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inthebarnagain

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Oct 10, 2007
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Indiana
Cowboy said:
If I ever catch somebody airing one of my steers that I raised and sold, they had better be a damn fast runner -- and I Mean FAST.

If there are any one out there that thinks this is not cruelty -- I will demonstrate on that person what it feels like tohave your hide peeled off alive. There are alot of people (?? used in context) doing this  -- I hope they can sleep well at night, most likely doesn't bother them one darn bit. It's all about the money -- how stupid -- there you have it.

You young folks on here had better do more home work than you get from behind the barns -- it just is not right - that's all there is to it!

It is not illegal to be ignorant of procedural ethics -- HOWEVER -- it IS illegal AND imoral to do this once you know the least little bit about cattle. Now that you know, this subject aught to squeezed out of your brain cells and left at that. FFAshower - this is the bottom line, now you know, I hope you will use the info to do what is right and not go down this path!

END OF STORY

Terry

AMEN, and what I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that you can kill one real quick by hitting a blood vessel and air embolus to the heart or brain and presto, dead calf.  You can always tell when someone has done something fishy to a calf by the intense heat that you can feel in the hide, plus one that has recently been aired will crackle like bubble wrap, something I will loudly point out if I feel in one, all the time acting like I have no idea how it got there.  It is amazing how fast the color can drain out of a person's face when that is mentioned. 
 

farwest

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Speaking of inhumane I think the ADG requirement for state and county shows should be eliminated.
 

Dusty

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First let me start off by saying that I have never aired a calf.  Nor have I been been in the corner of someone that was showing an aired calf.  However, I will venture to say that it happens a lot more than people think.  Can you tell when you look at the carcass?  You bet you can.  Does anyone ever get disqaulified?  Nope.  No one wants any controversy.  No show manager wants their champions to be tainted.  It's the same reason the champion steer at Ft Worth goes to the zoo after the show.  The people that run a show aren't looking to kick out a calf after it wins.  They only do it as a last resort.  Eg.  Positive drug test or animal identity isssues.

In a lot of circles airing a calf is spoke about like feet trimming or dehorning.  Just something that you do.   Do I think it is right?  No.  Would I ever do it? No.  Am I going to protest when one wins that I have reason to believe has been aired?  No.  Protesting a calf would probably be worse for you than it would be for the person showing it.  You would burn a lot of bridges with a lot of people depending on whose calf it was.  I'll just keep minding my own business and trying to help family and friends do well and have fun.  
 

Dusty

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farwest said:
Speaking of inhumane I think the ADG requirement for state and county shows should be eliminated.

Why?  Is pulling 160lbs off a 850lb calf inhumane? No one would ever do that right?
 

CAB

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Corning,Iowa
  I shouldn't probably say this, but honestly, I would like to see it done. I guess just out of curiosity. I've had PPL here that critic calves with,"he has everything, but the pump". Please don't crucify me.
 

Show Dad

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Cowboy said:
If you were a judge at a major show -- terminal -- as you run your hands over the steer to feel for condition, it is very easy to take the tips of your fingers and run down the out side of the round and thurl -- every couple inches you'd feel a little bump -- like a small scab possibly. Dead give away -- if I were judging that pen, any steer with that feel would be tanked -- and I wouldn't even give a reason. I am that dead set against it.

Terry

Terry, true story. I was at Fort Worth in 08 and came to a new AI sire. I asked the crew around him if I could run my hands over him. They said no and gave some lame excuses. I later came by and just one gentleman was there who looked clueless. I asked again and he said I could I felt down his rear and it was like you described. When I asked he said it might have been warts. I looked and found no sign of warts or the removal of warts. I always wondered if that bull had some real life "photoshopping" done.

You are a boat load of great info Terry!
 

farwest

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Apr 14, 2008
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Dusty said:
farwest said:
Speaking of inhumane I think the ADG requirement for state and county shows should be eliminated.

Why?  Is pulling 160lbs off a 850lb calf inhumane? No one would ever do that right?
Too many or most of our county extension agents who have input on the rules and requirements of county and state shows still think this is a kids beef finance project where he goes out and pulls the old commercial black baldy out of the hills and does some serious record keeping on adg, feed conversion, and costs for profit or loss.  They don't realize or don't want to realize the project or business this really is and it's effects on cattle to try to beat these requirements
 

simtal

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Feb 3, 2008
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Champaign, IL
I've heard of once the calf has been aired (you guys are forgetting about oil too) you take a rolling pin and smooth out the lumps.  Failure to do this causes one side to be bigger than the other, so I've seen.
 

doubled

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Ok Im gonna jump in here- I know alot of you are not from Iowa and I for one dont approve of airing cattle, but if you walk down the aisle at the Iowa Beef Expo
or the Iowa State Fair you would run out of toes and fingers counting which ones have been aired.  Unfortunately its pretty common practice here in Iowa I know of
at least three very big steer jocks that commonly air their cattle.  I know alot of people out there wont admit it but believe you me here in Iowa its done, I dont think the young guys do it as much as the established big money ones do. The young guys dont know how to do it or are scared.  Just remember if a steer you paid big money for in Iowa looks different a couple of weeks after you get him home he probably has been aired.  Why do  you think so many of them disappear with kinda big butts and appear with Really big butts. 
 

