It is county fair season for most everyone in the state of Missouri. While I think it is silly to show in the HEAT of the summer, Missouri thinks it is a good idea. I have traveled to several of the county fairs recently in Missouri with kids that we haul around and some of the shows just to watch the kids. It is always fun to see the kids have a good time and enjoy what they do. Of course, there is always the arguments between the siblings that makes me laugh because I remember my kids being the same way. And they are still the same way as adults, so it never changes!
I always think every year that I won’t be able to be involved in some way, but I have been saying that for around 20 plus years. I think it is safe to say I will always be in the county fair loop in some capacity. One of the biggest changes I am seeing is the ones that used to be the “kids” now being the parents to the kids that are showing. Even at my old county fair in Oklahoma I am seeing the same family names that were there back in the day when I used to show.
There is always a turnover at the county fair level as kids age out of the projects and the new young kids start to be involved. When that happens, you will see the small animal projects such as sheep and goats pick up and the cattle side lower in numbers. In the smaller counties that is always more evident, where it may not be as noticeable at the larger county fairs.
My daughter showed cattle as soon as she could get her hands on one at about age 4 but it took a lot longer for my son to be interested in them. Until then, we dove into diversifying our cattle operation by adding a few sheep. Two sheep eventually turned into about 25 ewes and 2 rams and figuring out how to shear all those things every year. I didn’t like that we couldn’t co-mingle them with the cattle because of the copper in the cattle mineral and they also competed for the same grass as the cattle.
I am not exactly sure where we were the first time we saw Boer goats, but it is safe to say it was at some livestock show. I did some research on the breed and on goats in general and decided they would be a good fit for our operation. They would clean up all the multi-floral rose we had growing in the pasture, and they would not compete for the same grass as the cattle.
We started with a bottle baby doe and 2 wethers and at that time there were very few meat goats at the county fairs. The first time I sheared off the wethers, it was like shaving a sticker bush. It was horrible and I was thinking this might be the beginning and the end of the show wethers for us. It was definitely not like shearing off a lamb where the wool just falls away. My daughter ended up winning the next 2 county fairs and went on to be the Reserve Grand meat goat at the Ozark Empire Fair. This was before the Gold Buckle Gala had started and before meat goats were a part of the State Fair Sale of Champions.
With that, we ended up selling off all the sheep and purchased more Boer goats. I am not sure what I was thinking, but we ended up having Boer goats for around 20 years. We met a lot of great people and learned a lot about goats over those years from some very knowledgeable people. We are still great friends with a lot of those families and my kids made some lifelong friends. Some of my most memorable injuries came about because of the goats and I can honestly say that I have been hurt more by goats than I ever have cattle.
A few years ago was the last time I had goats and my husband was certainly ready to see them go. We had a few of my sons old show goats left and we utilized them to clean out an old fence row that needed to be rebuilt. I had also purchased a few non show goats to go along with them to speed up the process. I am usually pretty calm and collected around livestock but those non show goats really tested my patience. My husband said he had never seen my personality change so quick as when I had to deal with those non show goats. I am sure he wished he had his YouTube channel going then because there were some memorable moments with those things including me full on tackling one.
I still feel like goats are a great choice to diversity with especially if you want to run them with cattle BUT you have to have goat proof fence! They do a great job cleaning up brush and keeping things like poison ivy and multi-floral rose in check but goats are not for the faint of heart. Even though we no longer raise goats, I stay involved by helping people that are new to goats. I miss them at times but for now I prefer to enjoy them at other people’s farms!
Debbie Elder is a native of Ottawa County, Okla. and lives on her farm in Webster County, Mo. To contact Debbie, call 1-866-532-1960 or by email at [email protected].
