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Grand Champion Steer brings $210,000

Leanin 'H, I agree with your philosophies whole-heartedly. All except for one point. As a livestock judge, a person is hired to evaluate the livestock and place them from top to bottom based on an ideal. There are some areas of preference that can be adjusted, but a market steer isn't that complicated to evaluate. Muscle, fat, structural soundness, balance (that's a broad area) and the last one is eye appeal and style when everything else is equal. I do my level best to get the cattle placed correctly from the top to the very bottom of the class. My single focus is to do this correctly. The best case scenario is when I can walk away and say that this is exactly the order in which I'd buy the cattle, based on true value, not any biases that I may have.

When the showmanship classes are being judged, then the approach is entirely different and I don't care who owns a cooler and who's steer is slick-haired in August. The field is leveled and let the kids that do a good job of handling their animal and interacting with me rise to the top. Every kid gets their due and I love them all.

I'd do it the same in Utah as I would in Nebraska. :lol:

I'm not a great cattle judge and will never be asked to judge the big shows. I'm not politically connected and don't care to be. :wink: I also don't like to wear a big target on my back, so I won't lose any sleep over not being one of the "important" judges.

HP
 
Well I'm kinda excited because I get to help judge the SAEs/proficency books for FFA. I really enjoy the entrepreneur books.. One young man made a portable chicken coop for the free range chickens... Even thou these young men and women don't know me, I feel like I know them pretty well.. Between their studies, sports and ag I see how they are growing into young responsible adults...It gives me faith in the youth nowdays... And makes me feel when I'm old these youngins will have my best interest because they have values and a work ethic to build on.. Should be a fun day for me...
 
High Plains, I really liked your post. Very well said. And the kids need
to learn what is a top steer. They are out there and can be found,
when you know what kind of calf makes a top steer or heifer.

This had to do with horses, not steers, but it was very interesting.
In W. Montana at the fair, the kids brought in horses that we in terrible
condition, so bad they had LICE!!! The judge gave every one of those
kids a BLUE RIBBON. I asked him after the show, why he did that as
there was not one blue ribbon colt out there. :shock: He replied
that he didn't want to explain to all the parents, it was just easier
to award all blue ribbons. I really was not happy with what he had done.

Fast forward to next year. The horses came in looking very much like
the year prior. It was sad. However this judge awarded all of them
WHITE RIBBONS. Boy, did he take the heat. The parents were all over
him, but he stood his ground.

The next year, guess what? The horses came in looking entirely different.
They were in much better shape. The kids learned something from
the tough judge that they never got from the 'easy' one.

How do kids know what is right, if they never lose doing it wrong?

FWIW

In any area we have lived, Wyoming, W. Montana and here,
I've never seen anything but home grown animals shown at the local
fair. That is something to be thankful for. Levels the playing field.
 
High Plains said:
Leanin 'H, I agree with your philosophies whole-heartedly. All except for one point. As a livestock judge, a person is hired to evaluate the livestock and place them from top to bottom based on an ideal. There are some areas of preference that can be adjusted, but a market steer isn't that complicated to evaluate. Muscle, fat, structural soundness, balance (that's a broad area) and the last one is eye appeal and style when everything else is equal. I do my level best to get the cattle placed correctly from the top to the very bottom of the class. My single focus is to do this correctly. The best case scenario is when I can walk away and say that this is exactly the order in which I'd buy the cattle, based on true value, not any biases that I may have.

When the showmanship classes are being judged, then the approach is entirely different and I don't care who owns a cooler and who's steer is slick-haired in August. The field is leveled and let the kids that do a good job of handling their animal and interacting with me rise to the top. Every kid gets their due and I love them all.

I'd do it the same in Utah as I would in Nebraska. :lol:

I'm not a great cattle judge and will never be asked to judge the big shows. I'm not politically connected and don't care to be. :wink: I also don't like to wear a big target on my back, so I won't lose any sleep over not being one of the "important" judges.

HP
Click to expand...

I sure can respect what you said. And I respect the heck out of you for being a judge. Something I wouldn't be good at. Wish parents could see the bigger picture in life and not get all bunched up over a stock show that they HAVE to win. How about you come out to Utah and judge our county show? :D If I had anything to say about it, I'd be calling you. :wink:
 
I just ended my County/State fair showing career a few years ago, my sister is still doing it. My parents bought both my sister's and my first steer or market heifer. Both were under $900. We were responsible for daily care, but didn't have to pay for feed. At the end of the year, we butchered and sold the calves as meat to some of our customers. All the money we got from the steers was to pay for next years animal, no more help from the parents.

The only animals the parents would pay for was breeding heifers, because they remained in the herd, but they still never spend over $5000. We had to clip and fit our own calves, unless we could find friends to do it for free. We only had fans, no fancy coolers. We still managed to beat some expensive calves, as we had a couple families that raised a lot of club calves who showed with us. We even got lucky and won reserve female at the state fair with a purebred home grown heifer. It's possible to win with your own, but it took me until the last year showing to do it. It always made me sick to see $20,000 calves at the county fair with professionals fitting it and the showman sitting on a lawn chair watching.
 
Leanin' H, I think it would be a fun day to spend with the kids in your county, as it sounds like the ideals of the experience are likely being upheld quite well.

Unfortunately, I think the airplane ticket and/or fuel may possibly blow the budget by a small fraction. :cry: My loss...

Good chattin' with you on this topic.

HP
 
My kids buy their own calves and they buy better steers that can compete. They started out with hogs, saved their money up and raised commercial Angus steers that finished in the middle of their class. They did that for 2 years and then started spending a little more money on better quality steers; our fair sale price is around $3 a pound, Grand goes for around $10. There is a family that will spend more for a steer than it can sell for just to win, but they do not know how to feed one, so they do get beat.
At our fair you have about 15% of the kids have animals that our better quality and they cost the kids more, but usually it is 200 to 300 more than market, like I said there are a few that spend 7500 and more but that is not the norm. There are about 40% who compete with decent commercial animals, another 30% who buy decent animals but do not feed them properly, and 15% percent who buy poor quality animals and do not feed them right, they are also the ones who complain about the better quality cattle, how the judge picks hair, say we need to go slick and all the other things they think will level the playing field. (Good cattle will still beat bad cattle with or without hair)
My sons spends 1 to 2 hours a day rinsing, combing and blowing out their calves, cleaning pens, mixing feed, this is where the real lessons are learned, if you want to compete you have to put in the work, does not mean you will win but you will be in the top end. In the last 5 years I have not seen a calf not get a blue ribbon, which means it is supposed to be of higher grade, I know for a fact there are at least 15 to 20 calves that are not something I would want to eat. I know a family that took their steers home after the fair last year and are still feeding them out 8 months later; they were inexpensive to purchase but not to feed. They all got Blue Ribbons, not the judge the fair board is responsible for this. But that is a different issue.

We did raised the champion bred and fed hog 3 years in a row and only had on litter of pigs each year, that is competing with between 50 and 60 hogs. Our fair has around 250 hogs each year.

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