SKF

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farwest said:
Speaking of inhumane I think the ADG requirement for state and county shows should be eliminated.

I agree with that! I hate having a ADG requirement. It makes no sense.
 

cowman 52

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San Angelo Texas
I'd nearly bet at some time The day after the first stock show someone has tried to figure out a way to make a better calf, In the early 60's the Fort Worth champion sprung a leak,The various kinds & shapes of needles to pump oil under the skin to reshape one, using a hoof nipper & spatula to remove "ties" over the spine,   The Hours you used a rolling pin to shove the fat pones forward around the tailhead  (yes it does work) the touch of arsenic that was fed to make one eat,  the black leaf 40 used to grow hair(and kill lice & a calf if you got it on their head too often).  This and put cattle on the road or railcar for months at a time,  and some how they looked fresh before the days of bute, banamine, and yes before a blower.  Cattle were fitted with out a trimchute,  and way before a can of glue.  Bells drops were the stimulant to wake up the old 2 yr old bull who walked to tieouts  by himself because he knew where they were.
 These so called fitters today could not hold the rice root brush of the old timers,  and I doubt if they know what one is or how to use it.  I think a lot of this junk that happens today is some smarta## kid trying to make someone think he's a lot better than he is!!!!!! (lol) (lol)
 

Diamond

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I have one comment to make in regards to those who put an animal in pain for a ribbon. Pathetic. and those who stand quietly and watch, are just as disgusting.
 

yuppiecowboy

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Jun 3, 2007
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Great post cowman. Anyone know who Louis Danner is? Louis sold his cows fifteen years or so ago but he was, is for that matter, the best cattleman I have ever had the pleasure of talking to. He was tight with Adamson and put bulls in the rockin J sales back before Chi was a four letter word.

This is up for debate, but it is said Louis and Ralph invented clipping. They were showing back in the day with midget Angus and railcars. The best clipper I have ever personally known adamently claimed if he had to have one clipped right he would want Louis to do it, even if Louis was dead.

Point of my pontificating Mr Danner is that Louis was there from the begining of modern "fitting" through the frame ten soupbone stock and into todays era and he has said on more than one occasion in my presence that todays air, oil, and hokem is Kindergarten compared to what the old boys did. Ever heard of "cutting ties" "rolling the chine"? Shoot, I am not even real sure where the chine is. I have seen all the "modern" tricks. Dont like it or do it, but Ive seen it. Air, Oil. Clenbuteral, you name it, but I doubt a major winner from the mid nineties could come close to the manipulation the railcar cattle went through
 

cowman 52

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The best lesson I ever saw a young kid get,  the polled bull hickory stick was pretty much an outlaw,  took 2 to show him,  Couple of the old timers Joe Lewis & D.T. Carter wound up on both sides of him in Tulsa one year,  By the time Class was done they had boxed in,  Shoved to the outside  & completely hidden the calf,  D T won the class. Joe was 2nd, And Hickory was by Joe's account  " so far down they had to mail him daylight" Miss those 2 they taught me o lot
 

Throttle

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justamom said:
Ok Im gonna jump in here- I know alot of you are not from Iowa and I for one dont approve of airing cattle, but if you walk down the aisle at the Iowa Beef Expo
or the Iowa State Fair you would run out of toes and fingers counting which ones have been aired.  Unfortunately its pretty common practice here in Iowa I know of
at least three very big steer jocks that commonly air their cattle.  I know alot of people out there wont admit it but believe you me here in Iowa its done, I dont think the young guys do it as much as the established big money ones do. The young guys dont know how to do it or are scared.  Just remember if a steer you paid big money for in Iowa looks different a couple of weeks after you get him home he probably has been aired.  Why do  you think so many of them disappear with kinda big butts and appear with Really big butts. 

