When is it considered overkill?

[CAB]

Nobody should be expected to take a lesser calf to a county show.  In my opinion, the bigger problem in the original case is it sounds like nobody else is trying hard enough to give the "big spenders" competition.  It's not that hard to either find competetive animals at reasonable prices (<$5k) or to raise them yourselves.  Something is wrong if there is that big of a difference in animals.

Show steer prices at high end traders are amazingly high now.  They buy those steers from breeders.

People that pay those prices are paying a premium for knowledge and service, much more so than the animal. Good steer prospects are as common as fleas now. 
People that gripe about how much somebody else spends usually are just as guilty of wanting a shortcut as the ones that spend that money.
If you are willing to put in years learning to pick them, feed them, and show them you can compete with anyone, certainly at a county level.  But it does literally take years. You don't just walk in off the street and do it. 

Are you sure you know how much they spend or does everyone just think they know?  Nobody I know ever tells that.

Very well put!! <beer> (clapping)

 

[librarian]

cdm.georgiaarchives.org:2011/cdm/singleitem/collection/vg2/id/284/rec/8

 

[BroncoFan]

Nobody should be expected to take a lesser calf to a county show.  In my opinion, the bigger problem in the original case is it sounds like nobody else is trying hard enough to give the "big spenders" competition.  It's not that hard to either find competetive animals at reasonable prices (<$5k) or to raise them yourselves.  Something is wrong if there is that big of a difference in animals.

Show steer prices at high end traders are amazingly high now.  They buy those steers from breeders.

People that pay those prices are paying a premium for knowledge and service, much more so than the animal. Good steer prospects are as common as fleas now. 
People that gripe about how much somebody else spends usually are just as guilty of wanting a shortcut as the ones that spend that money.
If you are willing to put in years learning to pick them, feed them, and show them you can compete with anyone, certainly at a county level.  But it does literally take years. You don't just walk in off the street and do it. 

Are you sure you know how much they spend or does everyone just think they know?  Nobody I know ever tells that.

Very well put!! <beer> (clapping)

I'm sure it happens that a cheaper calf can beat out a more expensive calf. In the particular case I started this post is the family that bought the two steers for 15k and 14k have everything at their disposal. They have the win at all cost mentality. They also work hair just like anyone else would because they know they'll win. They have the cool barn. The other kids work hard also but in the end it will be like trying to win a gunfight with a knife. I'd like to say there's a level playing field. The steer show hasn't been that exciting to watch because how exciting is something when you know the outcome. I started this thread just to see how bad the county fair shows are across the country.  I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm new to show cattle. I grew up just raising cattle for the table. My wife is the reason we are trying to get into show cattle. I knew when I started the post that I would change anyone's thinking. We have a few years to build up the quality of our small herd and we'd like to hit some major shows. Really see how well we could play with the big dogs. Yes we'll get beat but how bad will be the exciting part.

 

[rrblack78]

Once again I would like to apologize for how off track this post went. I never meant to hijack the thread. The original poster had an issue more with the peoples attitude about buying the win than the fact that they had a better calf. I was trying to point out most of the time show politics are playing a bigger role than he realized. It's not exclusive to cattle and taking on the fair board to try to implement a change is more trouble than it's worth and usually results in hard feelings. Someone is always going to spend way more that every else. In every species.  That's just how it is and you  have to learn how to play with them or find something else to do. The person that said it's a rough hobby is exactly right. My kids could be playing travel baseball right no but the choose to do this because they love it. I would spend 30k on steers in a heartbeat if I had it because my kids work hard and they are worth it. But I would never tell people we that much because after you drag it to every major show in Texas and don't brand it at any of them then come home to try to make some of your money back at county everyone is more likely to laugh at you than be mad at you for overkill.

 

[P BAR]

We have a very competitive county show because a family started bringing those high dollar calves to the show. The first couple years we got beat I didn't care for their approach,but 6 years later I realize that families like that made my family get better and our county show better.Now we welcome the best anyone can bring because I'm just bull headed enough to think I can raise one good enough to beat them.

 

[vc]

BroncoFan, what you could do is find a kid you know will put in the work, take the best calf you have and get it into their hands so they can give the family that spends all that money a good run. We did it with our hogs and I have done it with the few calves I've sold.

