I know who’s to blame for the lack of interest in the cattle business shown by young people today. It’s the county fairs that have “steered” 4-H and FFA members to want to become anything but a rancher. When a youngster can sell a pig for a couple thousand dollars with a minimal amount of work, why would they choose to show a steer or heifer that cost at least $2,000 to buy and then is going to spend the rest of its life trying to step on their toes? Can you blame them for wanting to show a meek little lamb instead?

It was bad enough when the occasional 4-H’er went over to the dark side and showed a dairy heifer but at least it was the right specie. Not so the chickens, bunny rabbits and turkeys the youngsters are now selling for thousands of dollars. Why would anyone want to put in all the time and money to raise a replacement heifer only to have her preg check open? No wonder these smart young folks are going for the easy money and don’t want to go into cattle ranching.

Even more ridiculous than $2,000 rabbits is the young man who showed and sold an old tractor for $9,000 at the fair. And he didn’t even have to feed or clean up after his tractor every day. All he did was put in a new set of spark plugs and paint the tractor with a rattle can. What “field” do you think that kid is gonna go into as an adult? Certainly not ranching. He’s more apt to become a welder, diesel mechanic, or heaven forbid... a farmer.

This trend away from cattle to smaller farm animals can be very confusing for old fogies like me who don’t know the first thing about how to “show” a rabbit or a turkey. It’s very confusing for 5th generation ranchers, who spent their entire adult lives raising cattle, to have a grandchild show an old John Deere® or a Hampshire hog. Take for example the two sets of grandparents who had grandkids showing in the goat show. The grandparents sat right behind their children in the bleachers who kept up a running dialog throughout the show. The cattle ranching grandparents felt as out of place at a goat show as a pimp in a nunnery. The only “Goat” they remember was the 1963 Pontiac GTO that was fondly known as a “goat.” Everything about the goat show left them more confused than a young boy looking for his lost gum on the floor of a hen house.

The grandparents didn’t know a Nubian from a newspaper but listened intently to their adult offspring jabbering away in front of them. Keep in mind that when their adult children kept referring to “kids,” the grandparents thought they were referring to their grandchildren. They heard such things as...

“Where’d you buy your kid?”

“Did you know that sometimes they’re born with an extra teat you have to cut off?”

“We keep all the kids out in the barn where we’ve raised all our babies.”

Believe me, that drew a collective gasp from the grandparents’ section. One grandpa had heard enough and said “It stinks around here.” He asked the other grandpa, “Would you care to join me at the beer booth?”

But the grandmas tried to stick it out until the bitter end, as grandmas always do, but when the judge gave his reasons after a class was placed, the grandmas got even more confused than they did when their fifth-grade math teacher tried to teach them algebra. One grandmother asked, “Why does the judge keep talking about what kind of milker she’ll be?” And, “Did I hear the judge right when he wondered allowed why the young kid hadn’t been tattooed yet?”

For heaven’s sake she’s only 8 years old,” the grandmother said.

You could have heard a pin drop when one of the parents said,  “Did you know that in the past, the male kid was drowned in a bucket of water right after birth because there was no market for male kids?”

That’s when one grandma said to the other, “I’ve heard enough. Shall we join our husbands at the beer booth?” The other grandma replied, “I’m afraid I’m going to need something a little stiffer.”