I have heard ppl complain for several years that all the good ones are fake, but I'm not in the right showbarns at the right time to know for sure, I guess. I know that putting oil in one ruins the carcass and that will not fly in OH, folks found out first hand when it all hit the fan here like 1994-96, so wouldn't airing one do the same thing? If it is so prevalent, then how can everyone be getting away with it when they hang em on the rail? Now, breeding cattle, on the other hand, hopefully don't see the kill floor until years after they have been shown, so I can see how they could get away with whatever. I don't know enough about it to point fingers I guess, though you hear the fingers pointing in certain directions now and then, and it doesn't seem to have a big effect on those guys business.
I do some business with several traders and call a few of them friends and it only ever came up in a conversation once. I aquired a fat steer after state fair one time cuz I was sure he'd be good enough to hunt at NAILE or maybe later. I asked the best guy I knew to place him with a certain family that he had cuz I thought this combo with this calf could get it done. This unnamed big player responds to me, "He's not big enough as**d for the majors. It's too late to crack one open for Louisville and he'll be stale and ugly by Denver." He gave me what I wanted for him and said he was sending him "down south" cuz "the guys down there are better at getting old ones to work". I assume that the "crack one open" reference wasn't about beer as it would be in our showbarn  ;) but who knows? Sometimes it's hard to keep your head in the sand and stay consistent with your morals and beliefs, but I'm in no position in this business to bite the hands that are feeding me, so for now, the ostrich approach will have to do  ???
 

chambero

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I should have stayed out of this, but in the spirit of education (as in keeping your kids completely ignorant of drugs doesn't help them one bit), here goes:

I know full well that almost everyone that has shown steers at a high level for a very long time in Texas or Oklahoma has done it or seen it done - folks that some of you commonly deal with and sell to or buy from.

I've never seen a steer aired for a show (as in going in the ring with air in them) . I've had calves fitted by some of the biggest names out there.  However, for a very long time (decades), and still currently to a probably much lesser extent, steers are aired periodically throughout the year to supposedly cause them fo fill in with a little extra subcutaneous fat to give them a smoother look.  Stop and think about it, you can't make one look a lot wider than they naturally are - not without it looking absurd. 

I've heard lots of people gripe over the years and accuse people of airing a calf at a show (almost always a county, almost always someone that never spends time with a calf accusing the winner of cheating).  I've been able to put my hands on some of those calves (at a county show for example) and have never felt one with air in them.  There's a reason officials say you can't prove it - there's nothing to prove. 

It's extremely obvious when a steer has air in them. 

As some of the "old timers" alluded to, it's nothing new, its been around forever, and the both the so-called "benefits" and sideffects on the animal itself are very minimal.  Their skin isn't ripped away from the muscle by it - grab a handful of hair and pull and you can see that a calf's hide isn't attached to the muscle in the way human skin is attached to our other tissues.  The multiple subcutaneous shots are what hurts, not the injection of air itself.  It doesn't hurt the calves nearly as much as many other "legal" procedures do - such as cosmetic dehorning.  You can't do something that really hurts an animal and expect it to still be controllable - certainly not the extent one has to be in order to be shown by a little kid.

Some bulls and baby steers are probably aired for photos. I've heard of that.  However, over the 25 years (since mid 80s) I've been involved in showing, I've looked at steers at many, many places and never seen any trader/breeder, big or small, try to sell me or anyone else an "aired" steer.  I have had them offer to do it once we bought them, just as part of the process to get them to the end, but never for a show itself.  I've had a few have the famous "butt shrink" after getting them home, but it wasn't due to them "deflating".  More a loss of hair and fat when put on a normal diet as best I could tell unless they were really "roided up" years ago as babies, which I doubt.

Short story for anyone thinking of doing it:  It's not worth messing with.  It's not necessary to win.  It's not why someone is getting beat.  It's an old artifact of how things used to be done in the 70s and 80s and the people that still do it just because that's the way they were taught to do it - by their grandpas in many cases.  It doesn't have a substantial benefit on a calf.  Although it's not torturing an animal anywhere near to the extent that some of these posts speculate, you can get one hurt from kicking the chute when he gets stuck with a needle in a sensitive spot.  You also run the risk of infections from too many subcutaneous injections. 

I do not believe that "oiling" is done any more.  I've never seen that or heard first hand of anyone else doing it.  There's no way it can be done for a terminal show and not get caught. 
 

red

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this is how we air our cattle: open all the barn doors & let the wind take care of the rest!  ;)

Red
 

RSC

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red said:
this is how we air our cattle: open all the barn doors & let the wind take care of the rest!  ;)

Red
Cathy, No Fans or a cooler?

Tony
 

red

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RSC said:
red said:
this is how we air our cattle: open all the barn doors & let the wind take care of the rest!  ;)

Red
Cathy, No Fans or a cooler?

Tony

we have a fan cage set-up but no cooler.  :p Unless they're going to be show or sale calves we let mother nature provide the airing. Some would say that there is plenty of wind or hot air here!!!  ;)
 
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