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Meat animal sale breaks record

Photo

Photo by Dan Lassiter

Courtney Burdick holds a sign with pictures of her champion dairy and her reserve champion rate of gain entry as auctioneer Ryan George recognizes a bid during the meat animal sale at the Rock County 4-H Fair on Friday.

Photo

Photo by Dan Lassiter

Jim Raymond of M&I Bank makes a bid during the Rock County 4-H Fair Meat Animal Sale on Friday.

Photo

Photo by Dan Lassiter

Rachel Gerbitz of LaPrairie 4-H trims the top line on her dairy heifer Andi while preparing for the dairy show on Friday.

JANESVILLE — Buyers broke the spending record Friday at the annual Rock County 4-H Fair meat animal sale.

The $408,000 total topped the previous record of $353,000.

Friday’s sale included 521 animals, down about 40 head from last year, but the average price for animals was higher, partly because the market price was higher this year. For example, the market price last year for barrows was 52 cents and this year was 72 cents.

Among the champions, the highest grossing animal was the reserve champion steer shown by Rylee Ochs of Harmony 4-H and bought by Janesville Friends of the Fair for $4,183.

The second priciest animal among the champions was the grand champion steer shown by Austin Lynd of Bradford 4-H and bought by Seneca Foods for $3,780.

Other animals in the sale might have sold for more, but not all numbers were available Friday night.

The sale took most of Friday.

Here’s what we saw in the sale arena:

Bidding wars

It’s hard to know what to do with your hands when you’re standing still in front of 200 adults.

One by one, kids stood in the sale ring clutching posters with pictures of their lambs, steers and barrows. There’s not a lot of comfort in a poster.

It looked easier for the kids who got to parade their champion animals through the ring. At least they had something to do with their hands. They fiddled around setting up their animals’ feet or scratching the familiar foreheads.

But to speed up the already hours-long sale, most kids were allowed only to carry posters of their animals, and so they clutched and tried to figure out where to look.

On the other hand, the members of the audience laughed, gossiped, ate doughnuts and—in many cases—had a grand time competing against each other for the honor of buying a market animal. They’ll tell you they’re there to support the kids, but it looked like more pleasure than business.

Take the sale of the reserve champion lamb, for example.

Otis Johnson of Evansville 4-H smiled politely while auctioneer Dean George talked up his lamb. From the “Evansville corner” at the back of the audience, Union Bank and Trust started the bidding. The Friends of Evansville FFA jumped in and then Larson Acres, the Magnolia Township dairy farm.

When Rich Templeton flashed the white tag board sign that read “Grandma and Grandpa Templeton,” the crowd burst out laughing.

They cheered and shouted as the price jumped from $12 to $13 to $14 per pound. Around and around the white signs flashed: $15 then $17. That dynamic agribusiness team, Grandma and Grandpa, kept driving up the price.

The Friends of Evansville FFA held out the longest and bought the lamb for $20 per pound.

As it turns out, Grandma and Grandpa are members of the friends group.

New buyers

More than 200 buyers registered Friday morning at the annual meat animal sale, and 60 of them were new to the event, according to sale documents.

Anyone can register to buy an animal. After the purchase, many buyers sign up to have their animal sent to one of several local processing plants. Individuals get the meat back for the family freezer. Businesses use it as bonuses for employees or gifts for customers.

Most buyers don’t want the meat. About 80 percent of buyers sell their animals back to the sale committee at market price. The committee then sells the animals in the commercial market, and the buyers make up the difference between market price and the price they agreed to pay the exhibitors.

Proceeds donated

Clay Spooner discreetly rolled his eyes at Bethany Sly.

He wasn’t being rude.

It was just the look of a teenager silently telling another how embarrassing it is to have a barn full of adults staring at you. To make matters worse, a man on a microphone was talking on and on about Clay’s hospital bills.

It was a look that said, “Adults. Can you believe them?”

George did what he does best and talked up the sale. He told potential bidders about the March 5 car crash that killed Clay’s parents, Doug and Cindy Spooner, both 40, of Brodhead. Clay, 12, was badly injured in the crash.

Clay is recovering well from a large amount of surgery, but he has a ways to go, George said.

When a paperwork mix-up disqualified Clay’s barrow from the fair, 16-year-old Sly decided she would donate the money from the sale of her pig to the Spooner family.

The sale was included with the fair champions, typically the most expensive animals at the fair.

“Let’s give this young man a fair shake,” George said and started the bidding at $5. It jumped fast.

Sly held her breath when the bidding paused. Each time the price jumped, she let it out in a little laugh and grinned at Clay. The two are members of the Avon 4-H Club.

A & H Trucking of Footville bought Sly’s 266-pound Duroc barrow for $15 per pound.

The Rock County Pork Producers Association raised more than $1,400 and bought the pig Clay couldn’t show. The association plans to donate the meat to the Spooner family, said Harold Sly, Bethany’s dad.

Clay showed a steer Thursday and sold it Friday.

Sly said her parents didn’t talk her into donating her barrow money.

“I just thought I could help a little bit,” she said.

'Will trade sister'

Hands down, Nancy Hansen Bennett and her sister Linda Fredell had the best outfits at the Rock County 4-H Fair on Friday.

The Janesville sisters sat in the front row of the meat animal sale wearing matching John Deere caps and green polo shirts.

In big letters across the back, Fredell’s shirt declared, “Will trade sister for small tractor.”

Hansen Bennett’s shirt read, “Don’t need tractor.”

Fredell worked on a large, green-toned afghan while Hansen Bennett took notes and bid on a handful of barrows. Hansen Bennett works with the Badger 4-H Club, she said. On Friday, she bought the champion swine carcass, exhibited by Courtney Keller of Turtle 4-H. That’s not the champion of the show but rather the winner of a special class in which a judge rates dressed animal carcasses as opposed to live animals.

Hansen Bennett plans to donate the meat to ECHO.

On Thursday, one of Hansen Bennett’s former Cub Scouts asked her to bid on his barrow in Friday’s sale.

“I said, ‘What am I going to do with a pig? I don’t eat meat!’” Hansen Bennett said.

But eating and buying are two different things, and “I’m here to support the kids,” she said.