FARMINGTON – Jared Poirier dumped a shovel full of sawdust into a wheelbarrow Wednesday and went back to the pile for another scoop.

The 11-year-old Vienna boy finished filling the wheelbarrow before he pushed it back to a barn where his pig, Baconater, and his sister Jasmine’s pig, Hogzilla, were housed at the Farmington Fair.

Poirier, a sixth-grader at Cape Cod Hill School in New Sharon, is a member of the Young Farmers 4-H Club. He and his family have 28 pigs and several goats, chickens and ducks at their Dragon Fly Farm.

It’s fun but it’s hard work at times, caring for them, Poirier said.

“I have to do chores four times a day,” he said.

He takes his turn watering and feeding the pigs and cleaning out the goats, among other tasks after school.

“The goats are a pain in the butt because they don’t really listen,” he said.

The pigs listen to a degree, he said, but what he would really like to raise some day are steers.

“Steers really listen to you,” he said.

He arrived back at the stall and his mother, Crystal Poirier, climbed out, so he could put in the new bedding. He got a little of the sawdust on both pigs before he picked up a brush to groom them.

Poirier planned to show 6-month-old Baconater on Wednesday afternoon.

“We’re selling him Friday,” Poirier said, as he continued to brush him.