Competition

Showing the cattle at the fair is a matter of pride for us. It is a way to show off what we do here on our little farm.

Our animals are not ‘fitted’ for the shows we attend. We do not spend hundreds of extra dollars feeding fattening grain products to our cattle or empty a dozen cans of aerosol cans of grooming products on their coats . We go the more natural route, our animals that are seen at the fair look just like the animals we have at home in the pasture (just a few baths and a light haircut can distinguish the show string from the rest of the herd).

During competition, sometimes the judge wants to see animals that are more fat to be considered ‘show ready.’ Other judges like the presentation of our animals and consider the cattle as ‘working stock’ and don’t worry about how much beauty products have been added to the animal to make the hair fluffy thus concealing flaws.

This year, the judge seemed happy with our show string and we did well in our respective classes and in the Championship rounds. We had three animals out of our ten actually in the Supreme Champion round held on the second day of competition. Even though we did not win Supreme with any of our animals this year, just getting to that round is high praise indeed for our farm.

We had a surprise visit from one of our long-time bull buyers during our competition. It was good to see that he had visited the fair and watched the show because he wanted to see our animals. After the competition, the buyer spent time with us and the show string in the barn, and he said he wanted to purchase two more bulls from our farm after the first of the year. This helped make this fair an overall success for our farm.