Show steer numbers (poll)

Please keep in mind I'm asking only about steers, not heifers.  It might be interesting to do a similiar poll and compare them, but for the moment I need to know about steers.

Our county is considering some changes in it's premium sale, including the possibility of reducing the number of steers sold.  With that on our minds, I thought it would be interesting to see if there seems to be a trend elsewhere.  If you'd care to post your location and thoughts on the subject that'd be great.  Obviously I have some ideas of what's happening here and why, but I'd like to hear yours first.

The poll will close in 3 days, btw.

when I began my 4H career-- the steer numbers were huge-- as were cattle in general.. then they declined when 'my generation' got old enough... right after I got out- they had 7 steers one year-- which was down from 30 when I was in- and 60 when I was just starting...

since, the members who were all in when I was young- have had kids- and numbers have started to climb again... 

This seems to be a very common issue in A LOT of counties. Yes, including ours. If I'm reading your post correctly, they are considering lowering the steers in the sale and no others? That would certainly be unfair to the kiddos that want to show steers I think. You always hear of the rumors of the "steers" taking a lot of the money in the sale. Well, couple ways to look at it. It is the only project that the kids must have for pretty much an entire year. Most cases it cost more to even purchase the animal. I know there are exceptions to this. Goats and lambs can get up there too. In our county as well as numerous others I've been at, there seems to be a much larger number of people that comes out to watch the steer show. Why? I'm not sure other than maybe seeing these youth of 8,9 and 10 years of agehandle such a large animal with ease. Well, hello, they've had their project for many months and there's a lot of work behind it. In our county, you can tell what kind of sale it's going to be by what the 1 lot sales for. The Grand Champion steer. Over the past 10 years, the steers in our county have doubled and so has the money. 10 years ago it wasn't uncommon for lower placing steers to bring 1k dollars. Now, pretty much all of the bring at least 2k each. Even though the steers have doubled, it hasn't lowered the sale price of other project like broilers, rabbits and hogs. Rabbits still consistantly bring over 1k dollars each. Not knowing how your sale works, ours is pretty simple. The "bottom" 15% of animals in each class don't sale. That's straight across the board all animals.

I guess I didn't answer the question:

In our county, the complained the sale was taking too long--  they decided to limit each kid to selling one animal- good bad or irrelvent.  Now that kid picks-- the champions must sell- unless a kid has more than one champion- then they choose. 

lb for lb.. the goats and lambs bring the most money- as they're the cheapest to raise- and sell for nearly the same dollar ammount as the steers....  Almost every animal sells for 1-3k. which in every case will be 2 or 2.5 times market price

the last 20 years our barn for 4 h (steers) has decreased by over half and for pigs they have also gone down... also the same thing with poultry over 1 year lost over half of them


i know you only wanted steers but i added the rest  <cowboy>

When i finshed showing as youth 20 yrs or so ago we had 129 steers, roughly 150 pigs and 120 lambs( goats hadn't started then).  Overr the next 10-12 yrs the steers dropped into mid 50's while the hogs went to 400+ and lambs and  goats held in 120-130 when they let goats in. this year we have 92 steers, don't know on the others yet but the hogs have dropped to about 200 since the sale committee will only allow 1 hog per exibitor to be sold.  Prob we had was the sale was starting to run 6-7 hrs and buyers were running out of patience and time not money. Steers have sold well ever since i can remeber with hardly any under 2 bucks lb and most over 3. 

This year we tagged 96 market steers which was 92 last year, so about the same or a little gain. We have not had any tagging for sheep, goats or pigs yet. Our kids are allowed to sell 2 animals, champions must sell unless they have more than 2 champions per child which I have not seen.

Fewer and fewer kids are willing to show JUST A CALF.  As the cost to compete goes up, fewer families can afford a "competitive" steer, so fewer make the plunge.    I look at two counties.  One has more average calves, but numbers are decreasing less rapidly,  The one with a lot of higher end calves seems to be decreasing from what used to be one of the biggest county steer shows to far fewer families.  The top end is still there, but a lot of the non clubby bred calves that kids just had as projects has reduced.  Also more kids only have one steer and brother has one steer.  When I was in I always had two 4h steers, a FFA steer, a 4h heifer.  They were out of our herd and not nesecarily clubby bred but just good calves.  Don't see that anymore.    Plus sports are all year around now, harder to get the kid involved in much at school to show as well......

ours went down this year but we still tagged 100 head.

