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 Zeal Queen
Posts: 3826
    
Location: TEXAS | My boys are new members of 4H and we showed chickens at our county show but they now say they want to show pigs. Does anyone know about the shows and how it works? Do they all go to slaughter or can the females be bought for breeding? |
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 Coyote Country Queen
Posts: 5666
| Check with your extension agent and get in touch with the swine project leaders, they should be able to answer all of your questions.
I'm fairly new to 4H and show pigs, but they really are a fun project for the kids. I'm guessing that guidelines are different for each state and probably even each county. At our fair we can choose to sell our pigs or keep them, we just have to designate it by a certain point of time at the fair. |
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 Off the Wall Wacky
Posts: 2981
Location: Louisiana | My best friend showed pigs her whole life, and our senior year our whole group of friends decided to show LOL. It was a lot of fun!
We kept my hog and sent it to slaughter for ourselves, you don't have to sell.
Find out which 4-H friends of theirs show pigs and call up their parents and ask for help. We bought my hog from my friend's parents and they kept it and took care of it bc we or any of the other friends that did it that year had a place to keep a show hog. Of course they included feed and such in the price. We just went over to learn how to walk them (NOT difficult at all). And the kids did all the bathing and prep for the actual show. |
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Zeal Queen
Posts: 3826
Location: TEXAS | Ok thanks so much y'all!! |
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Location: NE Texas | slacy09 - 2018-01-16 10:57 AM
My boys are new members of 4H and we showed chickens at our county show but they now say they want to show pigs. Does anyone know about the shows and how it works? Do they all go to slaughter or can the females be bought for breeding?
Long, long ago I showed Hogs my senior year. I had two hogs (gilt and barrow); in order to make the sale at the show we had to be top "x" in our class (the sale at the show brought higher prices than local sale barn) so goal was to place high enough to make show sale.
Both mine made the show sale, gilt was bought by a vet for breeding and the barrow was purchased by someone and sent to the packing plant. The other hogs if the kids didn't want to take them back home were shipped off to local sale barn and brought current meat price. It was sad, but I got over it. lol |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| Yes, you can do a breeders class and they don't have to go to market. If you chose a breeder class, they won't have the opportunity to sell anything at the auction and for us, we use this to help our kids build up a savings account.
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 575
| It depends on your fair. Some fairs are terminal and everything that goes through the auction goes to slaughter. Some do have the 'live pick up' option. Our local fair has a Replacement Heifer show where they have to be bred in order to show, and they're sold through the auction specifically for breeding. It all just depends on what your fair offers. I agree, talk to the swine leader of your 4H group and they should be able to answer your questions!  |
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Zeal Queen
Posts: 3826
Location: TEXAS | FlyingJT - 2018-01-16 12:07 PM Yes, you can do a breeders class and they don't have to go to market. If you chose a breeder class, they won't have the opportunity to sell anything at the auction and for us, we use this to help our kids build up a savings account.
I was afraid of that. My boys get so attached to animals and so do I. I was hoping they could be sold as breeders so we could still get money to put into next project. |
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Zeal Queen
Posts: 3826
Location: TEXAS | rpreast - 2018-01-16 12:32 PM It depends on your fair. Some fairs are terminal and everything that goes through the auction goes to slaughter. Some do have the 'live pick up' option. Our local fair has a Replacement Heifer show where they have to be bred in order to show, and they're sold through the auction specifically for breeding. It all just depends on what your fair offers. I agree, talk to the swine leader of your 4H group and they should be able to answer your questions!
Hey now I like that option, replacement heifer show!!! |
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Addicted to Baseball
Location: Where the stars at night are big and bright, TX | We show pigs at the county and majors in Texas. You can buy barrows or gilts. The barrows are terminal, the gilts can also be bought (or leased) and sold to the packer, returned to the breeder, sell at the show sale, sold privately by you after the show. We love showing pigs, they are so much fun. But like any other project you plan on being competitive with, you need to start with high quality animals, exceptional feed, good daily care, exercise, training, etc.
At our county show you can keep the pig, but you pay the packer in order to keep it. We can also raise a cheaper pig to put on the truck and not pay the $150 per head, but feeding one would cost at least that much and we have plenty of pigs going into the show pen, I don't need another to feed, clean up after and make room for too. I'd rather just pay the packer.
Edited by Tilt The Kilt 2018-01-18 5:29 PM
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 Hugs to You
Posts: 7551
Location: In The Land of Cotton | My kids showed hogs. We would drive 18 hours one way to get quality hogs. Both breeding gilts and market hogs. Each state/county is different with their rules. We had to sell to the packer for the fall/winter shows. In the spring we showed breeding gilts. We used to go to Louisville to the National Junior Swine show too. We loved every minute of it. So did the kids. They paid their way through college with the money they made doing it. We have never regretted doing it. A lot of responsibility but they learned so much. Good luck. |
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 Expert
Posts: 5293
| I showed Steers but in CA, most all of the livestock are terminal. |
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 Expert
Posts: 3815
Location: The best kept secret in TX | In our county if you make sale your animals aren't auctioned off to the purchaser. They stay in your possesion and you have choice to send them on the meat truck for extra $ or to enter htem in other stock shows. If you didn't make sale you have option to haul home or to sell to the meat truck for a set price. |
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  Neat Freak
Posts: 11216
Location: Wonderful Wyoming | Last yr was our first year and we knew absolutely nothing about pigs. Didn't even know what to feed them. We ended up with high rate of gain (but he was lame right before the sale). The judge recognized it as an injury and did allow my son to show him in the rate of gain class against other pigs that were high and we ened up 3rd. Colt also won the 1st yr showmanship award with his gilt and did ok in her weight class too. We sold the gilt at the sale. She weighed around 260ish and sold very well. Our local feed store we use for the ranch paid around $2500 for her. We paid Colt what he paid for the barrow and had him butchered our self. He was 303 I think at fair. They were so so so so much fun. My boys loved walking them and we bathed them all the time. We didn't have fans, so we go them out of the cool barn and hosed them off whenever we had time, at least daily. This year we will buy some fans. They really tear up the barn and corral rooting around for cool dirt so I hope the fan will help.
Charlotte was the high selling pig at the sale at $400 and Optimus Prime was $275. Funny thing is they both turned out to be litter mates. We are in a very small county in WY so I am sure some people pay $800 plus for their show pigs. We didn't even go to state, just wanted to see how county fair went and learn. This year we will go to the same sale . Our main goal is for the pigs to make weight and that breeders pigs did very well everywhere they went. We do hope to go to state this year and he'll be up against a lot more kids in Jr showmanship. There is a great group on facebook called Show Pigs. They are fairly helpful and I can amswer a few things too. We learned so many little tips. |
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 BHW New Catch of the Day
Posts: 9884
Location: Missouri | My daughter showed hogs in FFA. She always showed hers in the market hog class so she could auction at the end. It's a great way for students to earn money. Word of advice, buy 2 and tag them both at tag in day. Reasons for this are, your pig might die. Also they will have to compete against eachother for food. Then, pick the one you think will do best and take that one to the fair, and butcher the other for your family.
We have an amazing fair and businesses compete against eachother at auction and the prices are amazing. My daughter would clear 1,200.00 after paying us back for the hog and feed.
She is depressed she graduated and has aged out, lol. |
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