Help support area youth through the livestock auction
As a supporter of the junior fair livestock auction, you have the opportunity to help these FFA and 4-H members by supporting them through the auction, which will be online this year. The fair participants and their animals will not be at there. (File)
Raising an animal as a livestock project is a valuable experience for any FFA or 4-H member. Livestock projects teach youth responsibility and help develop the character of an individual by caring for an animal. They also help youth work at personal growth and development.
Because youth are raising these animals on a small scale, costs are higher, and it is hard to break even at market price. As a supporter of the junior fair livestock auction, you have the opportunity to help these FFA and 4-H members by supporting them through the auction, which will be online this year.
“Our community has always backed the auction 100%, no matter what the economic situation, and done an outstanding job for years and years,” Rod Lindsey said. “This is a great way for the community to pay back into the agriculture area, whether it’s 4-H or FFA. It’s also a benefit to our youngsters that take these projects very serious. Depending on the project, some of them are more than a year long, some a couple months and some four or five months. It depends on the species. The auction is a great way to pay back these youth for all their hard work.”
The average investment for projects including purchase and feed is market steer/heifer, $2,275; feeder calf, $850; market hog, $450; market lamb (purchase and feed for two), $819; market wether goat, $350; rabbit fryer, $20 a rabbit (most kids raise six rabbits), $153.70, and for bucks and two does if raising rabbit fryers, $167.50; turkey, $10 a turkey (must raise at least five turkeys), $402; market duck, $6.75 per duck (must raise at least five ducks), $131.75; and market chicken, $2 per chicken (must raise at least five market chickens), $122.
The junior fair livestock auction gives these young people a chance to show a profit for their hours of hard work. The gross total for the 2019 junior fair livestock auction was $377,205.67.
“With the way the auction is set up this year, we know we are down in (project) numbers,” Lindsey said. “Because of the COVID-19 situation, we had to constantly keep making changes, whether it was a recommendation from the governor, community leaders or the health department.”
Due to the fact that the number of projects are down, Lindsey is going to focus on the average amount each project brings in. “We are hoping it stays equal to last year or maybe a little bit above,” he said.
Buyers of grand champions and reserve grand champions will receive a buyer pennant. Buyers will be announced by WTNS Radio and listed in The Beacon.
This year there will be no buy-bids. Animals are the responsibility of the exhibitor and will not be promised to any buyer post sale. The price you bid will be the price you pay, and you will not have the ability to send an animal to buy bid or have the meat processed after the sale.
Your support of the sale will go directly toward supporting the youth that spent the time working with and raising their animal.
There will be no buyer’s breakfast this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Information on registering as a buyer will be available online at www.coshoctoncountyfair.org/auction.html. All buyers new and returning will need to register online as the online platform does require a cell phone number that has not been previously collected. Bidding will be available virtually via cell phone, computer, tablet or other handheld devices.
Preregistration will start at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 6. The auction will be open at that time for bidding to begin; however, the “live” auction portion will not begin until Thursday evening, Oct. 8. It is possible to place bids up until the Thursday evening live auction. The live auction will then start with the current bid at that time. The fair participants and their animals will not be at the auction.
“The only thing people will see live is our auctioneers Ryan LePage and Greg Rice,” Lindsey said.
Lot/item closing times can vary based on the live auction. After the Thursday evening live auction only, add-ons can be placed until 7 p.m. the following Thursday, Oct. 15. An add-on is an amount that you want to provide in addition to the sale amount of the animal. For example, you may want to give each beef exhibitor $10 on top of their sale price or each member of a certain 4-H club $25 toward their work.
You can place bids ahead of time by calling either the OSU Extension office at 740-622-2265, Lindsey at 740-610-8583 or Ron Seitz at 740-252-2470. Thursday evening of the auction they will be available via phone call or by visiting room B100 in the county services building, 724 S. Seventh St.
“We encourage businesses or people that want to just put money on specific projects or kids to call in,” Lindsey said. “If people don’t have a specific person they want to put a bid on, they can contribute to the Friends of the Coshocton County Jr. Fair Livestock Auction. Salley and Chuck Ellis started that last year. The group tries to reach out and cover as many kids as it can. For example, say we have 100 kids showing hogs and we want to put $10 on each kid after the auction, we will use $1,000 to cover that and then do the same with chickens, steers, lambs, goats and so on.”
The friends of the group auction is a great way for 4-H and FFA alumni or businesses to give back.
“You can just donate a certain amount of money, and Sally and Chuck will spread it out,” Lindsey said. “It’s a pretty good deal.”
Those who choose to bid online during the live auction will have two options: split bid and max bidding. Check the split bid checkbox when placing your bid. If you win, fair management will contact you upon winning the bid to obtain split details if you have multiple buyers bidding together. For max bidding, enter a private proxy max bid for any specific lot when placing a bid. The system will automatically place a new bid at the auction-designated increment without going over your max bid. You will receive a text message any time you are outbid on an item.
“It’s a different kind of situation this year with the fact that everything was changing all of the time, but hopefully, we have things pretty much set,” Lindsey said.
Category: Arts & Entertainment