North Central Iowa here....our county has a GREAT auction.  The business continue to support the kids despite up and down economies.  Tagged around 125 market beef and usually have around 250 hogs....goats and sheep growing also.

I actually am kind of interested in numbers of all market animals.  Our sale is just a bonus auction. Only market animals are in the sale at our county. Though most counties in our area sell some breeding females, that's not something thats even being considered here.  Breed champion breeding females of all species are listed for add ons, but only if the exhibitor does not have a market animal in the sale.  Only one animal per exhibitor can be sold or listed. I believe we have around 200 market hogs and we sell 62, 90 some market lambs and we sell 27, 30 some market goats and we sell 8... The thing to remember here is that almost all of the hog, sheep and goat exhibitors can and do show 3 market animals in those species.  Many show more than one specie as well.  The point here is that the vast majority of market animal exhibitors in all species get in the sale. Now the issue - we sell 27 market steers.  This year we had - you guessed it - 27 market steers.  And 27 exhibitors, several of whom had animals of other species that they pulled so they could sell their steers, thus allowing more exhibitors to get in with other animals.  Most buyers pay the same for all species - the difference is where you're from, who your family is friends with, works for, and does business with. Most will get $500 -$1000 through the ring, plus another $300 - $500 in add ons. (some of the females may get $1000 in add ons)

Steer numbers fluctuate somewhat, but over time the trend is definitely downward, but so are all the other species. Right now, steer numbers are down a little from the past couple of years, but listening to people talk it sounds like they may be down noticeably next year.  Lots of people just dont feel like they can afford to keep feeding steers when they can get the same money out of a much less expensive project.
I really don't have a problem with dropping say 5 steers, but I'm not sure that's what the powers that be intend to do.  I think if we drop 10, in a couple of years we're liable to end up with that many less steers on feed, so I don't think we can afford to get too carried away. 

I'm just trying to gather some information and ideas here.

I don't know what county you're in DLD, but up here in Grant County, Our county premium sale has 20 slots for steers, limit 1 per child. The most that has been eligible since I've been around has been 12, so if you show up with ANY halter-broke steer that weighs 1000 pounds, it will make it in. There was a kid that showed up with a calf that they pulled off wheat around Christmas, that had the frame size of a Holstien. They fed him hard and he barely made the weight limit, thus automatically getting him in the sale. He led this thing in the ring dirty and unclipped, no show halter, stood last in his class, and the kid went home that night. Showed up to the sale in time to lead him in the ring, and collect his $600.00, and go back home.

I personally would like to see us pull the reins back on our sale slots to somewhere around 85% of eligible kids/animals, but the hard part is trying to keep the dollar amount up at that same level with fewer animals. It builds competition between these kids, and motivates them. Remember when it used to be a big deal to make it in the premium sale?

pjkjr4 said:

I don't know what county you're in DLD, but up here in Grant County, Our county premium sale has 20 slots for steers, limit 1 per child. The most that has been eligible since I've been around has been 12, so if you show up with ANY halter-broke steer that weighs 1000 pounds, it will make it in. There was a kid that showed up with a calf that they pulled off wheat around Christmas, that had the frame size of a Holstien. They fed him hard and he barely made the weight limit, thus automatically getting him in the sale. He led this thing in the ring dirty and unclipped, no show halter, stood last in his class, and the kid went home that night. Showed up to the sale in time to lead him in the ring, and collect his $600.00, and go back home.

I personally would like to see us pull the reins back on our sale slots to somewhere around 85% of eligible kids/animals, but the hard part is trying to keep the dollar amount up at that same level with fewer animals. It builds competition between these kids, and motivates them. Remember when it used to be a big deal to make it in the premium sale?

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and what happens to the kid that can't afford a high dollar steer- but does more work and deserves the sale more so than the prissy girl who won champion but just showed up show day to take the halter?  What inspriration does that show?

