Assignment 7A

1. The opportunity that I picked is limited show livestock feeds.

2. 4-H and FFA members, as well as their parents, across the state of Florida find it difficult to find a feed for their show animals that is a complete ration, readily available and has a low enough price to make it feasible because there are so few options to choose from.

The who: 4-H and FFA members and their parents in Florida
The what: They have a hard time finding a livestock feed for their show animals that is a complete ration, readily available and has a low enough cost to make it feasible
The why: There are so few options to choose from.

3. My hypothesis is listed above.

4. a. The first person that I interviewed was Kyle Carlton. An FFA advisor and father of three daughters that have all shown hogs at one point, he has a strong background in the area. He explained to me that prices of the hog feeds has fluctuated throughout the years. Several years ago, he remembers them going up about 50% over their past normal value, and the following year they were down about 20% lower than their normal value. Other than that, they have remained steadily rising at a rate similar to what he expects inflation to be. For him, he has come to expect the prices of the feeds and does not struggle to find a good feed. He knows what he is getting into every year when his youngest daughter, the only one who is still showing, gets ready for her pigs to come in. He did explain, however, that for the first several years he could not get over how expensive the 'good feeds' were and thought that it was something that was a bit ridiculous.

b. Next, I interviewed Laura Lee Taylor. She is the mother of two children, one of which is able to show animals. Her daughter did her first market steer this past year. As someone who has been involved in producing beef cattle her entire life, Taylor knew before the steer project got underway things such as about how much feed would be needed and she had a general idea on the supplements that the steer would need in order for it to finish out well enough. What she did not foresee, however, was the price of these things. She explained that she remembers show quality feeds being no more than a couple of dollars more expensive than standard feeds when she was in school. Now, they are nearly double the value of those standard feeds. Using her experience and background, she was able to find the best feed-price ratio that she could establish and selected her feeding plan based on that, but she was clear that if she did not have a solid understanding of the importance of a show feed for the steer going in that she would have definitely gotten a regular ration instead.

c. I interviewed Maddie Dvorak, a senior at Kathleen High School. When asked her opinions on the availability of feed options that she has for her show hogs, she gave a burst of laughter and asked what options I was referring to. She then explained something that I knew from my own experiences there are essentially two companies that make show hog feeds that are available in Florida, and on a good year the cheaper of those types of feed sells for upwards of $20 a bag. She felt that the burden relates more to her than her parents, but she also said she knows some of her friends that their parents pay for the feed and therefore feel the burden more than the students. For Dvorak, however, the issue is definitely the price of the feeds that are available.

d. I interviewed Dale Locke, a cattle breeder as well as father and grandfather. When asked the challenges that he faces with his cattle now that he is producing them for grandchildren rather than just his children, he was quick to point towards the feed costs. When his sons were showing, he was able to afford all of the cattle that they could handle. Feeds were much more inexpensive back then, he explained. Now, there are many different options of 'livestock' or 'all-stock' feeds that are fine for people who are producing cattle for the market, but are useless for someone raising show cattle. Shuffling through these market feeds versus the show feeds is something that he says he has spent a great amount of time doing and must continue to do in order to determine what to use each time he weans a new set of calves.

e. I interviewed Payge Nichols, a middle school student who has shown hogs, steers, heifers and bulls. With regards to the hogs, she expresses the same concern as Dvorak, saying that she would continue doing hogs every year if the cost was not so much to feed them, and she is someone who admits to her parents paying for her feed. In terms of the cattle, however, she walked me through the process of mixing different types of feeds together in order to make the ration that she feeds the cattle complete. Rather than giving one type of feed, there are three feeds and at least three supplements that each of her animals receive every day. When asked if she would rather simply give one feed to her animals and not have to mix everything together to feed them, she replied with an emphatic yes and said that it would literally save her an hour per feeding, per day, if she did not have to mix the feeds for each animal.

5. I learned that there are different opportunities for different types of livestock. For hogs, the main issue seems to be lack of competition between providers, with two companies seemingly dominating the market and therefore controlling the prices between them. For cattle, the availability of different options is high, but the prices are high as well and the goal of a complete ration appears to be something that is lost to some.