By Kinsey Bitterman
Taking the time to think about, discuss, and write down your show season’s budget and goals is a
great way to start the year. Understanding these things is helpful when deciding things like
animal inventory and knowing what you want to learn from the show season.
Let’s begin with show season goals. This project takes a lot of patience, money, and time and
setting goals are important when trying to balance these things with the other parts of everyday
life. Setting goals is a good way to understand what you want to learn from the season and are
good ways to stay motivated. A few goals you could set could be regarding your performance at
your county fair, jackpot shows, state fairs, nationwide shows, etc. These goals could be similar
but they do not have to be the same. For example, you could say that your goal this show season
is to place at least in the top five in showmanship at every jackpot show you go to but you want
to win grand champion showman at your county fair. Another thing you could do is even have
different goals for each one of your livestock animals. While creating goals keep in mind your
budget when working towards them.
On that note, discussing the show season budget is important when evaluating the price of feed,
bedding, other equipment, and the price of livestock. When these things are taken into account, it
will help give you a more clear idea of how many animals you can actually afford to take care of
a raise to the standards of your goals.
