There is a huge difference in helping a kid out by buying a fat steer for $4500 when the market value is $2800 and the Houston show where the grand champion just sold for a cool million!!!!
Ain't nothing wrong at all in helping kids. Ranch kids know all too well how damn tough it is to turn a profit with cattle or sheep. When ya start setting up "rules" to tell a kid what to do with their money that ain't right to me. Parents oughta do some parenting. That's where the lessons are taught.
I agree that parents ought to do the parenting and teach good solid values, but that isn't always the case. I have found that many kids in 4H don't have very good home lives and don't have the same home structure as many ranch or farm kids. In one case I know where the kid made a thousand at auction and his mom (single parent) took the money to pay off drug debts.
In another case of a ranch kid where the father had a drinking problem and had not paid taxes, the kid's money was taken and used to pay off back taxes. The reason an inflated price is paid is to encourage the kid to stay involved in agriculture and help them build a future, not for the parents to use for their benefit or to pay for their mistakes.
My idea is so the kid gets a fair market price and can do with that money what they want with the parent's oversight, and the overvalue is held for the kid until they are on their own and can use it for education or to get started in building a life.
I once sponsored a 16-year-old girl that didn't have a place to raise a steer. I bought the steer for her, and let her keep it at my place, bought all the feed, paid all expenses, and she did all the work caring for it plus keeping accurate records. Our agreement was when she sold it, she had to pay me back for what I was out in cash, and the rest was hers. She made $600 over what she had to pay me back. Since her mother had taken all the money she made on the lamb she raised the previous year, I set up an account for her. When she sold it at 4 H auction for 3 times its value, I told her to deposit it all in her new account and she owed me nothing. She needed to buy a car since she was 16 and her mother was seldom around and was usually found at the bars.
Her mother tried to sue me for taking control of the girl's money that was really hers since she was the mother. When I showed the judge that I funded the entire project, he told the mother she was way out of order and should thank me for mentoring her daughter, and maybe she should consider getting a job and off welfare and stay out of the bars.
He gave the daughter her emancipation and the money in her account was enough for an old car and an apartment and she got an after-school job at the State Agricultural office and now has 30 years with the main state agriculture dept. She went on to get a bachelor's degree (studying after work and weekend classes) and did it all at her expense, with no grants, gifts, or welfare. It is kids like her that don't have good parents but still have a desire to be part of agriculture, and we as individuals and communities need to help see that these kids can realize their dreams.
It sounds like some rabbit-raising kid's wealthy grandpa was buying the rabbit. Was the rabbit buyer named Elmer? I think the last name is Fudd. 
