Tales from the Livestock Barn ~ Washington County Fair

Although I live in neighboring Madison County, I was thrilled when I was asked to write something about the Livestock Barn for the Washington County Fair. Full disclosure: In exchange for this post, the Washington County Fair is supporting the promotion of local agriculture by making a donation to my Moms on the Farm program – but my words and enthusiasm for the fair are all mine.

When you bring your family to the fair, it may be a little intimidating to enter the livestock barn. There are sure to be a few sights and sounds (and smells) that your family may not be used to. Since my 4H kid is only 7, we are new to the world of being a livestock show family. So, I reached out to some other, more seasoned livestock show moms from Northwest Arkansas and around the country to get their input on the things they think you should know about the Livestock Barn.

Poop.

My little 4Her with her
first calf, Water Lilly.

The kids showing the animals are in charge of cleaning up the poop, but it’s a full time job. The first year my daughter took her calf to the fair, she was especially excited about gettingto clean it up! She was about 3 or 4 and that excitement hasn’t really faded… yet. Here are a few tips:

• Don’t wear your favorite pair of white shoes.
• Poop can be a little slippery, so be careful. 
• Wash your hands or use hand-sanitizer after you leave.

A sheep isn't truly clean until
everyone in the family is soaked

Family time.

When I was growing up, we didn’t go on vacation to Disneyland or the beach. We went to livestock shows. The animals are the kids’ projects, but it’s really a FAMILY endeavor. Hundreds of hours are spent together (mom, dad, brothers and sisters), working for a common goal of presenting an animal at the fair.

Success in the Livestock Barn is a family accomplishment. When our family won at the show, it wasn’t my ribbon or my trophy, it was OURS.

Small kids – BIG animals 

My daughter loves to show off her
show calf and have her friends pet it,
 but not all animals are so gentle
and tolerant of little people.

Livestock can be a little scary! The kids showing animals have spent hours and hours working with them getting them ready for the show. They know each other quite well and the animals are used to being handled by their owners. But, even gentle animals can bite, and even when an animal is comfortable with some kids, he or she may not be ok with allkids. Always ask for the owner’s permission before petting any animal in the livestock barn.

Good to know: There is a great petting zoo at the Washington County Fair where your kids can pet ‘til their heart’s content. 

Jenny sent this picture of two of
her boys with the their dairy cattle
at the county fair in Illinois.

Teachable moments.

The kids who are showing animals want to show off their hard work to everyone at the fair, not just the judges. If the kids are around, be sure to ask them about their animal. Ask the animal’s name, what it eats, where it came from, how old it is… You will be amazed what you will learn from these kids.

My friend and fellow 4H mom, Jenny Schweigert said it best, “Last week's county fair was very successful, but my favorite moment wasn't the ribbons or trophies. It was when our middle son kneeled down with a little girl he didn't know and started explaining the difference between dairy cattle and beef cattle.”

Lots of smiles. Maybe a few tears.

Vallie and her calf last year

For the kids showing animals at the fair, it’s like the District Championship game for kids who play sports - It’s a Really Big Deal. They’ve been working all summer in the heat and the mud getting their animals ready, and some will go home with lots of ribbons and trophies, but some won’t. Sometimes the animals act up and sometimes the judge doesn’t see it the way we do. It’s hard and frustrating (for kids and parents) when it doesn’t go the way you wanted it to.

But at the end of the fair, it’s not the prizes that matter. It’s the sense of accomplishment. It’s the family time. It’s the lifelong friendships. It’s the lessons learned. It’s teaching new people about how their food is produced. 

When you visit the livestock barn, you are not just seeing the animals. You are seeing the next generation of agriculture. You are witnessing the development of the people that will feed the world for years to come.

Let’s go to the fair!

The fair is letting me give away some ride tickets to a lucky local reader! Share a comment on this post about your favorite memory of a county fair to be entered to win $50 worth of ride tickets

(Info about entry prices can be found here). If you haven’t gone to a fair before, tell me what you hope to see or do at the Washington County Fair this year on your first visit. I’ll choose a winner at random from the folks who enter and be in touch to get your tickets to you.

The Washington County Fair has posted a schedule online, and also provides information about being a part of the fair by entering their contests and competitions through their Exhibitor Handbook.

Keep up to date on happenings at the fair by following them on social media at one (or all!) the links below:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mywashingtoncountyfair

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mywashcofair

Instagram - https://instagram.com/mywashcofair

Be sure to search the #MyWCF15 hashtag on social media to see what other folks are doing at the fair.

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More about beef farming



 This is me on the bus on our
Moms on the Farm tour.

A few weeks ago, I worked with a group of ladies in agriculture to host the Moms on the Farm tour. About 30 ladies attended a tour of a dairy and a beef farm, and then returned to campus for some cooking demonstrations by the Arkansas Cattlewomen. We plan to repeat the event in the springtime and improve it. There were lots of great questions and the ladies were really interested to learn about where their food comes from. All the questions and interest have become a great resource for my blog posts.




