Jovie Wirt and her family have been busy the last few weeks and will continue to be busy with sheep sales, sheep shows, and pig shows. With all of this and planning their own livestock show, the Wirt’s continue to have a busy summer. Continue reading to learn how they get through the busy stock show season.
Busy Schedules
The last 2 weeks have been busy around Wirt Farms. Last week my family went to Sedalia, MO for a breeding sheep show and sale. I have included a few pictures of us showing our Southdown sheep and then getting them ready for the sale.
When we returned home, we started focusing more on getting our 4-H animals trained for their next show. We weigh our lambs and pigs a couple of times a week to see how they are growing. If they are growing too slowly or too quickly, we can adjust their feeding plan.
Putting on the Throwdown
We are showing a few Southdown lambs again this weekend at the Great Plains Junior Breeding Sheep Show which is held at the fairgrounds in Sioux Falls. Next weekend, Emerson and I will show some of our pigs for the first time at a show my parents started four years ago called the Turner County Throwdown. We are lucky to attend a lot of youth livestock shows that are held around South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. These shows take a lot of work to plan and to put on.
The Turner County Throwdown has grown and now includes opportunities to show breeding gilts, market swine, breeding ewes, market lambs, breeding does, and market goats. A committee made of local 4-H parents helps find show sponsors and then helps with registration and coordinating the show ring on the day of the show. Since our parents are busy on the day of the show, Emerson and I will show fewer animals that day and will get our animals ready 
by ourselves.
Excitement to Come
Next time I will talk more about how we exercise and feed our animals over the summer to make sure they are healthy and growing. We have many more livestock shows in July to prepare for!