How can people justify buying a steer for $25,000?

Win a big show... clone him.... sell semen..

afhm said:

You know everyone like to complain about people paying high prices for their show cattle except the ones cashing the checks. But the truth of the matter is everyone of us out there would spend a lot of money on our family's show cattle admittedly or not if we were fortunate enough to be in a financial position to do so.

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Oh no! I am not complaining, and I'm sorry if it was taken that way.  Whether people want to admit it or not, we need people with deep pockets.  I was just curious if there were any "average Joe's" out there who were doing this and if they could justify it.  I will admit however, that there has been a time or two where I'd have loved to buy a certain calf, and I was willing to pay what I thought they were worth, but someone with a fatter wallet beat me out. A calf (or anything for that matter) is worth what they bring, you can say a calf is worth $5000, but if you can only get $2000 for them, they apparently weren't worth 5k, just like you can't say that a calf is NOT worth $50k.  if that's what they bring, then somebody out there thought they were worth it. 

I would never tell anyone what we have paid for calves this year.  Our friends and family would be appalled.  Our daughter is a high school sophomore and we only have a few years to enjoy this.  I will be the first to admit we are very competitve family, whether it's dance, speech contest, or anything else, if you're going to do it, you might as well try to win.  We just bought our 3rd calf yesterday and in our county we prob will have the top 3 market steers come the fall fair.  We told our daughter that she will probably only show one, because it wouldn't be right to take grand and reserve just because at this time we can afford to buy better calves than most of the other kids that show steers in our county.  At the big shows however, all bets are off and we want to WIN.  Look at it this way:  not everyone can afford to send their kids to Harvard, but hats off to those that can.  WE'll just go to OK State.

We look at it more as a hobby than a way to make money.  How many people drop $25,000+ on a boat/camper and don't think twice about it?  What about that swimming pool in your back yard?  It's something the whole family can do together, so rather than spend weekends at the lake, these people spend them together at a cattle show.  People are going to spend their money somewhere, might as well be on cattle.

I was going to post something about what is wrong with spending money how one sees fit but I realized we live in the Socialist States of America now where the majority believe in "fair play" where everyone gets a trophy. Personally, if you want to spend the money, that is your decision. Please come spend it at my place!!!  <rock>

nkotb said:

We look at it more as a hobby than a way to make money.  How many people drop $25,000+ on a boat/camper and don't think twice about it?  What about that swimming pool in your back yard?  It's something the whole family can do together, so rather than spend weekends at the lake, these people spend them together at a cattle show.  People are going to spend their money somewhere, might as well be on cattle.

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Right out of college, I used to help a family that told me this same thing.  And I do agree.  They didn't go on family vacations other than going to a couple of majors.  They spent more than most of the families in their county for calves, but the spent an equal amount of time out in the barn, with their kids, as a family, doing something that they love.  These were not $25K calves, but for the county, they might as well have been.  Wonderful family that raised 2 hard working kids as adults. 

For the vast majority show cattle arent a business, they are a hobby, therefore there isnt really anyway to justify any price, whethere it be $1 or $100k, other than the pleasure they receive from the animal they buy.  I admit I had a pretty nice savings account when I graduated highschool, I will also admit that when college was full ride because of the lessons I learned and effort I put into showing that I didnt use that money very wisely.  But I only had that money because my mom scraped and pinched to buy every animal I showed(which was quiet a few), pay the feed bills, pay the entry fees, pay the travel, etc, without ever taking a dime out of the savings and putting the entirity of the sales and premium checks into the savings for me.  Again we didnt show high dollar calves, I dint buy from big name producers.  People would probably be surprised to know that the most expensive calf we ever bought cost a whopping $1,000, most expensive hog we ever bought cost $150(by the way, that $150 hog was the only one I ever owned that did not make sale at our state fair and my highest placing market hog was a $75 gilt that I got because nobody would look at her because of an injury, we bought her, got her over it, and won a class at state fair with her.  Also, that $1,000 most expensive heifer we bought, who was one of my most succesful in show ring, got sent to sale barn as a 3 yr old after having her 2nd stillborn calf.  Now I never was much competition in the class ring, I typically made sale, but fell somewhere around middle of the pack.  I joked that with heifers and breeding gilts I was stuck on 3rd place outside of our parish, because my last 3 yrs showing I was almost always 3rd everytime I walked in a ring outside of parish.  I remember a few years begging my mom to let me take money out of my savings so we could afford to buy a hog or steer that I really liked. She refused because that was college savings for me and there was no guarantee of return of the money. I was extremely mad when that hog won our parish and reserved a division to the Grand at our state fair and that steer took a division at our state fair.  Looking back, yes I would have loved to have won it at some point, but honestly I wouldnt have learned anymore or known any more about this industry that I love if I had won it.  You see my mom was and is a smart woman, she knew that there was no way at all we could afford to be competitive enough for the joy for me to be in winning, so we spent what we could and the return for me came in a life long passion and a lot of learning. 

