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The Championdrive Podcast
Crappy Flushes, Trickin’ Out your Trailer with Adam McLain & American Royal Market Lamb Judge Keith Berry
01:15:48
Getting through the crappy flush days, what all Supreme Trailer Sales has to offer with Adam McClain, and keepin' it real with Keith Berry, the 2024 American Royal Market Lamb judge!
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- [00:02]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Now entering the ring, another episode of.
- [00:04]
Steva Robinson
The Champion Drive podcast, presented by Novel Designs with your hosts, Kaitlyn Sister Urban and Steva Robinson. Well, breeding season is kind of starting to wind down, especially for those of us up north. For those of you that don't know, Sister kind of has an interesting job. She obviously works for us with Novel Designs and with Champion Drive and with the podcast and with Branded, but Sister also does a lot of the collection at Alan Newcomb. And so one of the things I thought we could talk about this week a little bit were crappy flushes, AI busts. And, you know, sometimes Breeding Day doesn't go as we planned. And a lot of us are finding out right now whether we send off our blood to get, like, brioprint tested or if we're ultrasounding, sometimes those flushes and AIs don't go good. What's your take on that?
- [01:04]
Adam McLean
You know, I think that's something that as much as you prepare for and as much as you kind of go out of your way to make sure every little thing is perfect, that there's probably always going to be something that goes wrong, whether your semen not showing up, whether nothing's sticking to your AI or your eggs aren't, you know, holding in your receipts or whatever, that can go wrong. I feel like at the end of the day, like, you know, you just have to kind of have to take it and run with it and, you know, you can only figure out what you can do better. But I, I always feel like, I always want to know, like, why did it not go wrong? You know, like, if I ship semen and if it looked really good leaving here, like, I want to know, what do they say about it? Like, what is going on with it, you know, to be better for the next time. I guess that's my take on it. What is your take?
- [01:46]
Steva Robinson
I think it the biggest thing to remember, like, when I have a friend or someone says, man, my AI didn't go good or my flesh didn't go good is. I don't think anyone ever talks about the bad days. Everyone always talks about the home runs that they hit, but no one ever talks about the strikeouts. And I think the reality is, is just like with anything, there's going to be some home run days and there's going to be some days that aren't good. And at the end of the day, it's, you know, it's all going to average out. Like, if, if you go to somewhere that flushes 30 donors, they probably have a great average because there's 30. But you could take three or five of their donors and just pick a random sampling of those. And they might have a really low average or they might have a really high average. But I think the thing to remember is, like, it's not just, you know, specific to you. Like a lot of people have bad days. They just don't post about them and no one likes to talk about them because we all feel like of some sort it's a failure. But in the nature of everything, it's just of part of the game. You're kind of gambling a little bit. And I always feel like if I have a good AI, I go into my next one going like, well, maybe we're due for a bust. Or if I have a really poor AI, I try and keep myself kind of motivated. Like, well, our next one should be real good and it'll average out. And that's probably not the, you know, like truthfulness of it, but at the same time, like, it's the reality of it in terms of they don't all go good. Um, I usually try and take notes of. I asked the AI tech, like, did it look like the user responded? You know, did we have them pulled off feeding water good enough for you? Or is there something we can change? I'll kind of note, did my teasers, you know, cover things? Did it look like things came into heat? I'll make some notes of, you know, like, what was the weather like? Because sometimes you can't control that at all. It seems like the easiest way to have a rainy day is to breathe the day before, to have the hottest day of the summers. Always, whatever day I'm AI. And if you look back, I guarantee it's it. There's got to be a, you know, a parallel there. But there's so much that you can't control. So you can't get worked up about it. It's just kind of how it goes. And I think at the end of the day, people want. Everyone wants it to go good. Like the AI tech wants it to go good. Whoever shipped you the semen or sold you the semen wants it to go good. You want it to go good. So at no one's out to get anyone. It's just kind of how it goes, I think.
- [04:01]
Adam McLean
Yeah. And kind of also like going. Going off of that not only from breeding, but I think from that from like a show showing standpoint too. You know, nobody talks about the hard days or what all struggles you face coming off there. Like every single time I did good At a show, like, I had a major setback right before it. Whether it was a lamb falling through a block and stand or one hanging up a foot, not being able to show one or they go off feet or whatever it may be. Like right now is a prime time that everybody sees. Oh, look at all these winners. Look at all these kids. Look at all that. What all they've accomplished. Or look at, look at these great flush results. Look at all this and look at all that. But nobody does talk about the bad days. And I think that's something that, like, as an industry, like, we need to be more accepting of. I just think a lot of people don't think that they can talk about their bad days.
