Michael Maddox attended a hog show with his sister when he was about 6 or 7 years old. He immediately took an interest in showing hogs and was soon entering pee wee shows.

Today, he’s 18 and just graduated from Powell High School. He’ll be showing his hogs in the upcoming Park County Fair, hoping to add to a collection of awards from shows across Wyoming and in Billings, Montana.

“I guess I always had a knack for it,” Maddox said.

This year, he’ll enter Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm into the show, named for the characters in the Flintstone cartoons. Bamm-Bamm tends to be a bit more stubborn, but Pebbles appears happy as Maddox rinses and brushes her.

“They almost become like dogs,” he said. “They’ll sit in your lap and lay down if you rub their belly.”

Maddox works at Park County Weed and Pest, walking miles a day to spray weeds throughout the county. He said it’s the kind of outdoor work he enjoys, and for the time being, he has no immediate plans to do anything else.

Showing the pigs is a lot of fun for Maddox, but raising them also provides him with an income. He’s sold over 70 hogs this year. Meat shortages that drove prices higher at the supermarket only increased the demand for the animals. He said he couldn’t believe how fast 10 of his hogs recently sold.

“They were gone almost instantly,” he said.

Running the farm, along with maintaining a full-time job, keeps the teenager pretty busy. He gets up at 5 a.m., checks on his hogs, and then gets to work by 6. He comes home at 4 p.m. and takes care of the animals: walking them, checking for bug bites or other health issues, rinsing them off, feeding them and oiling them down. He doesn’t finish up until 8 or 8:30 p.m., but he said he loves the work.

At the family’s hog farm, Maddox’s younger brothers and cousins also pitch in with the hog raising. Hannah, Maddox’s sister, was pulled into it by her stepdad, Eric Schaefer, who started the family farm with a single pig. It’s now an operation involving parents, kids and cousins, producing several dozen hogs a year.

“It’s kind of a family thing,” said Maddox’s mom, Toni Perrine.