Club Calf Producers/Traders that have kids showing

Winning is a powerful drug.

I'm not sure if that was a swipe at me or not so I'm going to assume it wasn't. However, I do agree with your statement.

This drug has produced in the two short years my niece has been showing a visible and noticeable increase in self confidence, a growing work ethic, increased effort at school, "no grades no shows" and an increase in quality time between the cousins.  Those are very powerful side effects that we are glad we have.

Not only is winning a drug... showing is too. I haven't shown for a few years and my brother and sister are senior 4hers. Last year we did a bunch of winning. Our 5 year old sister just showed for the first time at Iowa Beef Expo. She is now super excited for showing not just winning  (clapping)

My family has always followed the same aspect as a few have mentioned before. We sell everything we can and then go and purchase our calves from others in the business. Our clients have just as much right to go purchase the animals that we are purchasing so we find that to be the most just option. We also would also purchase calves from friends that are in the business so we like helping them out in the selling of their calves as well. Also a lot of the time we do get beat by our own calves which does make it difficult when you know you could have kept it for yourself but it is hard to expect people to come take a look at what you have to offer if they already know the best is off the table.

We are in the same boat. Last year we put every calf in a sale, and set a price that we were going to spend on calves for the year. Once we set our price to spend, we shopped a lot of cattle sales including our own. The heifer below is one I raised, consigned to our sale, and ended up bringing home for a price of $2100. In my opinion, I could not go find an animal to replace her for that kind of money. She ended up in class with Sullivan, Hagie, and Pryor at Iowa Beef Expo. We ended up 5th in class or in other terms, she ended up 3rd to a $35K heifer. Do I feel bad for taking her home? No. Do I feel bad for offering her for sale? No. Do I have an unfair advantage in offering her in the sale knowing how she has grown and changed and seen her progress since birth? Yes.