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all right so welcome to the 4-h animal science series and if you are here to learn about marketing livestock in 2020 very interesting year then you are in the correct place before we begin I'm going to ask everyone to turn off their cameras as well as make sure they're muted this helps with the broadband speed as well as another important note these videos are recorded and posted on our 4-h YouTube channel so I just want to make sure that we protect everybody on on the call so without further ado just a couple housekeeping reminders again if you'll just be so kind as to stay muted throughout the presentation that would be fantastic as we go along if you have questions there the bottom of the screen if you kind of scroll over with your mouse or if you're on a phone just look for the chat box and if you type in those questions you would you can or if you have questions you can type them in there my name is Courtney steer wall and today I am joined by Miranda edge who is the AG and natural resources Extension educator in Harrison County so really close down south and Louisville down close to Louisville I should say so we were just talking earlier and she's about 25 minutes from there so we're we are glad that she could join us today to share with with us some of her knowledge miranda is quite active in the farmers market programs and hopefully will share with us some some tips and tricks to think about as we as we can to think about how we're going to market our 4-h animals so I'll turn it over to Miranda okay thanks Courtney and welcome thanks for stopping in today and I hope we can answer some questions unfortunately because it is a difficult year I may not be able to answer everybody's questions or give you the answers that you're looking for so be open-minded this year is probably my number one suggestion and we'll go through a few things that you probably do know already and maybe you'll learn a little bit about some different ideas and niche marketing ideas that we can give you to help you with completing your project this year and selling your livestock projects so I know you're probably just as frustrated as I am when it comes to figuring out how to sell these animals this year for your project it's not going to be easy you've probably found out that the processors are fairly booked up and the market prices are really low right now it's just not a great year unfortunately so we can look into some other ways to help maybe your fare has gone virtually and canceled the auction and maybe they've gone to a premium only auction or a virtual auction and these suggestions and ideas may help a little bit with those virtual and premium ox auction options and more to your advantage so we'll go through a few of those now in a normal 4h year your market species are the ones that you would nor would sell in a live auction this year may be of benefit to you if you've got breeding animals you don't normally participate in the auction and your fair does choose to do a premium option you might be able to offer those as a premium sale if you've never gone through that before premiums are usually more of a buyer or a bitter sponsoring that youth and their project and they do not collect on the animal with their purchase so that animal can go home with the 4-h err to do with please with your virtual and live auctions of course buyer has the option to send that animal back to the youth to a base bidder or take them themselves to be processed so those are options that we would normally see and this year you might be able to expand your marketing and even look into some different to bring into a premium option scenario that would help so remember all this year all livestock are going to be marketable you're normally gonna see your fat steers market steer market heifers rather and feeder calves but this year you may also be able to market those breeding heifers breeding gilts along with fat hogs breeding stock along with your feeder calves and fats tears for your dairy animals your breeding stock and goats and sheep might be an option and then for rabbits the you know rabbits and poultries are historically not as well or not as popular rather in our auctions but maybe this year they will be a good addition to your normal County auctions as a different species subsets that can be easily processed and used by your buyer okay so let's look at where options we've probably all know all of these but let's just go through them just in case there's somebody out there that doesn't know maybe we're a local option I went and did a little research and Indiana has several livestock auction barns across the state so you can see in Boswell Rockville Shipshewana Springville Logansport Vincennes little York Worthington and Rochester they all have some sort of an auction barn these guys are well represented within the county they work with many producers within each of your counties I'm sure in surrounding counties and would be a great local supporter if you're not already using them here in Harrison County we do work a lot with United producers because we have little you're close by and we also have an earning tinkin tucky barn that we can work with so that those people are our support staff they help with selling animals that we can't sell maybe those out hogs that can't go through the auction they have been bass bidders in the past which means if you've never used a base bidder that they create a bid on the market based on the market price for the animals and if your auction buyer does not want that animal they can send it back to the base bidder who will pay that market-based price that they have already bid and then your buyer at the auction pays whatever is above and beyond that amount so say we've got an hog that goes for five hundred dollars and the base bid was a hundred and fifty dollars the base bidder is going to pay that hundred and fifty dollars that buyer will pay everything else up to five hundred dollars so that the youth gets the entire amount the animal has a place to go and that youth is able to complete that year with some satisfaction and know that their animal has gone to the local food chain and has held some service you may also look into these livestock auctions look to help with your breeding animals this year we we're seeing better prices for our feeder calves and sometimes those premium options will bring a better price for maybe a group of open heifers or bred short bred heifers or if you've got any other breeding stock within sheep and goats first per se those may be some great options I would highly recommend contacting those livestock auction barns talking with the barn managers and seeing if they already have scheduled premium sales if they have good buyers and they feel