We had 7 hogs at the fair one year, we had 4 1st, 2 2nd, and a 3rd, the seconds and the third were in the same classes as the first. Avarage class size was 12 hogs and there are about 300 hogs at the fair, had one finish secand in the cross bred division that year. I sold all the pigs for $200 each.  Steer and heifer won their class but that was about it sold them for $1200. (only have a few cows).

I try and help the kids who show a true interest in livestock and will do the work. I don't plan on getting rich of the animals, my goal is to help kids and maybe pay for the feed.

 

[BroncoFan]

BroncoFan, what you could do is find a kid you know will put in the work, take the best calf you have and get it into their hands so they can give the family that spends all that money a good run. We did it with our hogs and I have done it with the few calves I've sold.

We had 7 hogs at the fair one year, we had 4 1st, 2 2nd, and a 3rd, the seconds and the third were in the same classes as the first. Avarage class size was 12 hogs and there are about 300 hogs at the fair, had one finish secand in the cross bred division that year. I sold all the pigs for $200 each.  Steer and heifer won their class but that was about it sold them for $1200. (only have a few cows).

I try and help the kids who show a true interest in livestock and will do the work. I don't plan on getting rich of the animals, my goal is to help kids and maybe pay for the feed.

We tried to get one family a good steer but it didn't work out. We are gonna try to give them a run for their money in the hog show though. The family's goal every year is to win grand and reserve in hogs, sheep and cattle.

 

[BroncoFan]

With such a controversal topic, I'm surprised there isn't a reality TV show on it yet. I'm only kidding when I say that.

 

[Diamond]

This is what I find the worse about cattle shows, that people care what others are paying. Honestly, its no ones business, someones going to have a more expensive house, a more expensive car, or in this case a cow. The sad part is the rumors that spread about it. I have had the privilege of being on both ends, that kid who's cattle where so bad no one would talk to her, and would always get last save for showmanship. Well, that kid got tired of losing, worked hard, started a business at 14 and had the ability to buy a decent calf here and there, so people turned to bad mouth her for getting better calves, and spending so much on them, mind you we are taking around 3,500-9k. Jump ahead 10 years I have the BS drama being said about my cousin(which is probably why I can barley hold my temper over it, I don't know how parents can handle it) Shes a great kid, always willing to help everyone but still I have had grown adults say "you had to buy your win" as she walked out of a class, even with heifers we bred and had out the year before at their dams side.
Personally I have shown in multiple species including horses,and dogs which are notorious for drama...and cant hold a stick to the cattle ring.

Sorry to ramble, but, my point is we are forgetting the reason for showing cattle. We all have the same interest, yet the hatred over a walking fluffy cheeseburger is rampant. Instead of teaching your kids animosity, and throwing in the towel due to a price tag, maybe you should see how much they are willing to push for the win. Cause Ill be honest with you, just because a calf is expensive, doesn't mean it will win.

 

[LoneHerf]

Great points. As a current 4-H member I can relate to the topic of certain families being able to spend large amounts of money on heifers where I am on a very small budget. However like Diamond I started at the very bottom and by that I mean the absolute bottom. But after several years of hard work I am no longer last every class and I am usually in the race to be at the top of the class. Like many on Steer Planet I spend large amounts of time on my 4-H projects and due so to be competitive however I know that the ones with high dollar animals due so as well. Some days/years I prevail and beat the heifers that sold for quadruple of what mine did. Some times like last year I get constantly beat by those high sellers. No this does not discourage me it does the opposite, it makes me want to work longer and harder than those who I know have an advantage. So to answer the question no it is not overkill. We can sit back and count the reasons why they win the shows or we can focus our time on being the best. It may take years but nothing tastes better than beating those types of heifers/steers.
Sincerely a kid who doesn't make excuse on why he lost but focuses on how he could win
Adam

 

[vc]

If their not talking about you your not winning.

As far as money spent on animals, about the only time you can think you know is if your at the same sale, and those numbers could be bogus.

We got our calves at the same place every year, the last few years I know we got better calves for the same money those years, we built a repore, put in the work, asked for advice, and then followed it. Still go to their sale every year, eat good BBQ, spend hours sorting through calves just because, talk cattle and enjoy the people.

