randiliana
Well-known member
Well, we got through our first 4H show. We had a good time and our son did quite well with his steer for a first timer. Buddy behaved himself, and I have to say that all the animals were very well behaved, with the exception of 1 baby calf that was pretty darn unruly.
Anyways we got up to the fair on Friday morning, got the steer settled in, and then the kids had to set up the barn. They did a good job and it looked darn good. Friday night we had quite a storm. I've heard that the winds were as high as 130 Km/hour (about 70 miles/hour). Lots of lightning, and quite a few people evacuated to safer housing. Fortunately the campers all survived with no trouble, but there were quite a few casualties among the tents. Nobody was hurt though.
The steer show wasn't until Sunday, but I watched a good part of the heifer show on Saturday and our club did quite well with numerous kids going Grand and Reserve in their breed classes and with one of our girls winning Grand Champion Female, and of course Grand Champion First year futurity. On Sunday again we had a good day, with quite a few of our kids placing in their classes and several winning Grand or Reserve in their breed catagories. One of our members also won Reserve Champion over all. So a rather good weekend from the Club perspective.
Matthew placed 4th in the heavy weight Hereford class, so we were quite happy with that. He weighed in at 1320, and had put on 85 lbs since our achievement day on June 4. He was putting on 3.4 lbs/day. The sale also went well, and I think everyone was pretty pleased with how their steers sold. Although there were a number of kids that were not happy THAT their steer had to be sold. It is a pretty sad thing for a lot of the kids.
On a more trivial note, the biggest steer, a Gelbveih x Charolais, weighed in at 1745 lbs. Man was he big, and he wasn't quite finished. He was a pretty nicely built animal, but just too big for the judges to place him highly. On the other end of the spectrum (and there is a story here), the smallest yearling weighed in at 465 lbs. It was a Brahman x heifer that one of the final year kids had. Apparently this girl had always wanted to show a brahman and since it was her last year she decided that she was going to find one. I give her credit, as she went ahead and did it.
Here are a few pics
Anyways we got up to the fair on Friday morning, got the steer settled in, and then the kids had to set up the barn. They did a good job and it looked darn good. Friday night we had quite a storm. I've heard that the winds were as high as 130 Km/hour (about 70 miles/hour). Lots of lightning, and quite a few people evacuated to safer housing. Fortunately the campers all survived with no trouble, but there were quite a few casualties among the tents. Nobody was hurt though.
The steer show wasn't until Sunday, but I watched a good part of the heifer show on Saturday and our club did quite well with numerous kids going Grand and Reserve in their breed classes and with one of our girls winning Grand Champion Female, and of course Grand Champion First year futurity. On Sunday again we had a good day, with quite a few of our kids placing in their classes and several winning Grand or Reserve in their breed catagories. One of our members also won Reserve Champion over all. So a rather good weekend from the Club perspective.
Matthew placed 4th in the heavy weight Hereford class, so we were quite happy with that. He weighed in at 1320, and had put on 85 lbs since our achievement day on June 4. He was putting on 3.4 lbs/day. The sale also went well, and I think everyone was pretty pleased with how their steers sold. Although there were a number of kids that were not happy THAT their steer had to be sold. It is a pretty sad thing for a lot of the kids.
On a more trivial note, the biggest steer, a Gelbveih x Charolais, weighed in at 1745 lbs. Man was he big, and he wasn't quite finished. He was a pretty nicely built animal, but just too big for the judges to place him highly. On the other end of the spectrum (and there is a story here), the smallest yearling weighed in at 465 lbs. It was a Brahman x heifer that one of the final year kids had. Apparently this girl had always wanted to show a brahman and since it was her last year she decided that she was going to find one. I give her credit, as she went ahead and did it.
Here are a few pics