like they could sell a set of feeder calves from your fair this may be a great year for some of those smaller animals or some of those non-traditional 4h auction animals that normally would just maybe go home with the youth so look into those do remember though that some of them will take that Commission on the top sometimes they'll pay it as part of support but look into those options and being good communication with those livestock and Barnes for some options with selling some of those animals if your livestock auction is not available it's just not gonna work of course we do have local processors and if anybody's already looked you know just as well as I do that most of them are booked up through in the next year several of them around here are booked in well into March of 2021 I've got one particular processor that has held a couple of spots for me here in Harrison County for some 4h animals but unfortunately most of the processors around them have been absolutely bombarded with local producers and have have no more spots available for these 4-h animals so look into those a little more if you are normally go to a state and federal inspected plant look into some of your deer processing facilities and things where you're able to go in a non inspected and and sell those as a freezer beef in whole animal form that means you might be able to sell the whole animal as a whole to a particular buyer or family or your particular family might be able to take that animal and bring it home yourself using those non inspected processor locations of course these are all going to be small-scale so if you're looking for a 4h group as a whole it may not be helpful but if you're on individual and looking to sell or process one species and that may be an option this year when you get to the state and federal inspected processors you're gonna be able to get into more of those specialty cuts which means you have that opportunity to sell at a roadside stand or in a farmers market so looking into that may also be an option looking to sell maybe at the farmers market in your local area one or two weekends this summer look maybe at offering not only your meat products but if you raised a garden for a gardening project you might be able to sell some of those to some different to your customers at a farmers market to help bring in those customers and keep them coming back for more of your product so your other option might be your private sales so not only as processing for me but you may also be able to sell as a private sale between a neighbor or another family member or somebody down the road looking to add a new heifer to their herd or you've got some feeder calves that they can take and raise to market weight and so those are some options but when you do that make sure you know your animal make sure you know what your market price is for that particular species you may want to go in to the deal understanding what your animals average daily gain was what kinds of inputs you have put in to feed that animal and care for that animal this whole time so that you know you're making at least a break even if not a profit that will be very hard this year knowing market prices are low it is important to look at that and understand that you may not be able to make a profit on your animal this year but go into that sale with that knowledge of what you have done and how you have handled this animal over the process of of your over the time period of its life whether that's from the time you purchased it or from the time it was born so go into a little bit more of how I've alluded to a little bit of this but maybe we'll go into some different suggestions and ideas so starting with those livestock auction barns you will start by loading up that animal dropping off the auction will take place they'll sell your animal and you'll get that check this is a pretty easy low stress option for you as the owner a lot of times like our local areas have a weekly sale for cattle so if you have a feeder calf or you have a steer that maybe isn't up to market weight yet this could be an option for you go in knowing what that market price may be that day your animal will be sold as a lot with other animals of its same size color and and possibly other traits and factors that the barn manager is looking for to create a whole load this does come with commission fees taken off the top so you will have a little bit of a reduced income coming back in that check you'll also have your checkoff money taken out automatically from that check so this is a quite an easy action option and as I said before you may also look into the premium options that might be available for bred animals or if you've got any other specialty animals that the premium options might be looking for you may be able to have those availabilities to sell a later date with a little bit more work using those local processors not only can you sell to a family member or to some of your other customers for freezer beef you may also be able to look into this program called Hoosiers feeding the hungry Hoosiers feeding the hungry is a donation of large game and livestock meat to a program called that they're calling meet the need program and this is to low income families and food banks to help support an increase in protein available where maybe they're not able to get that especially now with grocery stores increasing their prices on meat and even not having enough inventory of meat in the stores for them to purchase there are several local processors across the state that are serving this program and have signed up to support it you can go to this website Hoosier feeding the hungry org to look up the list of processors and find one that is closest to you talk to them about how to work the your animal into their processing timeline and and work with the group of Hoosier feeding the hungry to get that to a local food bank the program does sell or does pay the processing fee on a regular basis but if you've got an auction and you have a buyer or a bidder that's looking to purchase your animal ain't send this to a program like Hoosier feeding the hungry encourage them to help pay those support fees the processing fees and things so that more of these animals and more protein can get out to our low-income community and we can help out with that this is a really popular program for our deer population or deer hunters and so we would like to see an increase in this with our beef and hog meats if at all possible so that we can you know bring some more local foods to those local communities kind of a last option and a last resort that I would highly suggest you think about hard and for a while before you get into is at home processing now this really only would work for poultry the USDA has a rule where a thousand birds per