 Mrs. Marsha Hedge talking to the ladies about
her beef farm during Moms on the Farm tour.

We visited a single-mom, beef farmer, Mrs. Marsha Hedge, who has about 40 cows. She used to have over 100 cows, but because of the drought this past summer, she had to sell about 60% of her herd. So, now she is working off the farm part-time and going to school part-time to get her teaching certificate. Most beef farms have circumstances similar to hers. Ninety percent of beef farms in the US have fewer than 100 cows, and the average size of a US beef farm is about 44 cows. Most beef farmers have to work off the farm or have some other type of income to make a living, or their spouses do.

Anyway, Marsha raises the calves from her cows until they are weaned and she sells them to another farmer who will either take them to grow some more on green pasture or to a feedlot to eat grain. This seemed to surprise the ladies on the tour that the beef cattle from the farms around Northwest Arkansas don’t go directly to slaughter. One lady wanted to buy a calf from Marsha to slaughter and another asked if she sold her beef to WalMart. Marsha doesn’t have any calves that are the right age or size for slaughter.

As a host, I should have done a better job explaining that the beef industry is segmented. Cattle sold for beef production may have several owners in their lifetime. I wrote a whole post about the beef industry in February with lots of facts and figures, but I didn’t talk about the different kinds of beef farms in the US.


What are these different types of farms?

1. First, you have beef farms that raise calves to be sold as bulls and heifers (young females) to other farmers. These are called seedstock or purebred farms. Their cows and bulls may cost crazy amounts of money, but they hope to raise animals that will be in demand by other farmers to buy to improve their herds. Most of the time, they only have one or two breeds (like Angus or Simmental), and they specialize in genetic traits that other farmers want. They may have really lean animals or cattle that raise calves with lots of tasty marbling. Other traits are important to farmers, too, like growing fast and having small calves so the cows don’t have trouble in labor. There are books and websites full of numbers reporting these traits of purebred cattle. A knowledgeable farmer can evaluate these figures to buy a bull or a heifer that will improve traits in his or her herd.



This is a picture of my husband,
 Ed, exhibiting one of our
purebred heifers at a fair

If you go to the fair, the farmers that you see exhibiting are usually purebred farmers. They bring their animals to the fairs to show them off to other breeders and to potential buyers.

Most of the 'fluffy cows' you see on the internet are actually very expensive purebred bulls.

2. Second, you have cow-calf farmers. Marsha, the farmer we visited on our tour, is in this category. She bought bulls from a purebred farmer and bred them to her cows. She keeps the best of her heifers (girl calves) to go back to the cow herd, but she castrates her bull calves to become steers, and the steers and most of her heifers go to market to become beef.




 These are some of Marsha's cows.
Her bull is the solid red one on the left.
He is from a purebred breeder.
He actually looks a lot like our bull.

Like most cow-calf producers, Marsha’s cows are cross-bred, or a mix of several different breeds. In the industry, we call them 'commercial' cows. Also like most cow-calf farmers, Marsha uses grass growing in her pastures to feed her cows. She buys them hay and some other nutritional supplements, when the grass isn’t enough for them, but she wants them to eat grass as much as they can. Cattle are great at using grass to grow and make protein.


Marsha weans her calves off their mothers at about 500-600 pounds, which is about 6 to 7 months of age. Then she sells them to one of the next two types of beef operations.

3. The third type of beef farm is a stocker farm. These farmers buy weaned calves and let them grow. Sometimes they eat grass and sometimes they feed them grain, whichever is most economical for them at the time. The Peterson Brothers of I’m Farming and I Grow It fame, have a stocker cattle farm. They buy cattle that weigh 400-500 pounds and feed them until they weigh 800 to 900 pounds.

4. The fourth type of farm is the feeder or the feedlot, like the one owned by Anne and her family over at Feedyard Foodie. Here, cattle are fed grain in addition to hay or other forage and supplements. Feedlots will feed cattle until they are fat enough to harvest. They are usually only there for about 4 to 6 months. In the meat business, when cattle are fat, we say that they are ‘finished,’ meaning that they are ready to go to the processing plant. Finished cattle may weigh anywhere from 1000 to 1400 pounds, some even more.


In the US, people like to eat grain-finished beef. We prefer the taste and tenderness associated with it. I know that not everyone likes it, and there is beef from cattle that have only been fed grass available to buy for those who prefer it that way.





 Cattle in a covered feedlot in Michigan.
Notice that they are eating a
chopped-up mix of grain and hay.

In the western US, feedlots are huge, outdoor facilities, but I visited a cattle covered feeding operation in Michigan on a trip with students a couple of years ago. You can see the cattle are eating a chopped up mixture of grain and forage.


The meat processors send buyers to the feedlots to buy the cattle once they are ready. Then the cattle are sent to the processing plant for harvesting.

