Have a Plan: Selecting Your First Show Animal & Surviving Your First Live Sale

Do you have any deer mounts in your house anymore?

No. Do you hunt? I did like a lot whenever I was in high school, but Carla always had the biggest mounts. So, you know, like, just kinda like

Feel inadequate? Uh-huh.

Okay, we're back on our second episode of The Drench Line. So first one, we made it through. All good. Introduced ourself, kind of gave everybody maybe a little bit of a slight insight, I believe the term is teasers, into what this week's episode was going to be like, but wanted to break down or maybe go a little more in detail with what it's like picking out your projects, picking out a sheep or a goat for your kid as a stock show dad, what that looks like for us, but also as breeders, what it looks like to help some of those families and maybe some of the questions that we get asked and kind of what that looks like. We're obviously right in the middle of spring, sales season is just in full fledge, everyone's running 90 to nothing, you know, trying to find the next great one, the one that's going to win the big one.

What are some of those questions that you get asked or what does that look like whenever someone shows up to Silvers livestock to buy them a show project? Yeah, so

you know, the number one question we get is, I think first and foremost, and I don't mean to bring this up because this is a really hot topic and something we talk about all the time, but probably the first question I always get is what are your price ranges? And I hate to start with that question, but that's the number one question we always get is, A, do you have sheep available? B, what's your price range? And I know your operations a lot like ours too. We try to accommodate every budget.

So I tell them, you know, it can range anywhere from $500 to, you know, 20,000. It just depends, right? But that's probably the number one question I get. But then I usually try to follow that up with a question and my question is, well what is your goal? What is your goal here?

Is it an easily obtainable goal or are you telling me you want to go win grand champion at Houston and spend $650? That's probably not going to happen, right?

Right. So that's the same way. I mean, you know, we always feel like it's important to have dialogue with those customers and I think I probably get the question of what are your price ranges a lot. For some reason, we get a lot of specific questions on breeds. Do you sell Southdowns?

Do you sell fine wools? You know, like very, very specific. So like those families obviously have something in mind that, you know, as to what they want or what they're trying to find or what they're trying to locate, So we get that a lot, and I think exactly what you said. We try to follow that up with some sort of question, some sort of dialogue of, okay, what are you trying to achieve? Where are you showing?

Do you know who the judge is? You know, just kind of some interaction and you know, after we kind of, you know, maybe accomplish that. We're in the day and the time of. Internet sales. Online sales is a huge deal.

It has been for a while. It's not going away, but I do think there's a lot of families, especially maybe those that are starting off early on, that can benefit so much from going to the farm, looking through pens and pens of sheep, almost to the point that they're so confused, but just to the point of having dialogue and having interaction back and forth of, okay, can this kid show? Is this his first time? Is he very good? I mean, talking about some of the things that do really, really matter when it gets down to it, or hey, are they just, I mean, just as novice that can get and they're just trying to start off and learn?

And so we try to get as many of those families to come look at the house, talk through options, come to a live sale that maybe we're having, you know, and just kind of see what they're really wanting to accomplish. Again, you hit on it, and we tell them, and like we're very black and white with the customers that come to the house. You're probably not going to buy the Grandet Houston for $650 Like, that's just being real with it. But I always tell all of our families that buy sheep, you got to make the sale before you can win a class. You got to win a class before you can win a show.

And so like, that's always our step. You consistently start making the sale. There's probably a chance that you might start winning some classes, and then it kind of becomes a domino effect. And we talk about that a lot with some of our new families, just what happens once that first domino falls and how it seems like things, they don't get easier, but you start remembering what it took to get there and it seems like things fall into line. Yep,

100%. So then it goes into, I guess the question is what do we look for? What is that? And there's so many variables in that, right? Where do you want to show?

What time of year are you going to show? Do you need a young lamb? Do you need an old lamb? But I think if we just take all that away to me, and everybody sets their preference different, but to me, and you said it on the phone the other day, and you said it earlier when we were looking at sheep, so I think we agree on that. Even though we look at stock differently, we still put our priorities.

The number one priority to me is muscle. Especially for the state that we live in and the shows that we're at, like muscle just has to be your number one priority, think.

Sure. Yeah. Well, and that's the deal, you know, and I think that like sometimes whenever you get those families in and they don't even know where to start, you know, and that's always like to me, that's fun because you do get an opportunity to be educational with it and say, Okay, this is why. Now, we've all been there. There's times, you know, whenever you're sitting there and you've been in the mix of selling, you know, and maybe you've had a long day or whatever, and you know, you almost kind of think like, Man, these people really are asking this question, and this is just being, you know, honest, like, but there's so many of those families, and I think it's even more like, I feel like we're at a great spot in the sheep and the goat world right now, and this might be true for other species.

