County Fair : Forecast for Next Two Weeks: (County) Fair Days, Hot Weather : Opening day attendance was up; so was the heat--102 degrees. More than one million visitors are expected.

It’s hard not to love a county fair with its Spam Lite cooking contest, its love potion peddler, its pig information woman who insists that pigs would be running this country if only they could talk.

But the world is full of “if onlys,” and the first days of the 67th Los Angeles County Fair--bless its heart--were no exception. If only it weren’t so brow-mopping hot.

Through the first weekend of the nation’s largest county fair, which opened Friday, the thermometer hovered in the high 90s and low 100s, said fair spokesman Sid Robinson. Temperatures cooled early this week, but it is likely to heat up again this weekend.

More than one million visitors are expected before the fair closes Oct. 2. Opening day attendance was 30,485, up 19% from last year. And on the fair’s first day, the temperature was 102 degrees by noon.

It was so hot that Lady Angelica the llama wouldn’t budge from her spot in front of a portable fan in the livestock barn. It was so hot that a frisky, week-old pygmy goat waited until the cooler evening hours to plot an escape through her pen’s wide bars.

It was so hot that 45-year-old Fred Lezy of West Hills bought a large lemonade and made a beeline for the shaded livestock pens.

“It was getting hot out there,” said Lezy, a trade show decorator wearing a black T-shirt and Harley-Davidson cap. “I was going, ‘Whoa. Can I take it? Get me to the animals.’ ”

Tips to beat the heat on the 487-acre fairgrounds: Duck into the commercial exhibit buildings, which are air-conditioned. Food vendors will provide free water upon request. Don’t forget to drop by the ice-skating rink.

And think about how hard the heat would be for a 60-pound pregnant goat. Three of them, to be exact.

Pity Sascha, Tasha and Sabrina, the pygmy goats standing out in the sweltering heat. Each is about two months pregnant--all of them paired with a buck named Bahama because “he had a good reputation,” said their owner, Linda Williams of Alta Loma.

Oh, sure, Williams spoils the goats with bread--they prefer whole wheat to sourdough--and transports them in her air-conditioned car. But there is judging ahead, and imagine the pressure on the pygmy goats, which stand about 2 feet tall, with judges clucking over too much white hair in the belly area or not enough speckling in the ears. For pregnant pygmies, though, the extra girth might help, Williams said.

This is the stuff that county fairs are made of, said 23-year-old Alfredo Figueroa, who arrived at the gates at 10 a.m. on opening day and planned to stay until 11 p.m. closing.

“It’s an old-fashioned fair,” said the Van Nuys woodworker. “We live in the city. We don’t get to see animals and stuff. You learn a lot of things.”