This year, at the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo in southeastern Washington, the weight limits have changed — for goats.
Compared to last year, market goats need to shave at least 40 pounds. Those goats must weigh at least 60 pounds and no more than 85 pounds. Last year, they could weigh up to 125 pounds.
“Having these smaller animals gives less time for the kids to work with them,” said Angelina Rodstrom, a co-leader of the Motley Crew 4-H club. The 4-H program is a hands-on learning system for children, with a focus on things like agriculture.
Rodstrom’s also a goat breeder in rural Finley. She and a small herd of other 4-H mothers are upset.
The weight change for goats has an impact on children who are paid by the pound for their project animals. The 4-H’ers earn money from these project animals at a livestock sale, near the end of fair week.
“And that’s big for kids who are counting on this money to pay for college,” Rodstrom said, “Pay for a car, pay for further education, pay for a house when they grow up, like, these things aren’t trivial at all. So yeah, I do get emotional about it.”
Rodstrom and other mothers say they have sent emails, gone to a committee meeting, suggested alternative goat packers and made a spreadsheet of all the goaty data. They delivered that data to a committee member via email.
“The Benton Franklin Fair is by far the smallest weight range,” Rodstrom said.
Lori Lancaster is the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo’s executive director. She said she’s only gotten one email about this issue. And then, she said, there’s what the market demands.
“It’s actually not easy to find packing houses that will accept the fair animals, because it’s a bunch of animals that have all been raised differently,” Lancaster said. “So they’re all going to be finished differently. So a lot of times, it’s actually sometimes a favor that they take the fair animals.”
Market demands
Up north of Pasco, Mike Chubb is having his alfalfa custom baled. He’s already raked it to straight windrows. Chest-high hay bales shudder off the end of the baler, dropping a drift of dried alfalfa leaves like wedding confetti. It’s so hot that Chubb’s drenched in sweat, standing in the field supervising.
He’s also the guy who slaughters the fair goats each year. Chubb slaughters about 1,500 animals a year beyond the fair. He said the local market just doesn’t want fat goats most of the time.
“Like, where we would put a beef and a hog in the freezer, cut and wrapped and eat on it for a year, they basically use the [goat] meat fresh until it's out,” Chubb said.
A lot of work
When 10-year-old Finn Rodstrom shakes some grain in a plastic pail, several Boer goats — which is a type of floppy-eared meat goat — crowd into a manger and bleat with excitement to be fed.
Finn is Angelina Rodstrom’s son. Finn spends about an hour or more a day from winter through summer’s end caring for his goats and the family’s larger herd: Filling feed buckets, checking water and training them. Then, there’s the haying, kidding and mucking stalls and pens.
He wants to earn more from his project Boer goat. Goats have recently gone for as little as $4 a pound at fair. How would he use his money from the livestock sale?
“I will save it for a college fund, or get a couple Legos or get some more additions to the farm (like fencing),” Finn said.
Problem kids
The lower weight limits for the Benton Franklin Fair were announced last year at the end of fair in August.
But breeders said they already had many of their goats starting to be bred at the time when the fair made that announcement.
Those breeders had to breed another whole set of goats for the Benton Franklin County Fair – so the goats would be younger and lighter come fair time.
“We have 150 Boer does, so we breed year round,” said Danielle Jelinek, a goat breeder in Richland. “It was really a learning curve to raise a 60 to 80 pound goat this year. They are so not ideal for the show ring, they’re so green (unfinished). They still need to fill in and muscle out.”
Jelinek said some of her goats are weaning at around 60 pounds, which doesn’t allow 4-H’ers a lot of leeway before their goats reach fair weight, she said.
Toss up
On the other side of the Cascades, walking down the Pierce County fairway, the ring toss line was deep. Sitting on a chair over by the barns, Anthony Fay was scarfing a quick reheated burger. He’s the head of the livestock market sale at the Pierce County Fair.
He said at the fair’s livestock sale, they’ll pay up to 120 pounds for goats. Exhibitors can show even heavier goats. Fay thinks the Benton Franklin Fair policy sounds too restrictive.
“Like I said, I would like to know what their reasoning behind that is because you’re really limiting yourself, you're limiting your show and you’re limiting your exhibitors,” Fay said. “I could really see how that would be heartbreaking.”
Brian Ohler, at-large member of the Benton Franklin Market Stock Committee, said the fair’s livestock sale is a terminal sale. It’s important that the animals not be used in breeding, or go to another fair against the rules, he said. That means the animals have to be butchered after fair. But he acknowledges the hardship for the 4-H children showing goats with the fair’s new lower weight requirement.
“I am helping our goat barn superintendent to see if there is any leeway to our rules to help the kids out for next year,” he said. “We’re looking into it as quickly as we can. We are working with them to accommodate their requests.”
This year goats are in the last sale slot at the Benton Franklin Fair’s livestock sale – they will be sold last, when a lot of the other buyers’ support money is already gone.
Children who show goats earn among the least from their fair project animals. Pigs earn more. Cattle earn more. Sheep earn more.
Weigh-in day and vet check for goats at the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo is today. The fair livestock auction is at 9:30 a.m. on Friday at the fairgrounds. Those who want to help goat-showing children, or other children, without buying an animal, can do so at this link through what’s called an “add on.”