We've got kids showing that parents didn't. Yeah, and you know, maybe the parents grew up in town. Maybe they didn't, but for whatever reason they weren't actively involved and where even whenever we were growing up, you know, it was probably more of a rule activity and you know, we've got kids in Houston and San Antonio and you know, very much in a more of a city type lifestyle that have at, you know, magnet schools with with great Ag facilities and just all the different opportunities that that can offer. But they're coming and they're, you know, they're wanting to learn and they're wanting to compete and they're wanting to get better, and so they're asking these questions, and so you just kind of have to sit back and say, Okay, at some point somebody taught me this, so I'm going to try to, you know, relate it to them as best as I can, and then hopefully by the time we're all said and done and we get through these five pens of baby lambs, then we can kind of come up with what might work best for them. No question that anyone asks is and remember, I have Cub, the three year old, so I'm used to all the questions.

There's no question, you know, that is off the table. So whenever you're dealing with, and I joke with one of our families that, you know, he's the man, the yellow hat, and Cub is Curious George because they both ask questions, and then whenever I give them an answer, they ask why, and then I give them an answer, and they ask why, and he's going to know whenever I'm, you know, talking about this, that I'm referring to him, and we always joke about it, but I always tell him, very few people are asking why. If I say, hey, that one looks like to me that he fits a lightweight at San Antonio and he fits your kid and so and so's judging, then they just say, Okay, that sounds good. Logan said so. Which is great because, you know, it is nice that they do have enough faith in our program, but this particular person would always say, Well, why does he fit my kid?

Or Why does he fit? Why do you think he's only going to be alive? And so then we start diving deeper into that, and the unique part about that is that's always the families that are going to be really successful someday because they're going to ask those questions of why, and then they're going to, you know, retain it, and then it's just going to become a deal of, you know, the next time they might not have to ask you as many questions, and they're going to continue and get better, and that's what, you know, at the end of the day, like we want to be able to, you know, pass that information on and, you know, the mistakes that we made and what we've learned. But I think that's probably the, you know, the thing that I always resonate with is like, no, no, no questions bad. Some of them might sound dumb at the time, but at the end of the day,

there's no question. Yeah, and I think you know as we get in like the heat of the battle and we probably deal with hundreds of questions a week, right? Is whatever we are show dads helpers educators whatever you want to call it. I'm not going to use the word jock Ask Jeeves. Ask Jeeves?

Yeah. You remember Ask Jeeves where you could just It's like AOL or something? Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah.

It's not. Sometimes we get frustrated with all the questions, right? I know many people have a concert. We'll have a call or we'll be at a stock show and we'll go off somewhere and have a drink or something just to get away and get a breather. But we have to pause and realize that the questions that we get, it's from people that are just wanting to learn and they they want just to know.

I think we have to, you know, as a fault to me sometimes is I have to have more patience with that. I think the older I get, the more patience I have with that, right?

Well, and I think the deal is is like we were both in an extension role where we just knew how to help some of those families. We both had grown up around people that we asked those questions to at some point, had great FFA programs, had great county agents, you know, that helped mold, and you know, some of those questions that almost are so just come like that you don't even think as you do it. I mean, it's kind of even some of the things that I think you just go through on a day to day, and I was kind of talking about my coffee thoughts. Like, that's what I've tried to put on there is like, I mean, some of the stuff is just so remedial, but it's even things that like as I do it, I'm kind of like, well, I do this just out of habit because that's what I know I'm supposed to do. But like even, I've noticed it a little bit now, Graham is starting to do some of those things.

You know, I don't have to tell him, so, but at some point he would have asked, you know, hey, why are we doing this? Or why, you know, of course it's always, why are we doing this? You know, but like there's that point that now it's just becoming a thing. Like that's what we do. That's what we do, and you know, maybe some of those families weren't fortunate enough to have someone in whatever that role looks like, breeder, educator, whatever it looks like, that they could bounce those ideas off or just sit and learn physically watching them as to why they did it.

So that's, you know, lucky or unlucky. They come to us

as that source of information. All in all in the selection deal, would say, you know, muscle is important, right? Obviously structure is important, but I think ask those questions is probably to me is really important because I like most breeders out there are going to be honest about their stock. If you'll just ask those questions, they can help you navigate selecting the right project, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Mean, think all of us want our animals and livestock, no matter what you raise, to go and be successful. Sure. That's a repeat customer. That's new customer and potentially new business.

