Differences at the county fair.....

[Limiman12]

Walking through the barn at our county fair it was Interesting to view the cattle......  The show is not overly competitive, there are a couple families that have clubby steers or heifers that will compete for the trophies, but a majority of the home raised and even purchased cattle are calves that were picked out of productive herds in the area.    Just good functional cattle that any feeder would love to have a feedlot full of.    I wish walking up and down the aisles it was not so obvious which calves were bred to be a functional animal that just happened to get picked by a kid to show, and make money with. Vs the calves that were bred and bought to show with no regards to making money for the kid. 

I know on this forum I will not find much support, but when did the huge split happen?  In the nineties, I picked our best calves and stood near the top of my competitve county fair, my girlfriend showed our best calf the year after I graduated and won the FFA division of the same county.  Now, to have a calf that is competive, we are going to buy embryos rather then taking our whole herd of functional profitable cattle "clubbie" and risk it's intended purpose......  When did huge bone and tight necks become more important than rib eyes and rumps and rate of gain?

There was a post in a thread about feed additives regarding what is wrong with showing the calf you have without every additive to deepen it or tighten the neck or make it feminine or lowering its body temp? 


Sorry for the vent.

 

[vc]

I graduated in the early 80's and the kids who won our fair at that time had people who had access to calves all over the country looking for steers for them (not sure if this was the beginning of steer jocks or I was just ignorant to the process.

We went to a commercial outfits walked through the steer pens of 80 or more calves and picked out 10 calves, they ran them into a smaller pen and we picked the couple we wanted to take home, paid 10 cents a pound over market for their time. Simx was what we sorted through. I got out just about the time the calves started to get really tall, Chi was becoming the big thing.

IF you want to win, you find calves that will stand out to the judge, if their were no club calves at your fair, the calf that looked the closest to one would win. Extremes are what stand out, and that is what a judge is drawn to, it is a progressive process that draws them away from the commercial type, first it was butts, then bone, then guts, hair and then goosed fronted, each time someone was trying to get a leg up by bringing the next thing to make the calf stand out.

As far as rate of gain, it was always important to us even with club calf genetics and for the most part (maybe 2 calves were hard doing) we were at 3 to 3.5 a day had some spike to over 4 for a short period. We fed a Full Flush calf that came back from the state plant stamped USDA Prime. We still had a goal of competing with that calf and still providing a market animal that would satisfy the buyer (they come back that way)

Last but not least additives, commercial feeders are trying to hit a weight and a carcass that grades, looks are not important, with a show animal you are trying to hit 12:00 on a certain date, you need everything to come to gether at once, a  few weeks late you miss, a weeks early and you miss, the additives help you get that steer ti be its best at the right time. The additives help you get that edge, just like every other competition you are always looking for an edge, our is stabilized rice bran, no one else feeds it around hear and the calves that are on it just have a softer smoother look to them. I am pretty sure that the feed lots add a little more than just feed to get their cattle to perform.

The kid I helped this year that one our county, today he would not win, the steer was done at the fair, he is past done now, he will be processed in a week and the meat will be great, but as far as looks and everything being right he past that point about a week ago.

If the county made it locally bred and raised, someone would go out and breed cluby to get an edge, they would sell more calves and ask more money than the rest and get it. You can have calves that perform well and still have the look, you just need judges to pick that type of calf and you would see more of them in the ring.

 

[vc]

Here is my last calf and as you can tell he is not zipper fronted, he came of of a place up in Linden California where they ran 30 cows, the husband was a Contractor and the wife raised calves for a hobby.
We helped her sort all the calves off of the cow, the first day and sorted and loaded our calves the next day, they were weaned on the trailer. We then drove the 9 hours home. He weighed 420 that September and weighed 1207 that June. Believe it or not I had the heaviest calves to years in a row with 1207 pound calves.

This back when to break them you tied them to a post for the first few week and fed and watered them at the post. You walked the calf a mile or 2 everyday rinsed and washed them maybe twice before the fair. Things have definitely changed over the years.

I forgot to add I sold him for $1.75 a pound and made a killing that year, around 900 bucks.