Our county show sales 33.3% of the animals that made the show. When they put that rule in in hurt our steershow.

Granted, our county is quite a bit north of most who responded, but we see the same things. Our county had a set number of head allowed for each species that is put in place by the meat animal committee each year. If there are more than sale limit that show, they are sorted by live grade. This means the judge has to take some time to also select a grade for each steer, lamb, hog, or goat during classes, but it does help make the cutting process easier. Lately, however, the grading for beef has not been needed as the numbers are 1/3 what they were just 5 years ago. The smaller projects have had better luck, and the number of goats tripled in one year!

Our county 25 years ago was showing 120 steer, 10 years ago right around 80 last year 56 and this year we tagged in 47, and the drop this year was mainly because people could not afford to buy a steer and switched to pig and lambs. Our sale has been steady for several years and actually could take a few more animals of everything except swine. We had 175 pigs last year and they kind of over run the rest of the sale.

We are starting to see some of the young parents that were involved 25 years ago get back into it and I believe that our numbers will climb over the next few years.

kf- Sorry, but I don't personally buy that reply. Our politically correct world and our "I want it now attitude" stinks. That's why my family sets out reasonable goals at the beginning of the year. We don't worry ourselves with what everybody else is doing. Kids also need to learn that this is not a fair world. By the way, we sell 67 animals at our county show every year. A particular year, I can't remember which, my daughter was 1 of only 6 kids that didn't make the premium sale. She worked as hard if not harder than anybody else that year, but dusted herself off, and has fought it ever since.

Sidenote- There is a family from our county that will GIVE a weaned heifer away every year, and our local co-op donates 1 ton of feed for it. It's an application, and 2 interview process. The last 2 years, 1 kid each year applied for that, and this year they didn't have a single applicant. So where I live, your reply is not a valid excuse to me.

kfacres said:

pjkjr4 said:

I don't know what county you're in DLD, but up here in Grant County, Our county premium sale has 20 slots for steers, limit 1 per child. The most that has been eligible since I've been around has been 12, so if you show up with ANY halter-broke steer that weighs 1000 pounds, it will make it in. There was a kid that showed up with a calf that they pulled off wheat around Christmas, that had the frame size of a Holstien. They fed him hard and he barely made the weight limit, thus automatically getting him in the sale. He led this thing in the ring dirty and unclipped, no show halter, stood last in his class, and the kid went home that night. Showed up to the sale in time to lead him in the ring, and collect his $600.00, and go back home.

I personally would like to see us pull the reins back on our sale slots to somewhere around 85% of eligible kids/animals, but the hard part is trying to keep the dollar amount up at that same level with fewer animals. It builds competition between these kids, and motivates them. Remember when it used to be a big deal to make it in the premium sale?

Click to expand...

and what happens to the kid that can't afford a high dollar steer- but does more work and deserves the sale more so than the prissy girl who won champion but just showed up show day to take the halter?  What inspriration does that show?

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One family comes to mind that I'll use as an example.

Three kids- they raise average cattle- the parent's are 4H leaders- some of the best in the county- but they are not interested in winning shows and spending big money.  The kids each started their 'herd' with bottle calves- and went from there.  The family doesn't feed much grain- if any- and the cattle aren't really the most ideal genetically I would guess either.  Quite frankly they suck-- but each of the kids is as hard of working youngster I have ever seen- they do it ALL, including taking care of ALL the animals at home.  These are kids that do not mind standing last place in their class- just so they can still sell that ONE animal a year for a college fund.  I do not think the family has the funds to send all three kids to college- heck I bet they couldn't pay for one kid to go to school- each kid gets a job at 16 to pay for gas- and drives hammy down vehicles.  The oldest kid- was about 3 years younger than I was- and I considered him a friend- so we talked.  I asked him once why he didn't feed his steer better- he said we don't believe in feeding much grain- and sell mostly based off a grass fed buyer's market- cool I said.  These are kids that also bring 5-10 breeding beef females to show each year at the fair- they are passionate about what they do- but are not into raising show steers like everyone on here thinks rules.  They come to the fair to have a good time, socialize, get some premium money- and get some recognition once in a while.  They raise PROFITABLE cattle- and show them for the fun of it.