 

[ai er]

It's their money, they can spend it how they choose.  It makes it more fun to beat them later down the road.  Did back in the '80's more than once. Can't buy a winner.  It could be dead tomorrow.

 

[librarian]

This actually seems more and more like a parenting conversation, and that's up to the families.
Collateral to this subject I did some google images searches for "livestock county fair cattle", filtering for black and white photos.
This subject, from the richness of the material the search revealed, runs deep in the American Farm experience. I really have never researched a subject that yielded so many interesting pictures from so many small communities. What comes through as meaningful and memorable is the experience of being there, not the gratification of winning. It's something farm kids can call their own, and buying your way in is not the same as belonging. Just how it seems to me.
Too bad things get over killed so often...a person can always just back away from commercialization if they want to. That's a form of parenting.
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search.html?_=1424290634428&f%5Bsubject_facet_ssim%5D%5B%5D=Fairs&per_page=100&view=list

 

[Tallcool1]

This has been a really interesting thread to follow.

I now know that in some states, the County Fair takes place AFTER the State Fair/Major Show.  Your County Fair is sort of like a Liquidation Sale...whatever you have left you take to just recoup all of the invested dollars you can.  Up here where we are, it is the other way around, and the logic behind it changes immensely.  The County Fairs up here are early July, the State Fairs are the end of August.  For those of us that have coolers and are trying hard to grow hair, that means that you haul your State Fair steer off to stand in a 90 degree metal barn for 3 days while you are 1/3 of the way into the hair growing process, and the steer is 60 days away from being fat.  Can you win that County Fair???  Absolutely.  Will you then be able to turn around 60 days later and win your Class or Division at the Major???  Not likely.  This is the reason that I questioned the decision to take a Major caliber steer to a County Fair.  Because he is going to get buried at one show or the other.  I didn't realize that some places have the County Show AFTER the Majors. 

The kids that have weighed in have a completely different perspective than the parents.  Kids, your perspective is the right one.  Thank You for posting.  It is really good for us adults to hear what you had to say on this topic.  LoneHerf, Diamond, Spencer...you guys make excellent points.  Thank You again.

For the most part, we still use Acquisition Price as the magical benchmark for "overkill", which in this thread is certainly not the case.  I have seen more high selling steers wrecked by families than I have seen actually turn out in the end.  I am not saying that some of them don't turn out.  I am saying that by volume, more of them get wrecked than turn out. 

We all live in counties that have varying degrees of competitiveness.

 

[BroncoFan]

My wife says that I'm a pot stirrer. I guess I stirred it up in this case. I'm glad to see all the opinions. In our instance the county fair is a month before our state fair and Grand and Reserve have to sell.

 

[vc]

Broncofan, we had a family that came in and made the claim they would win all three, beef, lamb, and hog. They won the beef twice and did it with great calves (nascar at the dirt track), but found out in a hurry the hog and lamb game was no place for amateurs. It easy to ruin a good calf but it is supper easy to ruin a good hog or lamb. The window of opportunity for a hog and lamb is much tighter then beef, plus in my opinion you really better know how to show a lamb or you will get buried in a hurry. Feeding calves so they peak at the right time is hard enough but hog feeding is an art and they can flat out change over night, one mistake and boom you missed it.
I think this is why you always see the kids near the end of their showing carrier peak, they have made the mistakes, learned from each year and finally have it figured out the last few years. As soon as there done a new class move in.

 

[Spencer10218]

Tallcool1 what state are you showing in
I'm in Indiana and that is how both shows are setup

And to weigh in again this is my first year paying for everything except the feed
If I want to go to an open show I pay for everything including the hotel, its very expensive
And I screwed up earlier this year and shut down the rumen on my first calf pushing him for beef congress ( I was unaware of what I was doing to him) so I bought two
If I really had to draw a line at overkill it is the price per bag of feed
And prices to just be able to get a calf ready
Gallon of shampoo $32
Can of adhesive $9
Can of paint $9
Along with $30 combs
Then an hour later you take all that junk out with a $10 bottle of remover
It's outrageous

 

[rtmcc]

Our situation in Minnesota is quite a bit different from most.  Each kid must "earn a trip" at their county fair to go to the State Fair 4H show. The number of trips is based on county fair entries checked in per species and each exhibitor can only take one animal in one species to State Fair.

