It's sickening. It happens though, to each is their own! We learned that lesson through market hogs. Just as big of a game as any other market animal. Very disheartening for kids when they "honestly" raise their livestock and lose to dishonesty. I had to have that same talk to my 11 year old just this last year in the hogs. We didn't feed ours anything that we would be scared of eating ourselves.
Our friends on the other hand had 10 head of hogs that they showed. They took all of theirs to the local livestock auction the next day, I asked how many they were going to keep to butcher and was told none. They put too much in their feed for them to eat but it was ok for someone innocently to buy at the auction to butcher and risk their health on. I lost a lot of respect for those "friends". The kid that won the fair that we were at, his dad put tons and tons of various powders on his feed morning, noon and night. We watched and learned. Nothing in it's original container, all unlabeled containers. We knew where he bought his stock as that is where we bought ours also, same litter of pigs even. When his son won $1,300 for his pig and my son didn't he was of course upset. We talked about genetics and just the way each individual animal turns out. Then we talked about how our pig was $150 and his was $800 out of the same litter, at the same auction within 5 minutes of each other. Then we talked about the price of feed, the price of all those additives and we figured up with pen and paper how much we made off of ours vs how much they made off of theirs. they went in the hole, and my son had money in his pocket. He made $900 off of his and his was just breed champion not overall champion however he came out about $500 ahead due to grinding our own feed and having our own rations made, no additives.
It's really sad the message that we try to send to kids today. It's too bad that it can't be like how the article said it was for that guy back in the 70s. Its just too political and commercial. We show Brahman's and can't compete around here with black cattle, it's a fact. So that is why we show at Tulsa. It is the closest breed show around for my son to compete in in an open show. We went a few years ago and he had two head that he took, a bull and a heifer. That was plenty for our first year. He showed against the industry's best, 50+ year old men and still did great! He left feeling a little down that he didn't get first place but we talked about that again. We went back this year and the man that won wasn't there. He hauled about 30+ head down there, he had been disqualified from the breed association for various reasons. It was then that my son realized how cheating gets you no where. It was good for him to see that at such a young age. It will hopefully stick with him for the rest of his life.
