Show stall decorations

[North Star Dairy]

Our county fair has a stall decorating contest, they judge the cleanliness of the animals and staff, but also having attractive decorations up. I google search to get some stall decorating ideas but mostly it's just horse stalls that come up. I am not a big fan of the over the top stuff just something nice and professional. Does anyone have any pictures of their stall decorations? I would love to see them, thanks!

 

[hillsdown]

Hopefully someone chimes I with some help soon.
We too are looking for ideas for the 4H show and sale and the ones that the kids came up with so far are just plain stupid . :roll:

Good luck with your show NSD and :welcome: to CT ! :tiphat:

 

[branguscowgirl]

This is part of our display at our State Fair. (Not me in pic.) We have Red, White and Blue Star curtains all the way down the row in front of our cattle. Nice stall cards above each animal. Table cloth, coffee and donuts or muffins. Usually some type of pics. This one is pretty tone down. Another neat idea that I have seen on display, was one of those revolving picture frames with it cycling through all their ranch and cattle pictures.[URL[img]http://i881.photobucket.co...oads/CAStateFair2012002_zpsb94bbe67.jpg[/img][/url]

 

[VCC]

Is it decorating, display or both? Our fair always has a theme for the year; we based our decorations off of that theme, Dr Sues, Sports, Race to the fair, Elvis, things like that. As far as displays we put up posters on meat cuts, feed requirements for the animal, products that are made from the animals, The different breeds, things like that. Now days they do not let you decorate, your name signs go with the theme and that is about it, they give them a kiosk in the Isle to use for their display.
If they do not have a theme, then I would think of things that can be made away from the fair and easily assembled at the fair.
The signs with the exhibitors name and animal information on it are the easiest way to start, Race to the fair, checkered flag outline with the info on it, or cut out of a car with the info, Dr Sues: the tall hat with red and white stripes, info in the white part of the stripes.

I would first find a theme you want to decorate in then go from there.

 

[txffamom]

We use a Pvc frame and hang curtains that I made, then hang an 11"x17" sign that has each heifers information on it.

I saw some really nice ones made from old fence wood also. It was about 4'x4' panel, that resembled an old wooden gate. They placed tape in the shape if the letters they wanted and painted over that, leaving the weathered look. I don't have photos of it, and I'm sorry I'm having a hard time describing it, but it looked really nice.

Depending on how many calves you are taking, the curtains seem to be the most common and easiest to use. You can hang them on a piece of cord tied to each end of the side rails frame or you can make a frame of Pvc pipe, which is fairly inexpensive. We use baling wire or zip ties, whichever is handy.

Hope this helps, and good luck at your show.

 

[shortybreeder]

What I see a lot of at fairs are:
Stall dividers: https://www.sullivansupply.com/cart/ia/ ... vider.aspx
Pedigree signs: https://www.sullivansupply.com/cart/ia/ ... signs.aspx
Ranch signs: https://www.sullivansupply.com/cart/ia/ ... older.aspx https://www.sullivansupply.com/cart/ia/ ... signs.aspx
Display curtains (as a backdrop for the pedigree signs) https://www.sullivansupply.com/cart/ia/ ... tains.aspx
Stall mats https://www.sullivansupply.com/cart/ia/ ... r-mat.aspx

Personally, I think alot of it can be considered "over the top" for most people, but if you are trying to advertise your show program then it is worth the investment. If it is just for a county fair contest, most of that stuff can be made from scraps at home... I only have the pedigree signs so far, but I have a friend who has the stall dividers so when I go to shows with him he just sets them around my calves and his... Works really nice! I think my next investment would definitely be the stall mats, but that's just my situation. I'm not saying you have to buy the sullivan's products, but I included links so you can see what I'm talking about and maybe find something around the farm that would work well to serve the same purpose (like if you have old cow mattresses then those would work great as a replacement for the rubber stall mats).
Good luck!

 

[North Star Dairy]

Thanks for all the replies! The fair considers the decorating contest like a best looking stall thing, they don't have themes or anything, they just want a sign that identifies each animal , a farm sign, and an attractive look to the stalls. We have dry erase pedigree signs we got from Nasco, we use them each year and we used to do a star theme with some star curtains as a backdrop and some star cut outs, all in all it took about 10 minutes to hang. We get told every year how our cows and stall area are always the cleanest ones in the barn but we have to doll it up if we want to win the award(last year the winner brought painted milk cans, had their cow info in frames with fake leaves hung up and they hung huge flower baskets from the barn rafters) so this year we are going with a rustic barn star theme, I found some barn wood fabric and found some 6 inch barn stars to hang, we had a farm banner made, and we were thinking of bringing a couple milk cans with corn in them. We usually do a little display too where we tell about the breeds of dairy cows we bring and we bring stickers and coloring books about milk for little kids that come through the barn. I will have to get some pictures of all the farm's different decorations up at the fair, maybe it will help other people get some ideas too. Thanks again and lets keep posting pics, it is so cool to see what people come up with!

 

[Farmerjon]

My youngest daughter has been out of 4H for about 10 years now. But she had a string of hamburger lights she put over her calf pen.

 

[SPH]

Our county fair and breed shows called it the herdsmanship award. Basically if this is a bunch of 4-H kids or a breed's youth association where the judging is going to be done as a group and not per ranch/family what you want to go for is keeping the stalls and surrounding areas neat and clean of manure and looking uniform. Stress to the kids the importance of keeping the calves clean and groomed. The main thing is keeping your area uniform looking, use the same stall cards and maybe a simple display curtain backdrop. Depending on how your stalls are setup put all the grooming chutes in 1 area, put all the show boxes in feed together instead of scattered around, and only use stall dividers on the very ends of where the cattle are stalled together. We never let families put stall dividers between them and other family's cattle as the goal should be to look unified.

It all just depends on the judging criteria. For our county fair it was mostly keeping your stall area looking well-kept. But when we went to our breed Junior National shows there usually was a theme so on top of all that I just mentioned we would plan ahead and only take what we needed so we figured out who had stall dividers, fans, grooming chutes, etc and only took the number of those that we'd need as a group because it made no sense for families with just 1 or 2 animals to bring all that when we had families with 2 or 3 kids that had at least 4 animals and was already bringing that stuff so we could evenly space out all the fans and chutes and place the stall dividers in logical places. Usually we'd have to come up with a small display to fit the theme and we'd make stall cards or a backdrop for the cards that would go along with the theme too. Our breed association also had purchased the same color halter and neckties in the past so everyone's calves would have matching halters while stalled. Some years we even stalled the cattle from largest to smallest in the line so we didn't have a big bull and another big animal sandwiching a younger heifer.

Best of luck! You don't have to go over the top but some of the simple things such as planning out how you are going to place all your tack and stall items goes a long way to making your stall area looking sharp.