I know for a fact that if that set of kids were to get sifted from the sale- they wouldn't show a market steer again, and I bet they wouldn't ever show another beef animal again.  There would be no incentive for them to come to the fair with cattle- they don't depend on the fair to keep their cattle operation afloat- the depend on that check to get enough money to pay for school.  they'd buy a hog and it wouldn't be no 'club pig'.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: those of you who live in rich, large counties- don't truly understand what all goes on out there in 4H and junior shows across the states.  Not every kid's goal is to stand in 1st hole at the end of the day--- and you know what-- in most cases I bet those kids that don't stand in 1st hole- learn more life skills- learn the way to make a profit- manage money- APPRECIATE money- and do something with their lives: than the rich kids who show up show day and take that highly fitted steer by the lead strap-- and walk in to win the banner.  In all honesty- these kids come from a true farming background- and I bet on most years their animal sells for as much or more as any other animal on that day.  The buyer's don't care who wins or loses- they come to the sale to support the families that support their business and make a donation to kids that care enough about partaking in project- showing that project off- and are looking to invest in the future.

pjkjr4 said:

kf- Sorry, but I don't personally buy that reply. Our politically correct world and our "I want it now attitude" stinks. That's why my family sets out reasonable goals at the beginning of the year. We don't worry ourselves with what everybody else is doing. Kids also need to learn that this is not a fair world. By the way, we sell 67 animals at our county show every year. A particular year, I can't remember which, my daughter was 1 of only 6 kids that didn't make the premium sale. She worked as hard if not harder than anybody else that year, but dusted herself off, and has fought it ever since.

Sidenote- There is a family from our county that will GIVE a weaned heifer away every year, and our local co-op donates 1 ton of feed for it. It's an application, and 2 interview process. The last 2 years, 1 kid each year applied for that, and this year they didn't have a single applicant. So where I live, your reply is not a valid excuse to me.

kfacres said:

pjkjr4 said:

I don't know what county you're in DLD, but up here in Grant County, Our county premium sale has 20 slots for steers, limit 1 per child. The most that has been eligible since I've been around has been 12, so if you show up with ANY halter-broke steer that weighs 1000 pounds, it will make it in. There was a kid that showed up with a calf that they pulled off wheat around Christmas, that had the frame size of a Holstien. They fed him hard and he barely made the weight limit, thus automatically getting him in the sale. He led this thing in the ring dirty and unclipped, no show halter, stood last in his class, and the kid went home that night. Showed up to the sale in time to lead him in the ring, and collect his $600.00, and go back home.

I personally would like to see us pull the reins back on our sale slots to somewhere around 85% of eligible kids/animals, but the hard part is trying to keep the dollar amount up at that same level with fewer animals. It builds competition between these kids, and motivates them. Remember when it used to be a big deal to make it in the premium sale?

Click to expand...

and what happens to the kid that can't afford a high dollar steer- but does more work and deserves the sale more so than the prissy girl who won champion but just showed up show day to take the halter?  What inspriration does that show?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

As an Ag Teacher and the county 4-H beef Superintendant I think I would like to reply to both of the above statements. First, children today think they are entitled. They think they are entitled to a good grade, selling calves at an auction, and pretty much everything else simply by showing up. For some reason kids today have little to no work ethic, and expect mom, dad, or teacher to do what needs to be done in order for them as individuals to be successful. This is not always true, but believe me in 7 years of teaching and being super I have taken more a$$ chewings than received thank yous.  In my opinion a large majority of today's youth are lazy.

That being said Jody is somewhat right. In my experience it is always the kid that has the least and works the hardest that gets crapped on. Is this fair? No but it is life, and a valuable lesson to learn. I see many kids succeed that did little to no work, and others fail that did it all. God Bless those kids!!! Those are the kids I want to help! Why can't all kids sell?  If their steer brings market price then so be it. They can make the choice for the next year. I have seen 2 steers bring less than market at our auction and the kids said No Sale. Let the kids doing the work make the decision, not a fairboard that is usually 40 years removed from 4-H.