If you’ve been to the grocery store, you probably know the price of beef is skyrocketing. Live cattle prices are up more than 20% this year. Ground beef in the grocery store rose 11.5% between July 2024 and last month according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index; Steak prices were up 12% in the same time.
“The cattle market in general is at an all time high,” explains auctioneer Kyle Colyer, who also sells feeder cattle — cows ready to be fattened up for market. Ranchers are doing pretty well right now, he said, even though the overall cost of business has gone up.
Those prices have also influenced what’s happening at county fairs, Colyer said. Record-high auction revenues have happened at many 4H market auctions across the country - the clubs that engage kids in agriculture, technology and business.
In the livestock barn at the Western Idaho Fair, dads fixed ties and belt buckles as their kids prepared to sell their animals to a group of several hundred family, friends and neighbors.
“Thank you all for coming out here tonight. I know it's hot. I know that there's a lot of other places we could be, but supporting these kids down here means the absolute world to them,” an announcer tells the crowd.
Funds are still coming in, but the Western Idaho Fair market auction brought in this year, its highest total ever: nearly $700,000. That’s about three times the auction revenue from a decade ago with roughly the same number of animals.
Here’s how it works: 4H participants buy an animal, usually a cow, lamb, goat, pig or rabbit. They raise and care for it. Some animals are only for show, like this year’s grand champion show cow owned by Kuna’s Ehylah Waller. She’s 13.
“I wake up every morning at five to go and feed her. I go to school and right after school and sports, I go straight to the ranch and I do a thorough bath with specific soaps and shampoos,” she said.
Animals are judged on many qualities, but a winning cow is a fluffy cow.
Waller — who also rides bulls! — earned the overall livestock reserve grand champion award, in addition to the show cow purple ribbon. Her cow wasn’t auctioned off to market, instead she plans to produce calves and ultimately have a small herd of show cattle.
For market steer and other animals bred for consumption, there’s a minimum price per pound agreed to by a local meatpacker. Bidders can offer well beyond that number to support the cause - a critical component in the success of 4H livestock programs according to this study published by the University of Arizona.
“They put a base price on all these steers at $2.15,” Colyer explained. “I'm guessing they probably averaged in the $5/pound range tonight. So that's over double what their actual value is.”
Many winning bidders transfer the animal to the meatpacker and pay the difference above market weight to 4H.
“Some of the guys will keep some of them and eat them. Um, but a majority of them just we take the floor value,” said Nick Hadley.
He is one of about a dozen store managers from local Les Schwab Tire Centers. They’re among many local companies that show up to bid as a way to stay engaged and support their communities.
They go to other local county fair auctions, too, Hadley said.
“It shows how much we respect what [the kids] do and, and their hard work and their time that they put in.”
Auction staff said the Les Schwab group spent between $65,000 to $80,000 at the Western Idaho Fair buying animals, including the champion market cow, raised by 15-year old Austin Sweeney from Kuna.
"I rinse him twice a day. He's in a cooling room, actually. We keep it around 60 degrees to try to keep him as hairy as I can,” Sweeney said.
He showed that steer, named McQueen, across Idaho and six neighboring states this summer, earning a few wins along the way, he said. Sweeney estimates about 3,000 hours spent caring for the animal over about 13 months.
“You make a profit here and there, but sometimes you don't,” he said. “That's okay because it's more about the experience that we have just raising up with them and kind of treating them like our pets.”
To that end, all his animals this year had names related to the "Cars" animated movie series.
Still a teenager, Sweeney has started a show-cattle ranching operation with a goal of paying for school to be a wildfire pilot. He seemed pragmatic about his final moments with McQueen the cow, but there were plenty of tears as other kids led their animals to market and then said their final goodbyes.
In the auction pen though, it can get intense, standing there with an animal that might weigh more than you do, while friends, family and neighbors watch and raise their paddles.
“It's exhilarating,” 13-year old Waller described. “But it's also nerve wracking at the same time, because you've put in so much time and effort into this project. You don't know how much you're going to make and if it's going to be all worth the while,” she said.
Hadley said you can find emotion in the stands, too.
“Last year, I paid a lot of money for an animal because of a grandfather bidding against me. But he's one of my really good customers, and it was worth every penny of it,” he said with a smile.
But that generosity isn’t a guarantee; several long-time 4H volunteers made sure that message was clear.
“If [the kids] don't do their job and feed the animal and, and get it broke, they won't be able to exhibit it,” Colyer said. “And so it's a good learning experience for these kids. It builds a real sense of responsibility, and that's what raising livestock, honestly, is all about.”
