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Eastern NE KS | Meet Herkimer, my 3/4 Simmi-1/4 Angus steer at the Kansas Junior Livestock Show. The time was October 1975, 50 years ago.
That was a year of chaos for our family but a very helpful neighbor family came to our aid. And feeding Herkimer at their place when we lost ours was a big all-summer-into-fall favor.
Unfortunately, Herkimer developed a bloat habit that they managed by haltering and tying him away from feed. I really don't know how often he bloated. He was miles away from the grass I rented to run 130 steers for the summer.
Herkimer was before his time. He weighed 1375 at show weigh-in. He was one of the bigger steers and placed 3rd in the heavyweight crossbred class of around 40 . Pretty good for the number of calves in the ring but not good enough for the crossbred champion round. The judge was kind to me. He said, "If the steer wasn't so darn big he could have won this thing. As he is, his big carcass is a concern."
Steers placed at the top end of each class were entered into the after show carcass contest. For all his eating troubles, he graded Choice and Yield Grade 1. He wasn't the top carcass. I believe he placed 5th out of 50-60 in the carcass contest.
This was before the big grading reorg. So, Herkimer's choice carcass was more likely a more marbled than what is called Choice today.
I can only imagine how favorable this steer would be looked upon today. Most likely poorer in the show ring but anywhere else he'd easily carry another couple of hundred pounds before harvest.
I wish I could remember his AI sire and AI maternal grandsire. I'm sure either 'Galant' or 'Signal' was in the mix, maybe both. The maternal granddam was a commercial Angus cow.
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Meet Herkimer