And by the way, even buying those  dirt cheap animals that we spent forever shopping for, if I had been made to pay for it myself, I still would have have barely broke even most years, some years I would have lost money.  So it doesnt really matter what you spend, its about the joy you get out of it and lessons learned, not about the profit.  And yes, we would have bought more expensive animals had we been financially able to.

I use to feel the same way about the price of some of these steers. But as time went on started seeing the value in it. I have never spent near that on a calf but today it is way easier to justify then ten years ago.  When people talk about only geting so much at a state fair or here or there they miss everything inbetween. Most majors have a prospect show that pay out well, and jackpost like the open to the world with 10000 starting pot and the blackout show with a 5000 starting pot you hit 10 or 15 of these over a year and do well and 10 to 15 grand of the price is gone. Then if you win enough shows the big boys will pay  way more for cloning rights.  If you think about it 100 k for a heifer or bull is risking more money with the same risk. The high dollar bull or heifer could die, stifle, not produce good eggs or just plain never produce anything as good as themselves.  Its the cattle industry anyone in it long enough knows animals and blood lines dont always breed as they should and things happen unexpectedly. That is why big promoters push so many bulls ever year, they know no matter how well the bull looks a percentage will never produce calves that the should.

knabe said:

more power to them.

why do people get so upset how people spend their money?

these rich calves help the whole industry

why is is so hard to see.

maybe read atlas shrugged or if it's too long, watch who is john galt or read the fountainhead before they are burned.

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I'm a great believer that you can't take it with you when you go, so if you can afford those kind, without compromising the well being of the rest of you financial commitments, then have at 'er

cpratz said:

You can still get a steer that will potentially win a minor breed at a state fair for around 3000-4000 dollars. What gets me is when you have a 15000 dollar steer sitting 4th in the heat class and then only gets like 2500 dollars in the sale opposed to the minor breed champion steers get like 4500 dollars. At least that's what I have seen here at Tulsa State Fair and OYE in Oklahoma.

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It's not like you (generic you, not saying you cp) don't know the possibility of that happening going in.  If that bothers you, then you need to spend your money on a "minor breed".  Neither one is likely making any money anyway, it's just a question of do you take the odds of winning a breed or the odds of winning it all.  At least you can stand 4th in "the heat class" and maybe still get in the sale - see where 4th in 85% of the other classes gets you... ( I'm talking more about OYE here than Tulsa)

I wouldn't argue that $3K - $4K would pay for a typical minor breed champion at Tulsa these days, but not at OYE - not to say some cheaper ones might not get along, but there'll be a bunch of $5k - $6K Herefords, Shorthorns, Angus and AOB's, and not just one or two $7K - $10K+ ones as well.  But I agree, not so many $15K ones standing 4th and 5th as in the Chi's, Maine's, Simmi's or crosses.  Prob'ly cost you almost as much to play with fewer shots at the premium sale with a Charolais or Limi.

What bothers me is the fact that people think that if they don't pay a lot for a steer, then it won't win. If someone offers them a nice steer for like 2k, they don't even consider it because they can't say that they paid high dollar for their steer. Then someone smart comes along, buys that 2k steer and beats their 10k+ steer all year at shows  ;D I guess if you have the money and it's all about winning for you, then go ahead, throw your money at every decent 7-8 month old calf you see, but to me that's absolutely not what showing cattle is about. I show mostly bred and owned animals, and I occasionally buy steers but when I do my limit is 3k and that's pushing it. My bred and owned stuff competes very well with all the other 20k steers and heifers and I'm way more satisfied with that than I am winning with an animal that I bought.

Someone above said something about bragging rights and that's exactly it. They just want to be able to say that they paid so much for an animal. It's sad seeing kids these days only worried about winning. Not wanting to work with an animal because it's not a "winner". Not wanting to show because they know that they won't win. People just have it in their heads these days that if they don't pay big bucks they won't win.

P.S--- even though this isn't about heifers....I don't get the point of paying thousands (like 40k+) for a 1/2 interest heifer that you have no idea what it's going to look like when it gets older and half the time ends up standing in the middle or bottom end of the class unless politics is involved. Even if you flush her how are you going to sell the eggs is she didn't even win in the show ring?

I guess that's just my opinion, and I can't get mad at someone for having a different opinion, but we all like to share our opinions at some point

if someone has a $25000 steer they usually are not bragging about it, everyone else has already talked about it,  the ones who do talk about it are usually the ones who have more money than sense and have to spend twice everyone else does to win. That being said 2 of the best calves we have had came later in the sale and were going so cheap i could not let them pass by, both calves ended making the champion drive, one was green the other had a little attitude so they got passed over.

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