You can see the rest of the underpass pictures, and the rest of the stockshow pictures in our album by clicking here.The first thing we did when we got there (after taking pictures of the underpass and using the bathroom -long drive) was to head to the place labeled on the map for animal feeding. We didn't know if this meant that visitors got to feed the animals, or if it meant that visitors got to watch the staff feed the animals. We still don't. There wasn't really any feeding going on. The area was for the Future Farmers of America. It was a grouping of caged animals. A small calf, a goat, some pigs, bunnies, lots of chicken like things and some water fowl. The bunnies were cute, the birds were, well, they were birds. Though the black runner ducks were very entertaining. They stand straight up like people, not like normal ducks which are shaped like boats with legs.
There is a number or pictures of them, plus a small video we made of them posted on our youtube account which you can see by clicking here. They actually are shaped like the ducks I see upside down and skinless in Asian markets.
If you're into cute, I would suggest Steph's pictures of the bunnies, or my pictures of the chicks. Also in the mix of bird things there's some bird with a really long tail. I don't think it is a road runner or a phoenix, but I forget what it was.
After that we wandered through the agricultural displays. Took some pictures with a fake cow and a fake chicken. Saw the tiny dairy display they had to offer. I found that disconcerting, I understand most of the cows out here are beef cows, but still, there's a lot of dairy here too. What I decided in the end was that beef cows have a higher turn over - that is beef farmers have to buy new cows more often - that it was understandable that the dairy offering would be light.
We also talked to the bee guy for some time. I was interested in the idea of having one of those viewing hives for the bug zoo. It would have taken a lot of agreement from CSU, but ultimately what occurred to me was that the amount of pesticide/herbicide on campus would make it non-starter. The guy did tell us a little, though about all I remember him saying was
1: He eats a spoonful of pollen each morning. I don't remember why he does this, but I do remember that pollen is expensive.
2: The wasps were bad this year - attacking his hives (they steal honey and baby bees).
3: It's not that expensive to start your own hive, and it's cheaper if you can get a wild colony to move in and then replace the queen with a farmed one.
After the agricultural displays we were on our way to the petting zoo. Which was another high priority thing for us.
The Donkey was a little depressed looking, the LLamas (Alpacas?) were very over bearing. The Goats were ok, and the little ones were quite cute. One of the little ones was laying under the net that holds the hay that the goats eat from when they aren't being fed by visitors or eating your coat, this same little goat was covered in the hay that had been dropped (see picture in album).
Next we headed to the lower part of the building. Where they shear the goats and sheep. There's pictures of them in their little jackets after they are sheared naked, as well as some sheep with out jackets put back into their herd. If that's to help them keep warm by being pressed up against other sheep, I really don't know.
Later on, coming back through we saw that they had a room where they wash the sheep/goats before they shear them. It looks like a drive in car wash. Not a big automated one, but like the bays where you park and wash it yourself with the coin operated hoses.
Following the sheep we entered a larger room of cows. Lots of cows. The cows have a wash room too. We actually saw it before the goat wash. It's really funny to watch some dude scrubbing down a cow. This area was huge with cow after cow, though most of them were probably a year or so old. Young, but not tiny. Every stall that had a cow had a small vacuum looking thing that they used to blow the cows fur with. Person after person was blowing down the cows, or trimming them with eclectic shears. We did watch a few of the show-cow competitions where people bring in their cow and judges decide which is prettiest, or most cow-like, or really, I have no idea what they are judging them on.
Outside now we headed over to the stockyard where the large cows are kept. Last year there were signs for buffalo, but we didn't see any actual buffalo then or this year. There were lots of fliers that offered cow semen for sale (bull semen, technically, I guess). You'll understand that this was a funny thing.
The outside lot is HUGE. You can walk among the stalls, or up along a catwalk about 20 feet tall cutting through the middle of the stock yard. We did a little of both. Some of the pictures show the size of the yard, or the huge adjoining lot of pickup trucks (heh)(you could tell the pick-ups were people attending with livestock and not just visitors because they all had snow from the day before still on them). Some of the pictures show types of cows, or the ways that they were lined up.