There isn't a single person that's raising stock that thinks, man, I really don't care how this one does when he leaves here. And if so, definitely aren't going to make it very long in this business. We all want those animals to leave and be successful, and so, you know, in turn, getting them into the right homes or getting those families the right one, I think, becomes that much more critical, and I think that, you know, just from the physical characteristics of buying that sheep or goat are as important, like we've talked about with muscle and the things that still at the end of the day drive the industry, I think the biggest thing that we are still focusing on is what is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish? And if your goal is to win your seven head county show in October, that might be a different animal than I want to go and be in class 10 at San Antonio and be in the top five.

Yeah. And so there's so much dialogue back and forth that has to be, okay, well, you know, are you jackpotting? Are you showing? What's your exercise program? You know, all the things that we, again, just think about that come so naturally to us, you know, I would love to be playing at Augusta right now.

At some point

maybe it was the treadmill. Is that where the Masters is?

That is where the Masters is, but you know, at some point there, I must have not had a good conversation with my golf coach, and maybe I didn't tell him the goal. Maybe that's all it was.

It probably was, yeah.

I should have just told him, and I feel like sometimes people come I remember whenever we were first getting started out, and the guy said, I want one of those H trophies. Don't we all? Yeah. He had never shown before. Now, great goal.

Goals are important. Like, that

was a huge deal, but Let's win our county. You know, let's see what that looks like leading up to that instead of and I think and I think too, if anything you show in the in the livestock show world, whether it's pigs or cattle or sheep or goats or whatever. If you're a competitor by nature, then you're going to be successful, right? Sure. And that's where we, you know, like I love to fish and like want a 30 inches trout.

That's my goal, right? So if I'm not doing cheap, am watching YouTube videos and I am asking people when we go to the coast, that's just my mentality, right? I want to be successful. If we put a checkerboard down here, me and you are probably going to damn near get in a fist fight over it because we're just competitive people.

Yeah. How do you think I have to back this up a little. How do you think that works being a competitive fisherman and a competitive stock show dad? How do you manage that?

Well, I wouldn't say that I'm a competitive fisherman. Would like to be a competitive fisherman.

There's a difference. There's a difference there. Yeah. Do you think like a fish whenever you're on the water?

I try. I really do. Okay. I really do.

Somebody told me that I'm the worst fisherman. At some point, you know, I really thought that I would get invited to go on your boat, but you must have got the memo that I'm not. Oh, boy.

You sound like somebody.

A good fisherman. Okay, back to the live sale. What it looks like, yeah, we got to stay on task. What it looks like to be prepared as a buyer for your first live sale. So I think this is an interesting topic, and we had our first live sale that we hosted as far as Newsom Livestock goes last May.

Transportation. We call it the eight zero six Live, and I was terrified to do it. As most people that have ever put on a live sale, from a seller standpoint, the anxiety is real. Will people show up? Will they eat like my animals?

Will they get a buyer's number? Like, you know, all of the things that are, you know, going through your head at that point. But we talked about the online business and how that has basically taken over the buyer's platform for the better part of what, ten, twelve, fifteen years maybe?

Yeah.

Whenever we did the eight zero six Live Sale last May, the thing that I was the most worried about from a seller standpoint, and I know that we're going to talk about, you know, what it looks like from a buyer standpoint, I was worried that people weren't going to be able to bid fast enough because they were so used to the online platform. Bid, get three to five minutes to think about what I'm doing. Bid, you know, things refresh. And these sales go on from, you know, seven p. M.

Till That's some really in-depth thinking.

I was terrified. You must have been terrified.

Really. But I was thinking about a lot of our customers, like these guys have never bought at a live sale. Like they didn't, and again, we're talking about, you know, some of those families that didn't grow up showing, have young kids that are starting. They're just used to buying online. I'm going to bid.

I'm going to go make a sandwich. I'm going to bid, you know, whatever the case may be. But like these things can drag out for so long. Or they go to pay

and thought they bought a $1,400 sheet. It was a $14,000 I've heard stories of that. Been there.

But there's so much of that, and that was the thing that I was the most terrified about it from a seller standpoint. Now, I know we're talking about, you know, what it looks like from a buyer standpoint, but I think that kind of can resonate, like, when you go to a live sale, you better have a plan. We love to go and look at those things beforehand, as opposed to, you know, maybe just showing up thirty minutes before the sale starts. If they have a preview the morning of, the night before, we like to try to hit those. I mean, I've got notes in my phone since twenty sixteen of animals that I've bought, and I've always looked back at, you know, at the end of stock show season on some of them, like, what was I thinking?