- [04:46]
Steva Robinson
Agree, 100 and I thought it was interesting. Later in this episode, we talked to Keith Barry, and Keith talked about how he's brought in some different recips because he thinks he can do better. Because in the past he's used the bottom end of his blackface uses recipes, and now he's trying something different, using some white face stuff. I think, like, that shows, like, he thinks there's a way to improve. And I always try and make a list. I talked about this at Reno, but I always try and make a list of five things I did really good. And then I make a list of five things I think I can do better. And I jot those down in a note in my phone. And every time we do an AI, I have a list of things like, this went really well. This went, you know, this could be better. Like, the number, the amount of help we had was right. Like, this is about how long it took us to do everything. And I think you can kind of fine tune everything in. And some days you do everything right and it still doesn't go well, which is the exact same as showing you can do everything right and still not place where you think you needed to place. It's just the way it goes. But I think the biggest thing is, is we need to be accepting, like you said, of that it does happen. And, you know, like, don't get too arrogant on your good days and don't get too down on your bad days.
- [05:50]
Adam McLean
Yes, I agree.
- [05:51]
Steva Robinson
Who did you talk to in your part of this, Sister?
- [05:54]
Adam McLean
I Talked to Adam McLean, who is the supreme trailer sales owner, and he talked, he had a really good input on trailers. You know, we kind of try to think a little bit outside of the box on different areas to cover because it's more than just covering breeders and showmen. We feel like on our podcast But I really did enjoy his episode. And actually he talked about his first trailer that he ever sold was to my dad. So I thought that was pretty special. And especially that, you know, that's been back to 2010 and that trailer is still getting hauled around. So I would say that their trailers are pretty trustworthy and be sure to check them out if you're in the need for a trailer.
- [06:31]
Steva Robinson
Yeah, I thought that was a pretty neat full circle moment when you texted me about it, that it went good and that your dad was his first trailer sale, so. And then you said that his second trailer sale was to Brian Johnson, right?
- [06:41]
Adam McLean
Yep, to Brian. And that's the trailer that Brian still uses, so.
- [06:44]
Steva Robinson
Huh. It's just like he was supposed to be on the podcast.
- [06:48]
Adam McLean
Yeah.
- [06:48]
Steva Robinson
So. Well, I talked to Keith, Barry, Some of you guys know Keith from Berry Farms or you might know his kids, Danny, Tanner and Lexi. And Keith is also judging the American Royal that's coming up in the next month or so. And his associate judge is his son Tanner. So we talked a little bit about that. We talked about the history of Berry Farms and kind of how things have changed and how things are going. And we ended it up with a really good question that I thought was just going to be maybe a simple one or two line answer. And it's asking about, like, what about pickup basketball games with his kids. And it actually turned into a really good, you know, little conversation about kind of how he raised his kids and what he expected of them and everything. And I thought it was really good. So I'm excited to get into this episode. Let's get right into it.
- [07:40]
Adam McLean
Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of the ChampionDrive.com podcast. Do you mind telling me a little bit about your background and what Supreme Trailer Sales has to offer?
- [07:52]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Yeah, I'm glad to do this. This is be fun, I think. And we're gonna have a good time, basically. I mean, Supreme Trailer Sales really started in 2010. We kind of got in the trailer business. It was really out of the. The need for a trailer. And I actually grew up in Chickasha, and that's where mainly Cimarron trailers are built. And we were needing a cargo trailer. We had another business at that time with some other people that was Supreme Show Supply. And we were going to build us a cargo trailer. And in doing that, we kind of got to looking and thinking, man, they built some pretty neat livestock trailers. And actually Kirk Steer Wall, I'd rode with him down to Cimarron to The factory to look at a trailer. They were building him the first actual steer wall. After we walked around there, I was like, yeah, this deal. This deal would work. They can build some good stuff. And it kind of ended up just kind of snowballing from there into doing this. And we bought our first few trailers and actually took them to Tulsa State Fair that year and didn't know if we could sell one or not. And we did. And actually, it's kind of funny, but the first one we sold was the Ritz and Urban. That was one of the first trailers that we had ever sold, was to him. And then it just kind of took off from there and we just kind of kept, you know, getting them a little bit nicer and a little better, and it just kept growing and kind of where we are today, you know, 14 years later or so here, and feel like we're on the right path, I guess.
- [09:25]
Adam McLean
Yeah. And I actually remember when my dad bought that trailer. And actually it's still being used today, so.
- [09:31]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
How about that?
- [09:32]
Keith Barry
Yeah, yeah, it's.
- [09:33]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
It's seen a few miles and a few winters, hasn't it? Yep.
- [09:36]
Adam McLean
Yeah. Yeah.
- [09:38]
Keith Barry
Yep.
- [09:40]
Adam McLean
So tell me a little bit about what you did to work your way up to where you are now.