A number of the pictures show the snow-cow that someone made next to their stall:
We first saw it from the cat-walk, but had to go over to get a better look and take some pictures.After that was the horse building. I don't really enjoy horses. There's some pictures of people riding around the warm-up rink, and some pictures of the judging/ribbon presentation we watched. Note the girl with out a horse being given first place. I have no idea where her horse went. We missed the actual riding event that we saw the score presentation for, so I don't know where her horse is or why it's not there. What you can't appreciate in the pictures is how unbelievably shiny many of the outfits of the women and girls had for riding horses.
In the horse building there were also a number of 8 or so foot tall metal windmills (decorative) just like the one my grandfather has had in his lawn for years.
That was about the whole of it. It goes on for more than a week, but we only attended the one day. It's probably not especially different day to day. On certain days (weekends especially) they do more show-based things. Rodeo stuff- bronco busting, cattle roping, etc. What they also have is "Mutton Busting". Mutton Busting, as I understand it is children doing a bronco riding like thing of sheep. I'm sure it's an absolute hoot to watch. But the weekend are likely too busy for my tastes, and the shows during the week are usually in the evening.
Additionally there were tons of people selling stuff. The big sponsors, like Jack Daniels, as well as companies selling big pick up trucks (Toyota and Dodge especially as I remember). Plus people with farm equipment, horse trailers, and other such stuff. More so there were huge sections of westernwear, leather goods, cowboy hats, a whole booth of belt buckles*, ribs and other BBQ food, junk for kids (plastic hats and guns). One huge booth was western furniture. Lots of leather couches, tables with legs made of steer horns, lamps with feet made out of spurs, stuff like that.
What they don't seem to have, which I am used to back east is Cow-Pie-Bingo. Which, if you don't know what it is, is basically an area of ground sectioned into a grid of small squares. You put down money for a certain square (C6 for example) and you get a ticket. If the cow wandering around that area craps in your square you win money. Not that I play, I'm just surprised it's missing. There was, after all, no shortage of cow shit.
-Mr. Nivose
Mrs. Nivose says: Last weekend we decided we wanted to go to the stock show and settled on going on Monday when it wouldn't be as crowded as on a weekend. It snowed a little Sunday night and Monday morning and there was enough of a wind that it was pretty cold outside. I think that made it even less crowded that day. (Magus is very sure she needs to be on my lap right now, helping with the writing.) We went to the stock show last year, but didn't take a camera.
The National Western Stock Show happens every January and lasts for about three weeks. I am still not entirely sure what all goes on. I know there is livestock judging and subsequent auctions. There are a lot of advertisements regarding breeding, so maybe the ranchers make arrangements to make more cows. There are also rodeos, but we didn't go to any rodeos. We did watch a little bit of cattle judging and some sort of horse riding competition. The horse riding was not very exciting. It wasn't like rodeo style barrel racing where the riders and horses look like they're going to fall over when they loop around the barrels. During this contest the riders barely got their horses to a trot, did some weaving around cones and came to a stop in front of the judges. It was very slow. All the female riders wore sparkly outfits. In the end, I'm not really sure what it was all about.
We also watched a little bit of the red and black Angus judging. I'm not sure what factors were being judged, but the weight per day for each animal was announced, and the cattle handlers had thin sticks to make the cows stand a certain way. It seemed like the handlers wanted the cows to be stretched out with their feet lined up. It was like cow modeling. It was even more like cow modeling when we went 'backstage' and saw how the cows were fluffed before judging. The cows were washed and blown dry and even combed and trimmed with clippers. It was really funny to see big rancher dudes walking around with hairstyling tools in their back pockets and fussing over cows hairs being out of place.
I think our favorite part is the petting zoo. I really like the little goats. I don't know if they're just really young or if they're just some sort if mini breed. They're really cute, but hard to feed because the bigger goats butt in so much. I think the animals in the petting zoo are far more interested in eating than being patted. It's too bad the ducks are fenced off. I would like to pet them. I'd also like to hold the bunnies, but they aren't even part of the petting zoo.
-Mrs. Nivose
*OK, I made up the belt buckle booth. Perfect plausible none-the-less.
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