As a judging coach and person that has the opportunity to judge many fairs and shows, this topic comes up quite often for discussion. First of all, I sure hope that a breed association never has the power to tell a judge what he should place more emphasis on. That would be ridiculous. Secondly, I believe that there is a very good chance that I will never judge a large breed show and to be honest it doesn't really matter that much to me. Why you ask? Well, it's because I hate FAT Breeding Heifers and BRED Fat Heifers.
This is one topic that I will get on my soapbox about during a show and let you know how exactly I feel. So, I guess I could stay quiet and maybe have the opportunity to judge one of these much larger shows or I could continue to educate people on effects of overfeeding a breeding heifer and the damages it can do. Sorry about the rant, as you can see when it comes to this topic, I easily get fired up. I think we can have a happy medium b/w what I consided strictly show cattle and ranch cattle. We all know that fat can help them look better but do they need to reach the point of being a finished market animal before we realize the harm we are doing?
Thanks for reading.
Jim Latoski