Fair Market sale

[Dave]

I went to the Baker County fair market sale last night. What a great concept for a fair. It was entirely about the 4H and FFA kids and their livestock. I grew up with in sight of the Puyallup Fair (AKA the Washington State Fair). 36 acres of midway rides, food concessions, commercial exhibits hawking their wears. Very little livestock and hardly any kids showing critters. Baker is much smaller. No midway rides. The only food is at a 4H food booth. No commercial exhibits. Not even any breeders showing their livestock. Just the kids.
I was told they had 63 steers. I am guessing 40 lambs. 20 goats. Half a dozen rabbits. They had sold about 40 pigs when we left. I don't know how many more they had to go. The community really turned out to support the kids. I am not talking about the little community we live in but rather the county. I have mentioned before that this county has a population of 16,000 in a county bigger than the state of Delaware. So the prices and the consistent prices amazed me. One steer sold for $4.00 a pound. Only one sold for that amount. That was the low selling steer. The high selling steer brought $7.25. That is $10,000 to that girl's college fund. I am guessing the average was somewhere around $4.75 to $5.00 on 63 steers. Lambs sold for $11.00 to $9.50. I didn't pay as much attention to the goats but they were in the $11 to $8 range. Again didn't pay attention to the rabbits but one pen of 3 rabbits sold for $500. The top pig sold for $14.00 and after about 40 head they were holding strong at $8.00.
I figure that the businesses in this county stepped up and spent over half a million dollars to support the kids last night. An older lady sitting behind us said rather than giving money to some college endowment fund she would rather come here and spend money to support some young kid who worked hard to get an animal here. Her and her son bought 3 lambs for over $1,000 each. Makes you feel good even if we just sat and watched.

 

[SBMF 2015]

That Awesome!
I've been to a lot of 4H sales, they can sadly turn into a last name sale pretty quick. A kid's dad is a big farmer and there for a big customer at the local bank and chemical supplier. Those two places will battle like crazy to buy that kids livestock, but won't lift a hand when a child that lives in the country but who's parents work in town. That's where Mercer county Livestock Producers come in. Its a self created group of seed stock producers that sell a lot of livestock for county fair 4H projects. They have a representative at the sale and they buy any livestock that no one else will bid on. I'd hate to guess how many lots they are contenders on, it's a bunch. I don't know what their budget is. I think they just all throw in some money and go support the kids.

 

[Dave]

That Awesome!
I've been to a lot of 4H sales, they can sadly turn into a last name sale pretty quick. A kid's dad is a big farmer and there for a big customer at the local bank and chemical supplier. Those two places will battle like crazy to buy that kids livestock, but won't lift a hand when a child that lives in the country but who's parents work in town. That's where Mercer county Livestock Producers come in. Its a self created group of seed stock producers that sell a lot of livestock for county fair 4H projects. They have a representative at the sale and they buy any livestock that no one else will bid on. I'd hate to guess how many lots they are contenders on, it's a bunch. I don't know what their budget is. I think they just all throw in some money and go support the kids.

Last name did help here too. But there is a big (as in huge) cattle company based in this county. One of the younger family members was there. There was an older gentleman who has a large farm (I see the farm name on trucks). Between the two of them they ran every steer that came into the ring up to $4.00. The girl who got $7.25 her parents run around 1,000 cows. The buyers of her steer was a shared deal between a big livestock trucking company and the livestock supply store. I was standing by a neighbor after the sale. A kid came up and thanked him for buying his steer. He said you are welcome, now tell your dad to come buy a bull from us.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Last name did help here too. But there is a big (as in huge) cattle company based in this county. One of the younger family members was there. There was an older gentleman who has a large farm (I see the farm name on trucks). Between the two of them they ran every steer that came into the ring up to $4.00. The girl who got $7.25 her parents run around 1,000 cows. The buyers of her steer was a shared deal between a big livestock trucking company and the livestock supply store. I was standing by a neighbor after the sale. A kid came up and thanked him for buying his steer. He said you are welcome, now tell your dad to come buy a bull from us.

I hope he was just ribbing the kid, but I bet he was serious. There would have been a more tact full way to say the same thing. Unfortunately it's never too early for some people to children how politics work.

Good on the cattle co and the big farm for supporting all the cattle kids. That's how it should be.