It seems like herdsmanship has gone downhill over the years. Way back when I was showing it seemed like everbody made the effort to keep their stalls and aisles neat and clean, nowadays it almost seems like it's the exception instead of the rule.
Personally, I'm for neat and clean, and open and inviting. The goal should be to display the cattle (and in the case of junior shows, the kids). Often junior shows these days are so crowded that it makes it hard to do, though. No offense to anyone, it's just my opinion, but things like bunches of Christmas lights and/or plants around the cattle just make the cattle harder to see (and get to). If you have room to set it up in some sort of display with information about the kids, or beef, or something pertinent to showing cattle, then go for it. It's prob'ly needless to say at this point, but I'm not a fan of the hay bags, either... lol.
But all that said, please understand that I admire and appreciate anyone who makes the effort to make their stalls clean and attractive, even if I don't share their decorating tastes. I'd many times rather be stalled next to you than someone that doesn't even try at all.
But most of all, concerning setting up and making beds, I just have to say this - I appreciate that wood chips need to be wet down, but please, please restrain yourself from flooding your neighbors while wetting down your bedding. At one state fair, I literally had to turn off the water and unhook the hose for a young lady who had been wetting down one stall (that's one - room for a single calf) for a solid hour. There was water flowing freely out from under the bedding and down the center aisle and bubbling up through our bedding next to it, not to mention flooding the feed aisle in front (I did ask nicely first - she said her fitters told her to do that 'til they came back and told her to stop - I asked her to send them to me if they had a problem with her stopping - apparently they didn't...) . Then there was the jackpot show last winter where we'd left our blowers and clippers and pads next to the chutes and went up to the ring to watch the heifer we'd just dressed. When we came back there was literally 2 inches of water standing around our chutes from someone making beds across the fence in front of us... I'm sorry, but if you feel that's absolutely necessary, please have the courtesy to get there early and get it over with before everybody else has to put up with it.
I'm also curious about why not bedding bred heifers on chips/shavings?
