Montana farmer-stockman. [volume], August 15, 1953, Image 1

About Montana farmer-stockman. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1947-1993

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
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This steer went to market, but this boy stayed home
and now has another, better steer.
U
It's the Club Member, Not the Calf
By E. P. ORCUTT
ns
Extension Livestock Specialist
"THIS DANISH SYSTEM of judging 4-H
calves is all wrong. You ought to have
grand champions again.
"Why did you ever let a club member
start out with such a poor heifer?" Or ewe?
Or pig?
Such statements and questions as these
are not uncommon. We have had them as
long as we have had 4-H work and we will
probably continue to have them. They are
not really unfriendly comments because
they do indicate interest, but they nearly
always come from someone who has forgot
ten, for the moment, that "It's the club
member, not the calf.
There is no need to go into the beginnings
and purposes of 4-H club work. Everyone
who reads the Montana Farmer-Stockman
knows at least something about it. There is,
though, need to remind ourselves where the
emphasis belongs.
For example, would you discourage a boy
from fattening a Holstein-Hereford calf that
his father was able to give to him, if you
knew that it was impossible for him to find
the money to buy a well-bred calf? Of
course, we'd all say, "No, he should go
ahead." Yet again and again, come show
time, we find these critics who pay no at
tention to the job the boy did feeding and
fitting the steer but who cuss everyone far
and near for letting that boy feed such a
poor calf.
Or, to illustrate in another way, prob
ably the "sorriest" animals shown in 4-H
classes are first-time, händ-raised, bum
lambs. Of course, a few of them are good.
Yet a 10-year-old boy or girl can often start
4-H club work in the bum lamb project
without a dime of capital. And with some
"
MONTANA AND NORTHERN WYOMING
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A lop 4-H member in 1940—a top 4-H mother now.
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You can see all kinds of dividends resulting from this 4-H show.
Good cattle are the least important.
of them it's as big an investment as they
ought to make for the first year, too. Any
number of these bum-lamb-beginners have
wound up six or eight years later as estab
lished 4-H sheep breeders.
A bum lamb or a common calf doesn't
often blind a boy or girl to the value of
high quality livestock. In fact, they couldn't
have a better or more lasting lesson than
when they lead this dearly loved, ''sorry
looking critter" out into the show ring and
stand him alongside one which is strictly
fancy. The object lesson is perfect without
specially identifying the owner by placing
him at the very tail end of the line. Public
embarrassment is a pretty sure way of cur
ing a boy or girl from ever showing an ani
mal out there again.
Another thing! Over the course of the last
40 years, this phrase has become universal:
That calf is good enough for 4-H." It means
par excellence everywhere. Certainly this
is evidence that a club member who starts
with a scrub is certain to learn better—
and soon.
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A bum lamb project to start may mean an estab*
lished sheep breeder in a few years.
This calls to mind one particular family
in which two sons started with the 4-H
baby beef project about 15 years ago. And
such a start as it was: Two calves that
just about everything a feeder should not
be—long necked, narrow headed, thin
fleshed, shallow bodied, cat-hammed and
wild enough for a rodeo.
The father knew all the answers, too.
Calves needn't be shut off pasture to fatten
them. That's silly. It's a waste of grain to
give them more than 4, maybe 5 pounds.
Hay or grass will do the fattening job. And
these steers will win the show too!
were
Show time came and both steers were
sifted as being plain, fleshy feeders. "Pop
was there to see it all, too. Two years later
one of these two boys got a purple ribbon
on his steer, and they never fell below the
blue ribbon group after that. Today, "Pop
and Sons" are highly regarded purebred
breeders. They are all three on the home
ranch. There is a new house, too, with some
prospective 4-H material growing up in it.
Yes, "It's the
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(Please turn to page 22)