioneer Hall, these quirky competitions bring out the best (and funniest) impressions of barnyard life. Join us for highlights from one of the fair’s most nostalgic traditions!
Transcript
(Contestants crowing)
Good job. First place is a two way tie.
(Winners crowing)
(Max Rieman, First Place Youth Rooster Crowing and Bracen Grandstaff, First Place Youth Rooster Crowing)
[Max Rieman] The hardest part about this is, well, I don't know, might be hard for other people, but I think it was pretty good for me. I didn't practice that much, but I've done this two times before.
[Contestant 1] Here, chick, chick, chick, chick. Here chick, chick, chick. Bawk. Bawk.
[Contestant 2] Here chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick. Here chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick. Here chick, chick, chick, chick, chick.
[Contestant 3] Bawk, bawk, Here chick, chick, chick.
[Contestant 4] Girls, girls in the coop. I'm very tired of chicken soup.
[Contestant 5] Here girls. Cheek chee chick, chick. Here chick, chick, chick. Come on ladies, come on.
[Contestant 6] Here chick chick chick, come get your scraps, chick chick chick.
[Contestant 7] Here girls. Bwaaaa, cluck, cluck, cluck.
(Chirping and clucking sounds)
[Mika Taniyama, Sixth Place Ladies Chicken Calling] I heard about this contest from my friends. And it's a good fair and a good contest. I want to try again and I want to get first prize.
[Brittany Calloway, Ladies Chicken Calling Judge] Well, part of it was we were actually coming in and my husband was trying to get me to go into the calling contest, but I didn't want to do that. And luckily the lady with clipboard came up and said, hey, do you want to judge? And I was like, yes, I will do that.
[Lori Hiner, Ladies Chicken Calling Judge] You always want to come up here to Pioneer Hall. It's cool in here. There's a lot of activities every day to participate in.
[Erik Anderson, Youth Rooster Crowing Judge] It was very interesting having our backs to the participants and it really focused you in terms of that first and second and the overall technical aspect of it.
[Hollie Nelson, Youth & Ladies Judge] So the kids, you could kind of anticipate what the call was going to be like. I was not anticipating what the women's call was going to be like. There were some that were very extravagant. It was interesting nonetheless to go from the youth to the ladies and just seeing the difference in it. And you could tell that both age groups had a fun time.