Junior 4-H member excited for Butler Farm Show livestock auction
CLEARFIELD TWP — Many Butler County 4-H members go through a yearly cycle of getting a new farm animal, raising it and selling it at the Butler Farm Show, and with only a few days left before the auction, it’s crunch time.
The daylong sessions at a barn on Beck Road become even longer for 12-year-old Alyssa Simmons when she has to take her two cows to the farm show, where she has to make sure they stay healthy until the livestock sale, which is Aug. 7 this year.
On Friday, July 25, Alyssa worked with the cow/calf pair — named Clover and Gremlin — that she is going to enter into the auction, in preparation for the event. She is also raising two market lambs to sell at the auction, Harry and Marv, and two breeding heifer cows.
“During the farm show, we wash them every day,” Alyssa said of her cattle. “We get there at 5 a.m. to make sure they’re clean and fed.”
The junior livestock auction is the culmination of the Butler Farm Show’s events, with dozens of youths auctioning off animals including cattle, sheep, lamb, rabbits, hogs and goats. Alyssa is in the Premiere Livestock 4-H Club, which has several members selling at the auction.
While the farm show is open, the animals’ owners will be on-site with their animals for people to examine prior to the auction. So the youths in 4-H and the National FFA Organization have a busy week ahead of them once the farm show opens.
Kris Simmons, Alyssa’s dad, said his two children, Alyssa and her 17-year-old sister, Kallie Simmons, are pretty autonomous when it comes to tending to their sheep and cattle.
“They do all the work themselves, pretty much,” Simmons said. “The first year Kallie did a steer and Alyssa did a heifer, I helped them quite a bit because they were small. They pretty much can do the cows on their own now.”
Alyssa wrote a letter explaining how enjoyable it has been working with her animals and getting them ring-ready. She said she hopes to see the auction barn filled with people on Aug. 7.
“I have had so much fun this year working with and showing my 4-H projects,” she wrote. “My market lambs are very energetic and love hopping in their pen just like bunny rabbits. My sheep and I like going on walks and working on show ring performance each night.”
The livestock auction opens its doors at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 7 at the livestock barn at the farm show.