 

[Limiman12]

I guess you said what I was thinking....  I don't mean to sound negative about the whole thing, I am not anti-competition or anything like that.  The point you made about judges are drawn to the extremes is the part I wish wasn't so.....  as an industry we cant be pushing to extremes, we need to stay in the middle and be able to drift some to adjust for times but not so far that when times change we cant come back.  but judges like you said are drawn to the extremes which extremes don't stay viable for long.  Look at Sugar Ray, there was a thread awhile ago about someone had just bought a tank with some Sugar Ray in it, and people were saying to flush it.  Will people being saying the same thing about Heat Wave Semen in 20 years?      I understand Showing is showing and Feeding is feeding, but I guess I wish that show cattle were a little more representative of the industry.  In part because "fluffy cows" is the only contact that A LOT of people have with the beef industry.  As I walked out of a class with a lavender 20 years ago, one of the biggest feedlot managers in the county stopped me and said, " I wish I had a whole feedlot full just like your calf"  to me that was better then a purple ribbon, but I don't think a calf like that one would compete at all today.  I will play the game, maybe not to win but to compete, just wish it wasn't such a difference from what the rest of our real herd looked like.

 

[vc]

Show horses and work horses, seldom are they one in the same. Work truck and the truck for town are seldom the same. It goes on and on, but I get where your coming from. <beer>

 

[Tallcool1]

In our county, it has never been like that.  I showed in the early to mid 80's, and there were never any "feed lot" type of steers winning the steer show.  The steers that were winning back then, and now, were being bought a club calf sales or from traders.  A lot of them came from the Stock Show in Denver, back when the county weigh in was after the National Western.

Now my kids are showing, and it is the same way.  We just got done with our county fair.  The sale is a big deal in our county.  There are usually about 10 steers that make the sale, and both of ours got in.  We have a pretty "cut in stone" budget of around $2500 that we will spend on a steer.  We buy them late so we can usually get a sleeper that can do pretty well as a prospect and will make a good fat steer as well.  We showed one steer in the "No Fit" division because he was little and just starting to grow hair, and the other we fit.  We ended up winning the No Fit show and being 5th in the fit show.

We found out that we got beat...in this order...by $8,000, $5,500, $5,000...and beat a whole wad of steers that were in the $4-$5 range.  I knew that one of the steers that beat us was pretty expensive, but I had no idea on the others.  I was absolutely shocked.  Of the 60 or so steers there, I would say there were MAYBE 10 feedlot type of calves.

I guess the days of the "project" are over in this county.  This has become a hobby that is not about economics.  I think next year we will show breeding heifers.  I say that every year, but I just can't help myself.  There is just something about a show steer that I can't resist.

 

[nkotb]

I watched our county fair last night, and would agree to some extent with the extremes, however, would also have to argue that the judges are generally attracted to the cattle that are taken the best care of and at 12:00 on that day.  Our county fair has gone from one that was very competitive a few years ago, to one that is less so today.  There were 3 or 4 clubby steers, a few good feedlot type steers, and some even the feedlots would be embarrased to own.  The kids with the clubby steers (or their parents), had obviously spent more time with the animals and had done everything they needed to win.  The calves had manageable hair, not excessive, but you could tell it had been worked, and they were clipped very well.  The feedlot steers had next to no hair, and some didn't even have their heads clipped.  I know you can't eat hair, but in the show ring it sure makes one prettier.  The kids with the club calves had also been coached better as to how to set them up, hold their heads when walking, etc.  Last night I think this made the biggest difference between winners and losers.  I know it wasn't the most extreme calf is what won it, but the most well presented.  I believe that is the biggest difference at a lot of county shows is the amount of time, practice, etc. put into the calf/showman.

 

[chambero]

I know I didnt see the clubby calves you are talking about, but lets assume they were good solid calves.  Where these types of complaints fall apart is when you make statements like "when did bone and clean necks (insert hair or any other clubby trait) become more important than rump, ribeye(insert commercial trait).  The answer is they didnt.  You are assuming one is exclusive of the other.  The good clubby calves beat "pasture" calves in every trait - that's why we breed them and buy them.  They are middle of the road AND pretty. 

 

[savaged]

I look at it this way.  Breeding for show cattle and breeding commercial are two very different industries.  I don't think that either really intends to fit the needs of the other, and that's OK.  Judges are not evaluating for commercial cattle, they are judging based on show cattle factors.

An analogy would be attending a NASCAR race and making an issue that the cars pretend to be stock but have no real world functionality, are impractical, and are not "really" stock cars all when the teams are done with them.  Just don't expect to win when you show up to the race with a Chevy straight off the showroom floor. 

It's all apples and oranges to me, and breeders can choose to breed for show animals, or for good functional commercial cattle.  There is plenty of room for both.