Fair Forecast: Kids Will Learn Of Profit, Loss

A reporter was driving the countryside one day in search of a story when he happened upon a three-legged pig. The owner couldn’t wait to brag about the “world’s-greatest swine.”

Once, when the farmhouse caught fire, the pig crashed through the front door and woke up the family. Another time, a tractor tipped over, pinning the farmer’s leg. The pig ran out and rooted a trench so he could free himself.

“But what about the pig’s missing leg?” the reporter asked.

“Well,” the farmer said, “a pig that good, you don’t eat him all at once.”

Children in 4-H and Future Farm ers of America know the business of livestock is business. Sentimentality has little place on a farm.

While sending a lamb, steer or pig to slaughter occasionally opens tear ducts, most children are prepared.

They know Lester the Lamb will go well with a side of mint jelly, that Stanley the Steer is destined to bathe in steak sauce, that Penelope the Pig’s final resting place is beside two eggs over-easy.

“If you want your pig to be your pet, you don’t take it to the fair,” says 14-year-old Elizabeth Mosey of the Colbert Clovers 4-H Club. “You know not to get attached.”

Ultimately, the bottom line is the bottom line.

Money made from selling the animals at auction goes to cover costs. Profits can refill piggy banks or be the first deposits in college funds. A couple of bad years can keep exhibitors out of future livestock shows.

Stephanie Lippert, a Sandpoint director of the Junior Livestock Show of Spokane, urges parents and outsiders to get involved by sponsoring children in 4-H and FFA.

The auctions after the livestock show are an ideal opportunity to buy premium meat at fair prices, she says.

This year’s market could be a real bear. Steers bought for a dollar a pound last year are fetching 65 cents a pound now.

“I’m afraid some of these kids are going to take a real beating,” says 4-H leader Randy Repp of St. John, Wash. “But they’ll get knowledge about finances.”

Last year, Justin Wentland made a $300 profit off one lamb.

The money is another incentive for Wentland to get his animals in top condition for livestock shows.

“You want a good market animal so people will buy it,” he says. “For me, it’s a profit thing.”