MONMOUTH – A crowd swelled around the big dirt pen to watch 10 kids and five little pre-scrambled pigs.

The pre-scrambling consisted of chasing the pink and black piglets to wake them up so the real scramble was a bit more sporting. Kids and pigs didn’t disappoint. More than 100 people cheered from the sidelines as the kids came tearing across the pen at the word “go.”

Ninety seconds of spills and squeals later, the winners clutched five squirming burlap sacks.

Saturday night’s pig scramble helped close out one successful Monmouth Fair.

Secretary Lisa Cunliffe, one of the organizers, said the fair saw 5,000 people over four days. Friday was a record-breaker in its 98 years: 2,000 through the gates. New this year were a bike raffle, museum and horse show.

The pig scramble was popular. Friday night, 55 kids signed up. Another 37 tried Saturday night, with only 10 names drawn each night.

Pogo Pogorelc of Friends’ Folly Farm said the hope is to hold four scrambles, two each night, next year for ages 5-6 and 7-8. The fair is looking for pig sponsors.

Eighty percent of the families whose children catch pigs keep them, she said. Friday, one young girl bowed out after realizing the animal, if she caught it, was destined for the dinner plate. After that scramble, another girl sold her pig when her parents told her the same. The buyer was a boy eager to take it off her hands and raise it.

“We really try to tell people, these are not pets. These are meat,” Pogorelc said.

Her partner, Marcia Marron, stationed herself in the animal barn Saturday afternoon and fielded questions, such as how much the big mother sow weighed (600 pounds.) Pogorelc and Marron raise angora goats for fiber and rabbits for meat.

Marron said her role was to educate people about where food and fiber come from.

“We’re really trying to promote the agriculture part of the fair,” she said.

The barn was filled with chickens, rabbits, a donkey, Linus and Linzer, 4-month-old angora goats, and Luke, the Texas Longhorn Steer from D&D Ranch in Winthrop. The sign next to Luke announced that his horns had grown 15 inches since last year’s fair and now measured 4.5-feet tip to tip.

Codie Duguay, 7, of Leeds, caught the first pig in Saturday’s scramble. His mother, Hilary Chadburn, said he caught one two years ago. His uncle raised Wilbur. He’d raise this one, too.

“I went for his legs like three or four times, I just couldn’t get them,” said Taylor Rioux, 7, of Readfield, who grabbed the last one. “I was after this pig for a long time.”

Her brother Trevor, 5, was also in the pen and lent a hand.

Mom Stephanie Rioux said the family has two horses at home and chickens they already raise for eating.

“He’ll be food; they know,” she said.