farm per year can be processed without being inspected now that doesn't mean you can just go out back like grandma used to do and process in the backyard this is going to take a little bit more effort humane handling there's some guidelines on how to clean up different equipment to use and how to process those birds so you're not going to be cutting them up into quarters or specific cuts these will be sold whole they will must be sold frozen but it is an option that you could look into if you want more information about at-home processing for poultry you can give me an eat you send me an email and I can help you look up more information on how to make this work this is something that I do personally is some at home processing and we're looking into how to use this for our youth meat poultry projects for this year to maybe help support those those kiddos that need some assistance and also to give a little education on the continuation of the food chain and how how they are a part of that when you get into some other species rabbits have a similar requirement however you do need a Board of animal health permit to be able to process those animals and again be sold whole and frozen and vacuum packaged much like the poultry so so there are some stipulations and guidelines on those when you get into the larger animals number one a lot more meat to handle it's harder to process a large beef or a large hog unless you've got the facilities available you've got the clean floor area you've got a large enough table to process or you're able to them in a barn in an area where you reduce the amount of contamination possibilities and reduce pathogens you don't make yourself sick if you do choose at home processing for your animals please please please be sure to use those food regulations requirements and if you're going for those larger species only use that to feed your own family please I highly discourage you trying to do at home processing for your larger animals and only use those for these smaller animals where food loss have been put into place by the USDA and really and that's the end of this presentation I know there's probably several questions about this these are just some ideas and guidelines when you are looking to market those animals to your bidders look for different ideas and ways to get the information out there about your animals I did a little research across the state and I found a couple of programs in another state where they were doing marketing videos with their youth and one particular young lady did a wonderful YouTube video where she presented her 4-h projects for the year had them all cleaned up set out in a line and she explained them and gave reasons about her projects and then in particular she was selling a market steer in her project and so she went through what his weight was and what the carcass information was from the carcass scanning project and all of those different details that she learned from her project and she used that education and what she had learned this year to help market that animal hopefully to a bitter that would be interested in purchasing in that animal whether that would be a virtual auction through a premium auction or a live auction and so with that please let me know if you've got other great ideas to share and Courtney I'll let you help me bring up questions because I'm not seeing the chat box at all alright so um again thank you um someone asked about this survey so there's a survey on the screen to let your counties know that you're here I'll post the link in the chat box here in a minute um but remember can you kind of explain the process of getting selling meat at a farmers market in particular sure most of the meat sold at a farmers market are going to be at least state inspected if not federally or USDA inspected that is an absolute requirement the other major requirement for selling meat at a farmers market is they must be sold frozen so looking into those possibilities your local processors are quite booked up right now and if you were lucky to get a scheduled appointment you're you're already ahead of the game when you get that appointment and you're able to process that animal you can ask for special cuts yourself and those will be packaged individually with weights and you'll have to have some sort of a farm tag that can either be put in the bag or placed on the bag after the meat product has been processed this will include you know your your information about your farm your name how to get a hold of you the amount of product in the bag by ounce or pounds and then it'll have a an inspector seal that will go on that bag as well there's sometimes extra permitting required through your local health department here in Harrison County as long as the labeling is on the package correctly it's sold frozen we don't have an extra local permit but I know there are some counties that require a food handling permit to sell at a farmers market so it's something to look into with your health department and and just having those kept in a freezer the farm that are selling at our farmers market right now we've got somebody selling pork another one's selling beef and then I've got another one selling chicken and so they've kind of each got their own system but they all have freezers and we have them back straight into the market booth and plug them in as soon as they pull in and so the only time that those products are potentially at a not plugged in in a freezer would be their trip from the farm to the market and that's a pretty important thing is keeping those products frozen if they start to thaw out that that can cause some issues with contamination so those are those are some kind of things that that they work with here in our County great another question is just suggestions for how to market your 4-h animal to an individual that might be purchasing it so really like a marketing plan for for sharing that look what kind of tips would you have or buzzwords for resources to to sell under that that kind of thing still like a private treaty I guess if I had an animal I had a steer that I wanted to sell to someone in my community let's say I have an appointment what what would you suggest the best method for that be and would it be better to sell the animal as a whole or as different you know different cuts of meat what what suggest Wow okay so if you've already got that appointment make sure you understand if the processor is a federally inspected or a state inspected processor versus non inspected that's gonna make a big difference on how you market that here in Harrison County we do not have an inspected processor but in surrounding counties we do have a couple of state inspected and a federally inspected processor so depending on where you get that mint is where you'll be able