Why did I buy that one? Or, you know, you see one that won that you were maybe bid on for a little while, and then you let him go, and you're like, I would have liked to have had that one. But I think the biggest thing when you're going to a live sale as a buyer is you better have a plan in place because when Titus starts firing, that stuff goes fast. Fast,

yeah. I would say have your plan, have your budget in mind, right, so that you get into the moment and spend more than you need to. And we've all done that. We've made those mistakes, right? And we get down and we're driving home, we're like, Gee, how am I going to pay for this thing, right?

Yep. So I would say, yeah, have your budget, have your plan in place. I know it sounds minuscule, but transportation, you're going to need a cage or a trailer or some way to haul that animal home. You would be surprised at the amount of folks that don't realize that because when that sells over, they're going to want you get them home. And then I don't know, we want to start them like just pre protocol when that animal and we do things different, but you know, would say at the minimum, you know, I'm going to CD and T those things as soon as they get home.

I'm probably going to reworm them.

Sure.

Re vac them. I'll more than likely give them some kind of antibiotic, Neuflor, Baytril, something like that, and some kind of coccidia regiment in place.

I think that kind of goes, I was thinking about it as you were saying that, you know, and like we have a plan, have transportation, definitely have your budget. Geez, we've all been there, done that multiple times. Probably going to do it again. Probably a sale coming up in the next little bit I'm going to do it at. But I think the other thing, and I know it can be a little bit intimidating, but I think if there's an opportunity, if you can see an opportunity to visit with that breeder, if that is one of the animals you're going try to buy, you better take advantage of that.

Like jump in there, ask him a few quick questions, maybe, Hey, what do you think about this thing? What's his mom done? This is what we're looking for. Do you think he fits? And you know, we talked about it before, like if we're sitting here and, you know, we're getting ready, you've got your cell coming up here on Monday, if you've got a guy that comes in and looks at the cute little lot 30 sheep that I like and says, Hey, I want to go win my county show.

It's the first week in August, and typically they need to be one hundred and fifty pounds. You're probably going to tell him that ain't the one dude. Like, that's not the one. Like there's other ones in here, but you know, that goes back to kind of like those guys are going to be honest with you. They're going to tell you.

So tell them, you know, ask those questions and like, and again, I know it can be, we've all been there. Cells get crowded, breeders are talking. Maybe you don't know them. Maybe it's first time. Walk up, introduce yourself.

Hey, I just got a couple of quick questions. We're interested in your lot. We're going to talk to you. We're going to tell you what we think. We're going try to help you out.

We're going to give you some insight. Hey, this is kind of where I think that thing fits. His mom did this. That buck's done that. Like, just a little bit of backstory, and I think that can help so much.

And then, you know, kind of hitting on what you talked about, if you do end up with that, you know, the

one that you got. And I still, to this day, I mean, you know, we talk about your sheep and, you know, me purchasing a sheep from you. I still ask the breeders, Hey, which ones do you like? Because they see those things on a daily basis. When you're out there spending two hours watering all the jugs or feeding everything, you and I both probably sit out the barn and look over the fence at those things and study them.

We look at their mom over there. The breeders are going

to know more about that animal than you probably will ever know. Especially what you've seen in that forty five minutes, or you know, the five minutes it was on the preview, you know, the night before, and then, you know, the forty five minutes you've sat and looked at it in the pen. I mean, yeah, like you said, those things have, I mean, guys have seen those things since the day they were in the jug. I mean, literally pulled them out of the,

you That's know, what we get later on a lot of times. Somebody will be like, Where the hell was that thing when I was there? Well, he was the skinny one over there in the Yeah,

so we, you know, I guess we can talk about, you know, we're here, you know, in Junction filming this and just got done doing the live preview for Sam Sil that he's got on Monday with NextGen, and you know, what a great opportunity, I thought, and I know that we do this, I know live sales do it, but the preview, I think, is so critical. And I thought that how we did it today, and we joke, you know, because we sit up there and yak at each other, you know, the whole time whenever it was me and you and Chance, but like having an unbiased, different set of eyes look at an animal and then offer your customers that sort of information, I think it's such a good deal. You know, I've just today was the first day. I mean, I know I kicked through them a little bit whenever we came through, you know, the last time, but like, I just went through and I just made my big highlight points. Like I just put on my notes with each slot.

These are the things that I like. These are maybe one or two things that I want to, you know, watch, or these are my concerns. And I think that's so refreshing from a customer standpoint to maybe hear it. You know, I think it's probably something like we joke about, you know, like, can tell my kid how to show, and then all of a sudden, like, Cooper Newsom tells him the exact same thing that I've been screaming at him in the yard for like three weeks, and all of sudden it's like,

Wow, yeah.

