Competing against your customers?

[forcheyhawk]

A comment in another thread got me to thinking about this question.  How many of you club calf breeders have kids that show?  If so, how do you handle competing against your customers?  I'm just curious.  I know that has to be balancing act and I"m just curious how some of you handle it.

 

[Will]

We put a price on every calf.  They all are for sell and the kids get what is left.  That way anyone has a chance to buy them before we show them.

 

[SKF]

To me thats a tough one. I know for myself I don't like to buy from people who have kids that mine will be competing against. What I do is all the calves are for sale but the one that my daughter likes the best we up the price. You never know which calves are going to be the best ones in the end. We have been beat by the calves we sold to local kids and I  would rather get beat by one of our own calves then one that came from some place else. The year before one of the calves we sold won Grand and we came in Res with the calf we chose to keep. I know this year we sold a couple of calves that I know will be hard to compete against that we would have loved to keep but we need to sell calves so every calf at our place is for sale. To me it is important to get our calves out there and if we keep the best for ourselves every year people will not come buy from us. I hope all the calves we sold do well regardless who is showing it. I would rather sell our best calf to someone who will do a great job raising it and showing so that it represents the quality we have instead of selling to someone who does not take care of the calf. I have had that happen and people will associate that with your farm more then they will with how that kid raised the calf. I have had calves I sold that left my place halter broke and looking good show up at the fair and the kid can not handle it and its about 200lbs to light. It can be tricky selling to local kids.  

 

[The Show]

I've bought a few calves from people I knew I would compete against at the majors. I can't blame em for keeping the best calves for their kids though. That's life. One thing I have done and still do is buy calves out of state that way your not competing against the breeder. 

 

[GoWyo]

I think it can be worth the money to buy locally even if they hold some out for their own kids so long as the breeder is periodically checking on the calf, consulting on the calf's progress, and, what is really appreciated on heifers, is doing the AI work and helping the kids select sires based on breeders' own knowledge of their cattle.  Also helps the breeder to do a check up right before fair and help with touch ups on clip jobs before the cattle go to town.  Quality cattle plus service keeps buyers coming back.

 

[chambero]

In a perfect world, you would be able to do both sell and show, but in reality its very difficult.  Potential buyers don't realize its not that exact of a science and its pretty hard to guess which of your top end calves are going to be the best. 

Our sales dropped off dramatically when our kids started showing.  We sell more calves now to customers far off in the state than we do close to home.  None of them like to see ones in the barn that aren't for sale.  But my priority is raising calves for my kids to show.  I price ones to sell very reasonably to try to off set the negatives associated with holding some back.

 

[Jill]

This is one any breeder with kids is going to struggle with, in the end you have to come up with where your priorities are, are you in it to show or to sell because you really can't do both.
Mike Hartman's kids were very competitive showers as they were growing up, but you didn't see them dragging Maines, and as a breeder I think that is a great business plan, most customers aren't very happy when they get beat by the person that sold them the calf.
We raise cattle to show, every calf in our barn has a price and they are all for sale, but the ones we really want to keep are priced accordingly, if you want them worse, you will pay for them.
I guess I don't have as much of a problem with people showing their own as I do the people that sell me a calf and then go out and buy a better one in the same breed/age group, that leaves a very bitter taste!  If your calves aren't good enough for you to show, why do you think they would be good enough for my kids to show.

 

[rtmcc]

I think it can be worth the money to buy locally even if they hold some out for their own kids so long as the breeder is periodically checking on the calf, consulting on the calf's progress, and, what is really appreciated on heifers, is doing the AI work and helping the kids select sires based on breeders' own knowledge of their cattle.  Also helps the breeder to do a check up right before fair and help with touch ups on clip jobs before the cattle go to town.  Quality cattle plus service keeps buyers coming back.

we sell a few calves locally each year, in the same breeds as our kids raise and show.  Manly heifers so I try to make sure everybody falls in a different age class.  Most of these local families come to us because we offer a lot of help and check on the calves often thru out the year and help them with feeding, breeding, clipping and showing.  Its hard to get that hands on help if the breeder is 1000 miles away.  They understand up front that what our kids are going to show and I try to run it as one big happy family.  I'm sure it could be an issue at some point.  Thats why we focus on Angus but the kids each have their own second breed to show also, Charolais and Sim-Angus.

Ron
<cowboy>

 

[shortdawg]

We sell some locally and out of state. I try to raise some calves from different breeds than we show. That way we will not compete against each other except at the county level. We sold a Char cross calf last year that ended up being Reserve in our county show ahead of my oldest son. If we do sell a calf of the same breed we show we like to sell it out of state so there will not be any problems. Like SKF said. I would much rather be beat by one I raised than someone else's.