to either sell it as a whole live animal in a non inspected processor or buy retail cuts in a inspected facility when you're trying to market that to a local person the buzzwords that I like to use our local fresh humanely handled there there's several buzzwords that are popular right now as far as labeling so if you think about when you walk through the grocery store the buzzwords that come out and people like to grab for our local fresh high-quality premium you're not going to be able to grade that animal ahead of the the process before it's hung so it's going to be hard to say it's a prime or a choice grade cut but you can you can possibly if you were able to do a carcass scan as part of your project give the details of your ribeye areas and your back fat thickness as scanned by that project if that's not a possibility and you're trying to sell this animal as a whole giving pictures showing a total weight of that animal or approximate weight at the time of slaughter would be a very rather not slaughter but harvest use the word harvest over slaughter that's a lot simpler I guess - it's a nicer way to say processed and let's see what's what other things when you are assisting people with purchasing that animal know approximately the yield that they would get off that animal with cattle it's about 56 to 60 percent of the total live weight when you get into hogs you can get 65% of the total live weight and so if you got an idea of how much that would be that's going to be a big question that most people will ask when looking to purchase whether it's a quarter half or whole animal how much meat are they actually going to get the other thing you might want to research and it's not too hard to find is how much space do I need in my freezer to put that kind of meat away some people would don't expect the amount of meat back on half a hog and may find that they don't have a big enough freezer so looking into some of those numbers looking into the input of total weight an estimated market price so that you can make a fair deal and make it economical for that buyer to also purchase from you privately alright awesome and that is another point that I hadn't really thought about this past weekend I was talking to some individuals and to be able to purchase an upright freezer is also very hard at this moment so a lot of people because of the current state of affairs and Kovach 19 have been doing a lot of locally sourcing of their meat or stocking up as we know we've told at paper and paper towel and I guess even me so keep in mind if you're in the market to Maya freezer if you're selling your animal to someone that is looking for one they might want to secure that sooner rather than later especially as we move into the summer months when people are amped up to have their barbecues and popsicles and lots of frozen foods on hand a 1 I think probably last question that I'm seeing here miranda is in a normal year let's say you want to locally market your animal to someone in your community or surrounding how about how far in advance would you recommend doing that honestly if you've got local businesses that would normally support an auction or support the 4-h program they're going to start getting excited about purchasing and sponsoring in January that's usually when they start their budget when they know how much money they have available to spend in marketing and nations and support and so starting as early as January might be a good idea to at least get them on your radar to say hey I want to let you know I have chosen to take a beef project this year with a 4-h project and I do expect to sell a market steer and if you would like to support me please know that our fair will be on July 18th and our auction our show will be on July 18th and the auction will be the very next day or whatever those dates are but getting those dates on their calendar that early I know in our County we like to try to send out letters to sponsors or have the how do you send them out approximately two months before our fair to again remind them these are the dates and here are a couple of Tet passes to the fair and that's something you might be able to work out with your 4-h council to offer so I don't think it's too early to start that in like in the January time frame when they're starting to look at where they're going to spend their money absolutely and always always make sure that you think even if even if you're just selling it to the neighbor for their personal freezer I would always make sure that you thank them for purchasing your animal and hopefully there'll be a wreath repeat customer because they like the product but a little thank-you goes a long way for sure absolutely so in the chat box I have shared the survey I know some of your counties are looking to see or who's checking out our weekly session so feel free to copy that down at this time I also just want to thank Miranda for taking the time this afternoon to to kind of give us a four one one on on marketing livestock in Indiana of this current state of state at this current time we really appreciate it it is a it's a tough subject this year but keep in mind hopefully some of the everything everything will improve and everything will go up I'm quite sure it's just a matter of getting through this year if you ever are struggling to figure out where you're going to market that animal field to reach out and let us try to help you figure out what we can do to assist you in the process one thing is just to be persistent and we provided the map on this presentation that will be shared through the recording on our Indiana 4-h YouTube channel and that map does have a list of local processor processors and I would encourage you to call it might be a little further than you're used to driving but it might also mean that you're you have a location because those are a little bit more challenging to come by at this time so next week we hope you'll join us where you're going to actually as a part of the 4-h Academy we are going to start our discussion on animal science careers so I'm super excited to have buried Elks as well as a Elizabeth Byers Doulton join us next week to talk about what kinds of careers through the Purdue Purdue College of Ag specifically the animal science department are out there for you so we hope you'll check that out especially if you're in grades nine through 12 it should be a wonderful discussion and we look forward to seeing you next week we hope you're staying safe over these next few days please make sure you drink water it's supposed to be a hot one and as good animal stewards make sure animals are staying hydrated and happy as well so we thank you and again we hope to see you next week and please pop over and click on that survey when you get the chance thank you thank you