Judging a County Fair Heifer Show off BREED...fair, or not????

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Torch

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Oct 24, 2008
Messages
257
SFASUshowman said:
box6rranch said:
Oh man, I wonder if 4-H offices send the results of the carcass contest to the judges???? I would love for our wonderful judge to also know that his grand champ pick came in the bottom 1/3 of carcass judging and graded select!!!! And the reserve only placed three above that. Geez.........I know I'd rather have a feed lot owner or foreman judge our contest any day of the week.
Remember that show day appraisal is pretty much just visual and as judges we cant ever be sure what is actually under the hide until it comes off....u have to remember that grading is based mostly off of marbling...and the best fat guess we get is cover, which doesnt always equal marbling....if you truly go back and look at all show results and how the steers actually pack out, you would see that a lof times the Champs and Reserves arent the best carcasses when hung on the rail...but the judge cant know that unless we killed em in the ring.

If it's just a visual thing . . . . then some have xray vision. 8)

The best ones judge by laying on hands. ;) ;)

 

CAB

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Mar 5, 2007
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5,607
Location
Corning,Iowa
  Dave Duello is as good as they come for being able to get the live placings the come close to the rail placings. If the judges know that the cattle are going to the rail after the live show and will be judged B4 they do their live placings, that usually changes how they will place them live. Not saying that is a good deal, but it is how it is. Every year we hear less & less about what these cattle are ultimately suppose to be raised for which I guess is OK also.
 

SFASUshowman

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Jul 31, 2010
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200
Torch said:
SFASUshowman said:
box6rranch said:
Oh man, I wonder if 4-H offices send the results of the carcass contest to the judges???? I would love for our wonderful judge to also know that his grand champ pick came in the bottom 1/3 of carcass judging and graded select!!!! And the reserve only placed three above that. Geez.........I know I'd rather have a feed lot owner or foreman judge our contest any day of the week.
Remember that show day appraisal is pretty much just visual and as judges we cant ever be sure what is actually under the hide until it comes off....u have to remember that grading is based mostly off of marbling...and the best fat guess we get is cover, which doesnt always equal marbling....if you truly go back and look at all show results and how the steers actually pack out, you would see that a lof times the Champs and Reserves arent the best carcasses when hung on the rail...but the judge cant know that unless we killed em in the ring.

If it's just a visual thing . . . . then some have xray vision. 8)

The best ones judge by laying on hands. ;) ;)

How exactly does one judge by laying on hands?? I have been in this business quite a while and the only real thing you can tell by "laying on hands" is how mch hair the animal has and how finished the animal is.by touch you can tell how much fat cover the animal is carrying, but that doesnt driectly correlate to marbling, which is where quality grades come in...and the best yielding animals will often end up lower because they arent finished enough...remember yield is the ratio of lean to fat...we should be able to do a pretty good job,,,a nd I think a lot of good judges get em close...but marbling is heavily influenced by genetics...2 steers that are exactly the same visually may be worlds apart when on the rail!
 

LoVeShOrThOrNs

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Jan 21, 2009
Messages
56
Umm sorry but if your a judge and a good one at that you should be able to judge a steer no matter what. Its sickning that the GC was graded select. If I was the buyer of that childs steer and found out it was graded select I would NEVER buy from that county fair ever again.
 

SFASUshowman

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Joined
Jul 31, 2010
Messages
200
Has anyone ever heard a judge say he used a steer because it is the one that WILL grade choice...I havent and I have never said it, what we say is "this steer is more likely to grade choice" we say that because we cant tell you that for sure until we take the hide off or one, or unless maybe we ultrasound them.  That steer could have had all the cover in the world and felt absolutely perfect when you had your hands on him, and still not have any intermuscular fat(marbling) which would have made him grade at a lower value...other things to consider are age of the steer, as an animal gets older the muscle color changes which also affects grade outcome...now is a show I dont think should be any way an animal could get old enough for the age to affect it, but there are exceptions to every rule...we could look at a steer vissually, his genetics, how he finished...and say he should be the best grading steer ever...then hang him on the rail and have just a mediocre or worse carcass....I am not taking up for the judge, I dont know the animals, didnt see them or anything, he could have been way off base, but nobody ever said how the steer looked in the ring, just that he didnt grade well and I am simply saying dont get hard on a judge just because what he used didnt grade well...while its a good general idea, visual appraisal doesnt always coorelate with what you end up with on the rail!
 

rtmcc

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Joined
Oct 11, 2008
Messages
727
Location
Peterson, MN
SFASUshowman said:
Has anyone ever heard a judge say he used a steer because it is the one that WILL grade choice...I havent and I have never said it, what we say is "this steer is more likely to grade choice" we say that because we cant tell you that for sure until we take the hide off or one, or unless maybe we ultrasound them.  That steer could have had all the cover in the world and felt absolutely perfect when you had your hands on him, and still not have any intermuscular fat(marbling) which would have made him grade at a lower value...other things to consider are age of the steer, as an animal gets older the muscle color changes which also affects grade outcome...now is a show I dont think should be any way an animal could get old enough for the age to affect it, but there are exceptions to every rule...we could look at a steer vissually, his genetics, how he finished...and say he should be the best grading steer ever...then hang him on the rail and have just a mediocre or worse carcass....I am not taking up for the judge, I dont know the animals, didnt see them or anything, he could have been way off base, but nobody ever said how the steer looked in the ring, just that he didnt grade well and I am simply saying dont get hard on a judge just because what he used didnt grade well...while its a good general idea, visual appraisal doesnt always coorelate with what you end up with on the rail!

I buy fat cattle for a living and you are exactly right.  we all think we can sort them for grade but you always get surprises, both ways.  Some of the fanciest looking fed cattle can grade poorly and the next poorly muscled str showing very little finish can grade Prime.  Sure makes for an interesting P/L sheet at the end of the week and upset 4H moms after the county carcass contest.
Ron
<cowboy>
 

Torch

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 24, 2008
Messages
257
SFASUshowman said:
Torch said:
SFASUshowman said:
box6rranch said:
Oh man, I wonder if 4-H offices send the results of the carcass contest to the judges???? I would love for our wonderful judge to also know that his grand champ pick came in the bottom 1/3 of carcass judging and graded select!!!! And the reserve only placed three above that. Geez.........I know I'd rather have a feed lot owner or foreman judge our contest any day of the week.
Remember that show day appraisal is pretty much just visual and as judges we cant ever be sure what is actually under the hide until it comes off....u have to remember that grading is based mostly off of marbling...and the best fat guess we get is cover, which doesnt always equal marbling....if you truly go back and look at all show results and how the steers actually pack out, you would see that a lof times the Champs and Reserves arent the best carcasses when hung on the rail...but the judge cant know that unless we killed em in the ring.

If it's just a visual thing . . . . then some have xray vision. 8)

The best ones judge by laying on hands. ;) ;)

How exactly does one judge by laying on hands?? I have been in this business quite a while and the only real thing you can tell by "laying on hands" is how mch hair the animal has and how finished the animal is.by touch you can tell how much fat cover the animal is carrying, but that doesnt driectly correlate to marbling, which is where quality grades come in...and the best yielding animals will often end up lower because they arent finished enough...remember yield is the ratio of lean to fat...we should be able to do a pretty good job,,,a nd I think a lot of good judges get em close...but marbling is heavily influenced by genetics...2 steers that are exactly the same visually may be worlds apart when on the rail!

My comment was done tongue in cheek. (HInt:  ;) ;))

Sorry it wasn't communicated more clearly.
 
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