- [09:45]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Well, it. It's kind of an ideal. You know, of course, grew up. And I grew up in Chickasha, Oklahoma, and then we were showed livestock, really involved in FFA stuff. And then, you know, went to OSU and ended up being an ag teacher and done that for a little while. Then ended up being a banker and had done banking stuff. And then had an opportunity in 2008 to kind of buy into a deal where we were going to make some show supply stuff and things. And we did that. And then that kind of snowballed into being part of the trailer deal. And that was kind of how it all led up to. It was. And I think what's probably made us successful at this is we kind of. We grew up in the industry that we serve a little bit, you know, as far as being around stock show people. And those are the people we deal with. We. We sell a few horse trailers today, but it's still not our main focus. Our main focus is taking care of stock show families and people in the stock show world that do what we like to do. You know, my kids show now and. And then Kent Goss, that works here with us. You know, of course, Goss Livestock, that's the name most people know. You know, they've been around it. And so it just Kind of helps with both of our families doing this, that we've been able to kind of serve the needs of a lot of customers.
- [11:04]
Adam McLean
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you guys have done a very good job at doing that. And I know you guys kind of offer different trailer build systems, so describe a little bit about what it takes to build a trailer. The time it takes from, you know, starting your order to finishing it and all the steps in between.
- [11:21]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You bet. You bet. No, we do offer. I mean, the one thing, you know, Cimarron's been kind of our flagship deal. We also sell some EB's here and a couple steel trailer brands. But the Cimarron deal has been kind of the flagship. Been the leader in the. In the show animal trailers that we sell. And we keep a lot of those. We try to keep several in stock that are not just basic. I mean, they're pretty custom, still pretty nice. But we deal with a lot of people and the sheet business has been one of them, that people want it the way they want it, you know, and they're going to spend that much money, they want to build it the way they want it. So we do a lot of quotes and, you know, say, hey, I want it this way and I want this in it. And we get that all quoted out and usually get some CAD drawings and go back and forth and, you know, some of them take a week and some of them take a year, you know, for people are ready to do it, ready to order one, we'll usually get those put on order. And it's usually, you know, there's a lot of talk out there. Oh, it takes so long to get one built. Well, you know, there was a time there in 20, 20 and 1 and 2, really, that, yeah, it did take a long time. You know, we're back down to pretty much normal stuff from the day you order it to the day we get. It's usually eight to. There's a pretty safe window there, eight to 12 weeks, you know, depending on how fancy they are, whatever, what else they might need afterwards. That's about where that's running at nowadays. And it's really a pretty simple process. And I think, you know, it is a little bit overwhelming for some people because you. The hardest part is a lot of people go look at lots of different trailers and you get so many different ideas. And sometimes just getting that all put down and getting it to where it's right just takes a little bit of time. I think we try to do a really good job. We want to build You. A custom trailer. We want to make it nice. I think sometimes we're probably. I'm sure some people said, well, those guys were kind of rude about my idea, but I really don't want to build something that we know won't probably function right or. Or that you're going to have it for six months and be like, golly, I don't like this, and I want to get something different. And that really doesn't work good for you. It doesn't work so good for us either. So we want to do them right the first time and kind of get people what they want.
- [13:28]
Adam McLean
Yes, absolutely. And you kind of hit on it a little bit. It's not that you're, like, you know, being mean to somebody towards their idea, but I think that says everything about you guys of like, if you already know it doesn't work, you're not going through with their idea.
- [13:40]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Yep. I think it's. I'm not saying we're experts or we're the best in the whole world at anything, but I think it goes back to. I mean, we all buy livestock, and I think a lot of times it would go a long ways if we would, you know, hey, we've picked out these four. And let. Let me. Let the breeder tell me which one probably is the one I should. I should feed or should do, because he's seen it every day since it's been born. Or her. And, you know, that's kind of. These trailers, we got to see a lot of them. We get to. We get to see what works and what didn't work. And. And I don't want anybody to have a bad experience with them. It's not good if you have a bad experience with your trailer. And we want it to be good. And so we try to get them where they don't have problems.
- [14:20]
Adam McLean
Yes. And you kind of hit on it a little bit. Kind of what Covid did to your business. But do you mind telling me a little bit more kind of about the struggles you guys maybe faced during that time or, like, kind of. How did you guys overcome that?
