CUMBERLAND — The carnival rides hadn’t opened and the crowds hadn’t arrived when the hog got loose at the Allegany County Fair and Ag Expo.

Squealing and grunting and kicking up dust, he crashed into a table and squeezed past several gates, sending half a dozen humans in hot pursuit.

“Watch that hog!” said Katelin Lechliter, who, after a 2-minute chase finally corralled the 200-pound animal into a pen Thursday afternoon.

A 4-H veteran, Lechliter barely broke a sweat.

This sort of thing happens at the county fair, she said.

“It’s just really fun, and it’s a good learning experience,” said Lechliter, 17, of Rawlings, who has raised — and probably chased — lambs, rabbits, hogs, a horse and a steer during her four years in 4-H.

She’d been hosing off her two hogs, Lucy and Ricky, just before the Great Escape.

“You learn a lot of responsibility,” Lechliter said.

Elsewhere at the Allegany County Fairgrounds, things were quieter Thursday afternoon.

Most rabbits and hogs napped through the heat of midday, and small clusters of fairgoers wandered through the Exhibit Hall to see displays of the county’s finest cucumbers and cabbage, afghans and apple bread.

Entries for flower arrangements and other crafts were noticeably down this year, some volunteers said. The fair, which started Sunday, ends Sunday.

“They don’t have very many quilts at all, as you can see,” said Wanda Shipley, who with her husband, Robert, took charge of the ice cream stand operated by the Allegany Farm Bureau and the Mason Dixon Lions Club. “You can see what a small amount of canned goods we have. I mean, usually this is full, all the way across.”

The economy or a late growing season — or both — could be to blame, Shipley speculated. Neither, however, adversely affected ice cream sales, she said.

“Vanilla and chocolate, that’s mostly what the kids want,” said Shipley, who was running out of cones after about 200 children visited Thursday morning from area day cares. “Some of ‘em like moose track.”

Outside in the Ag Expo Pavilion, 10-year-old Kayla Kimmell led her two goats, named Gum and Ball, into a clean pen. Gum won two fourth-place prizes, said Kimmell, of Bean’s Cove, Pa., and Ball, won fifth place.

“It’s hard at first, but once you get to know your sheep, it gets easier,” said Kimmell, who was showing animals for the first time this year. “And I’ve learned you have to work with your sheep more, because if you just work with them closer to the fair, it doesn’t work out.”

Valerie Korns’ 8-year-old daughter, Danielle, didn’t win first place for her black rabbit, named Ricky Rex. But winning isn’t really the point, Korns said.

“It teaches them a lot,”  said Korns, who sat in a lawn chair near the rabbit pens to knit Thursday afternoon. “They have to handle all the financial records. If it’s a breeding rabbit they have to keep a pedigree on him. It teaches them about how to give certain medicines, how to handle the sanitation, things like that.”

Ricky Rex, who won several ribbons and was dressed as Darth Vader in Thursday morning’s costume contest (Danielle dressed as Princess Leah), was “spoiled rotten” during his year with the Korns.

“He has his own area he sleeps on, his own shelf,” Valerie Korns said, adding that the family is giving the rabbit away to make room for another pet. A puppy.

Contact Kristin Harty at kharty@times-news.com.