I've never heard that before, and I think it's the same thing. Like, it can be true with like customers is you've been saying those things, but then, like, somebody else says it, and it just feels, oh, well, you know, that's Sam. He's in sales mode. Like, it's spring. He's got to sell sheep.

And so all of sudden it comes from somebody that has no interest, whether they buy them or not. You know, a few of them, I kind of hope they don't bid on because I'll probably try to buy them, but I think it just gives a whole new fresh set of perspective, and think that's such a neat deal that honestly we don't do it enough. I was talking to Titus after it was over like, I want to do that with as many of our, you know, sales and opportunities as we can, like, and we've got these live sales that were coming up. You know, we do the eight zero six deal. I know Chance has his, Does you know, high

that mean you're going to let me commentate the 8 zero six?

Probably so. I mean, I'm going to have to make a trade off. Mean, like, y'all gave me a mic in the World Wide Web, and you know, I mean, I poked a little fun, but like I was pretty nice today. No, you weren't. But like that gives us, you know, it gives those people such an opportunity to listen to it from someone else's perspective, and maybe they, you know, and maybe you also, like we were talking about, I was giving you hell about the Lot 10 sheep.

Like, thought I that was kind of a neat little lighter weight sheep. That one wasn't maybe on your radar. Maybe it wasn't on some of those other guys' radar, and then all of a sudden it's like,

hey,

damn. Pretty good. Yeah. So I think that that's a neat way that we can continue, and you know, we're talking about it, educate, offer input. It's full transparency here.

Like I mean, I sit up there and one of my favorite sheep. I told everybody how good I thought he was. I'm going to try to buy him on Monday. That's probably not the best move. Maybe I should have thought through that a bit better.

Well, you know, if you wait till Monday, you're in trouble.

Is it sell Sunday? The sell's Tuesday. Oh, so I'm fine. Yeah. You've got plenty of time.

I'm always punctual and early. Yeah.

Little does the audience know. They probably know I I think I like I really want to talk about. It's going to be controversial, but I want to talk about the prices of these sheep and let. Let the public know why they're so expensive. I don't think that maybe that sometimes the general public realizes what all goes into this to make a good lamb.

I would

agree Or go. With Yeah, would agree with that. Sheep world, go world, you know, very similar. What all goes into it and how many times we strike out? Yeah.

Like, you know, I joke all the time, you know, if you bat three fifty, like that'll get you in the Hall of Fame. Sometimes I feel like if we can just bat three fifty on this, we are doing so good. And not only from the things that we're trying from a breeding perspective, IVF work, flush work, AIs, sometimes it doesn't work. The best buck bred to the best you. Hot take doesn't always work.

Like, and so, you know, we're sitting here and we put all this effort, money, time into this, and then, you know, you get a bus there, and so I think that that's a great, you know, teaser for some of the episodes to come of why the price, you know, can reflect what we have in it. I think you can also spin that a little bit with just because they're the high dollar one doesn't mean they're the best one. No. You've got to have an imagination. Again, going back to some of those things, you know, you've got to ask the right questions.

You've to think about what you want to do, like, and, you know, I talked about it as we, you know, introduced ourselves. I grew up with, you know, parents in public education. Papa K is notorious. Like, he would dig around and find, you know, some big fat cross that probably had like three inches of tail, you know, that nobody else wanted. We'd go home, track the hell out of him, do two tail jobs on him, and you know, come out of there with something.

And I think that that's probably still even in today's world, like with my kids, like I'm still that way. Still like dig around and try to

find one that I will say something about Logan Newsom. He will not give up

on I won't give up. An

will not give up on an animal.

If I if I bought him, I'm too hard headed and I just if

y'all would have seen the cross at Fort Worth. I mean earlier in the year. Bless him. That was one of ours and I appreciate you winning with it and doing good, making him look good, but then I don't know when was that September

Bad infected tail job Yeah, went September. Everybody else would have went

I think everybody else did tell you to

hold They did, this, so yeah. Both breeders said, Oh, well, you know, we're just done. I mean, obviously, Prep just was beside himself when he saw it. Oh yeah. And you know, the time I was never getting another good one, and it was going to be the end of Joe's crossbred showing career.

I might as well, you know, find

her hair sheep after that, but. Hot take. Don't give up on your project. We don't. We do not give up on them.

So yeah, well, that's some of

the teasers, you know, that we want to try to kind of bring, you know, hopefully shed light on, bring information to guys that maybe, you know, might be interested in it. Hit like, subscribe, share, post, all the good stuff, all social media platforms. And if you've got any tidbits or questions or concerns or things that you might like to see us visit about or even people that you might want to see on the show, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.