Now, lots of farms may be any combination of these segments. For instance, our family has some purebred cattle that we raise bulls and heifers for sale, and we have some commercial cows that just raise calves for market. So we are kind of a mix of the first two. Some farmers may have cows that raise calves and have a stocker section of the farm, too, especially if they have lots of green grass. Farmers have to figure out what works best for them considering the nutrients available and the market for cattle.

So, these calves that we saw at Marsha’s grazing in the fields with their mothers in Northwest Arkansas will probably be sold soon. Then, they may spend a few months grazing and growing on a stocker farm in Oklahoma, and then be sold to a feedlot in the panhandle of Texas. Once they are fat, they may be sold to a processing plant in Kansas and their beef may go to any and all parts of the US. Not only do the calves have several owners throughout their lifetime, they have also probably traveled several hundred miles.

I hope that you understand a little more about the beef industry, and the next time you are buying beef at the store or eating a juicy steak, that you will know that a little more about the path that got the beef to your plate. 

Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have about beef or cattle.

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the Mom in the Livestock Barn

Today, I am going to step away from the Meat Counter and become the Mom in the Livestock Barn. I became the Mom at the Meat Counter largely because of my involvement with FFA, and my favorite activity in FFA was exhibiting livestock (mostly sheep and a few pigs). From 5th grade to my senior year in high school, my family attended hundreds of livestock shows from Houston to Denver and just about everywhere in between. I married into a cow-showing family, so, now, my family enjoys exhibiting sheep and cattle at fairs.  



My daughter exhibiting her first calf, Water Lilly. It was a special class for bottle calves and small children.


Thousands of people take their kids to the County Fair, State Fair or the Stockshow and Rodeo in their city every year. Probably more like millions. Great! What a great way to learn about food and agriculture and spend time with your kids. Go! Enjoy!

When you go to the fair, you and your family will see and hear (and smell) things that are new and different from your everyday lives. You probably have lots of questions and, if you’re like me, you don’t know who to ask and you’re afraid of being out of place or in the way. Don’t worry. We know about this stuff because it’s what our family does and what our kids are into. Your family may be into karate or competitive cheerleading or chess. If we went with you and your family to a karate match or cheerleading competition or chess tournament, we would have just as many questions and would feel just as out of place.


So, I have been thinking about some tips that I could share with other moms when they take their kids to the fair.

1. If you want to pet an animal, ask its owner, first. Animals at the fair are gentle, but they may not be used to small kids, so be sure to ask someone before you pet or let your kids pet any of the animals. Most fairs have a petting zoo, where kids can pet ‘til their heart’s content.



This is my daughter at the petting zoo at the National Western Stock Show in Denver.
It was free, so we were regulars.




2. Don’t let kids stick their hands or toys (or anything) in the pens with the animals. My sister once had a pig named Fido because he would bite like a dog. Rabbits are known to bite, and little fingers look a lot like worms to chickens.

3. Put the bottles and snacks away. The animals at the fair are clean and healthy, but there are still bacteria from their poop that may be on them that could make you sick. So, keep your snacks and bottles in your bag.

4. Keep kids hands out of their mouths and away from their faces, too.

5. Make sure you wash hands before you eat. In fact, go wash them after you leave the barn. Wash with soap and warm water for 30 seconds. I would wash the kids’ faces, too.

6. You may want to bring a small bottle of hand sanitizer along. Most fairs have sanitizer stations in the barns and outside the petting zoo. Hand sanitizer is okay for right after you leave the barn or petting zoo, but washing with soap and water for 30 seconds is best. If you use hand sanitizer, make sure young kids rub it until it’s dry. If they eat it, it could make them sick.

7. Don’t push baby strollers down the aisles in the cow barns where the cows are walking. Most cows are not used to baby strollers and it may scare them. If you want to see the cows, watch from the main aisles, or carry small children. You don’t want to get cow poop on your wheels anyway.

8. I would keep strollers and small kids out of the way of pigs, too. Pigs are low to the ground, but they will weigh 200 to 280 pounds. There are usually ways to get to see the animals without worrying about being stepped on.


9. Ask questions. People who bring animals to the fair are there to show them off. The kids are proud of their projects. They have been working with them for months. Encourage your kids to ask the kids who are showing questions. Here are some good ones.


a. What is your animal’s name?

b. Is it a boy or a girl? How do you tell the difference?

c. How old is he (or she)?

d. Have you already shown? How did you do?

e. What do they eat?


Most fairs and shows will have an area where kids can go to learn about livestock and all of agriculture. Go check it out. Sometimes there are even hands-on exhibits and games to play. Check out the fair website to know where to go.



Sorry about the flash. Here she is at the Farm Bureau Booth at the Southwestern Stock Show in Ft. Worth. Notice her pig ears.

Lastly, you may have some questions about Swine Flu and catching the flu from pigs. The pigs at the fair should be healthy, but if you are concerned, I would encourage you to check out the CDC’s page. All of the precautions listed above should keep your family safe. And, for a little entertainment, you could always check out Putnam Pig’s views on the subject.

So, go! Have fun! Ask questions! Eat lots of good food! Learn about agriculture! Come back and tell me how much fun it was! 



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