So, if you are going to take run at winning the steer Show at State Fair you will have to take that animal to your county fair for a week.  Most are in July.  State Fair is the week before Labor Day.

Our county show will typically have around 100 head between breeding and market beef.  Our steer show is descent but not super tough. Our heifer show however is potent.  Our county will typically have 2-4 breed champions or reserves at state fair and land 1 or 2 in the top five.  We have won county a couple times.  With both bread and owned and bought heifers. Two years ago we had grand and reserve heifer and grand steer all with home raised stock out of 15 cows.  But our kids work hard!  And we've been breeding pure bred cattle for quite a while with this in mind.

Now for those of you thinking "well it's just Minnesota,  How tough could that be?"  This past year the third over all heifer at our county fair went on to be Champion Red Angus at all three shows at State Fair, Supreme over all at our Beef Expo,  and Reserve Grand Red Angus Heifer at Canadian Agribition and both open and junior shows in Denver last month. She was bread and owned by the family showing her.  Our Reserve Supreme heifer from county fair was grand or reserve Foundation Simmental in all 3 shows at state fair, had been supreme or reserve over all at five jackpot shows, and went on to win her division in both the junior and open shows at Denver last month. We did not breed her but she came from some good friends of ours and wasn't not that expensive.  She will make a lot of money.
My point is not to toot our own horn or say we have it tougher by having to qualify for State Fair.  My point is you can raise great cattle on your own and work really hard and smart and have a lot of success!  It takes time.  But it is rewarding!
I will agree that some of the entourage that follows some of these calves now days is ridiculous. But that does not make them invincible!
Ron  <cowboy>

 

[DLD]

I don't know or care what anyone else paid for their show calf, much less what percentage of their household income that might be.  I do know what caliber of cattle we're showing against, and what it costs to buy one good enough to compete with them, and what it's going to cost to get them there.  It's not cheap, but I also know that if you're going to put in the time and effort to do it right, you'd just as well buy a good one to begin with, 'cause if you don't you'll hate every dollar and every minute you spend on them. 

I'm still not giving up on the value of the lessons that can be learned in this program, but in the end buying a show calf is a lot like buying a boat to take to the lake on weekends.  You can buy a rowboat if you just want to get out there on the water, or if you want to win races you can buy a speedboat and hire a crew to take care of it and make sure it's tuned up on race day, or like most folks you buy something in between. If you're handy, you can buy a cheaper one that maybe needs a little work, or you can even buy the materials and build your own. Either way it all depends on how fast you want to go, but you can pretty much count on that the faster you go, the more it's gonna cost.  And just like show calves, they're all losing money - you have to know you're doing it just for fun, the only question is how much you're willing to pay for your fun.

 

[rrblack78]

This has been a great topic. I got drug thru the mud a little bit but there is a lot to think about and learn from. I still think underlying issue of BroncoFan is not what "those people" spend, it's their attitude and poor sportsmanship. It's not wrong to want win, to want your kids to do good, invest your time and money in your kids or having goals.  There are a lot of things going on behind the secenes so to speak at a youth livestock show and rarely involves the kids or the cattle(or pigs, lambs, goats, chickens, rabbits) it's more about the parents and politics. There always "those people" at every show, in every county. The ones with more money, a better truck, a better trailer, a better facility and a climate controlled metal building for their county broilers(I'm i teed off about that, you bet). "Those people" are the ones everyone is talking about.  Surely they are breaking the rules somehow, they are buying the win, they are not playing fair, there may be  no rules they are breaking but the sure are tacky rubbing our faces in how much money they have. Nobody is really sure what they are doing or how much they spent but they are winning so people talk about them. Just remember it doesn't take much to get on the wrong side of these politics and you become "those people".  All you have to is win and they will be talking about you. You don't really even have to win . People just have to think you are going to win and all of a sudden no one will speak to at meetings , everyone stops talking when you walk in the room.  It's been said before, it's a rough hobby.  I much prefer the major shows over county but my kids like showing with their friends. Notice I didn't say against their friends because that's not how kids see it. Just go to win and don't worry about what everyone else is doing and have fun. Overkill is in every species(climate control building for broilers) you will never get away from it  so don't worry so much about it. And in case you can't tell, broilers stress me out way more than cattle.