- [14:33]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Yeah, it was. I mean, it was an interesting time. You know, we were like everybody in the stock show world. We were at Oye, and I remember it very vividly of. We were building our new place out here on the highway, just about to finish. We were basically going to move in after we came back from Oye. So we were building a new building, invested a lot of money to do that and getting this built. And Covid kind of hit we're all at Oye and we all, you know, like Houston and other stock shows, we all got sent home basically and kind of like, wow, what's going to happen in this world? And. And really livestock people, I think when they shut down basketball playing, baseball playing, and we shut down traveling, the one thing that kind of resilience was there was a lot of stock show families that said, hey, we're going to have a jackpot out here in this field in eastern Iowa on Saturday, and we're just going to do this. And I think it brought actually quite a few families back to stock showing that probably hadn't done it because kids had got involved in summer ball or got involved in, you know, something else. And we just had a flood of people wanting trailers at that point in time. Well, the. So we pretty much sold everything we had on the lot really fast and we're trying to get stuff built, but, you know, the struggles were is the aluminum suppliers, the axle suppliers, you know, they'd let their people go home. They weren't working. So it just kind of put a backlog in all the manufacturing process. Cimarron actually stayed very built Villagent through it all and got product to us. But I mean, for a couple years, pretty much everything we had on order was sold to somebody. So there just wasn't a lot of stuff sitting around. Now, you know, things are a little more back. What I would call normal now. And now we're back to. We're have. We have trailers, we have this big inventory as we've had in a long time sitting here on the lot that are ready to go. And that's. That's a. That's a good thing. We like having them because there's a lot of people that do not want to wait 8 to 12 weeks. And I'm. I'm bad too. I. You know, you decide you finally got the wife or everybody talked into doing this and we're going to buy something. Well, you don't want to wait 8 to 12 weeks to have them rethink about it. So we just. You want to go get something and we try to keep a lot of nice stuff for people can come do that.
- [16:43]
Adam McLean
And you kind of hit on a little bit earlier about how you can add different options to the trailers that you have built. What are your favorite options that you've seen added to a trailer?
- [16:54]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You know, we have done. That is a really good question. And it. It's really kind of a crazy question because we've done so much. I mean, wild and different stuff. We, we've put them with actually with reefer units on the roof of the. Some show cattle trailers. We've done, you know, lamb trailers with lots of different things. You know, people have tried these mini splits here recently, wanting to put those on and you know, be real honest, we're not a big fan of those that don't look like holding up long term is going to be a very good deal. There's so there's just tons of options. I think some of the coolest things have been is really just making them where the people that are using them can make them function. I mean some of the most exciting things and it's, it's goofy to even say it but like, you know, the AI cradles that all the sheep producers use, making something in there that they can strap them to the walls with was like, I mean that guy was totally tickled because that was something he was fighting all the time. You know, he wanted that and we got it fixed. You know, it was a simple thing, but we fixed that up for it to make it work. Of course we've done lots of stereos and lights and you know, putting water systems in, air conditioners, generators, all that, making them pretty self sufficient type trailers. There's, there's been lots of cool things over the year and I don't know that there's just one single thing that was extra special other than the, the little things that people wanted to make it the way they wanted it. That's the one that kind of hits me as the highlight most of the time.
- [18:31]
Adam McLean
Yes. And just kind of making it functional for everybody like in different aspects of their life.
- [18:37]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Yeah. And that's, I mean everybody uses them a little different whether you're. If your family just showing out of them or if you're a breeder that's raising them, you know that. I mean we've done several with some double deck in them so they can haul more babies and you know, just done some with some different size pins just to make that work out for them. Better to haul rams or you know, brood use or something like that in other than just hauling show lamps.
- [19:05]
Adam McLean
Yes. So what is one thing you wish people would keep in mind when they're ordering or building a trailer?
- [19:12]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You know, a little of it is, it is a time process a little bit. A lot of times we get a deal that people like, hey, I want to order this trailer and can I get it in a week? Because we're going to try to go to the state fair and we don't have a trailer. So kind of thinking ahead on that, sometimes it'd be real beneficial into getting it right. A big thing is that we see people. People struggle with sometimes is they get lots of ideas, and they get so many ideas to do something totally unique. And we're all up to doing unique. It's just the hard struggle with that is sometimes you got to remember in three or five years, you're probably going to want a different trailer. And sometimes that unique stuff doesn't resell very good. Some of the things with colors that people have done, and some of that sometimes get to be a. A little bit of a struggle.
- [20:06]
Adam McLean
I can see why. So in your opinion, what are some key things that you think must be included in a trailer?
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Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You know, and we're talking these. These show animal trailers, especially small animal trailers with sheep and goat trailers, pig trailers. You know, the pin systems are. There's hardly anybody that ever buys gates anymore. They want the pin systems. I think one of the big things, I guarantee you that trailer that Ritson bought that time, it had 60, 40 pins in it, where it had an alleyway on one side and had big pins on the other side. Now, probably the standard is doing adjustable pins where you can make them 50, 50 or 60, 40. That way you don't end up. If you need the extra pin space, you don't end up with a little bitty pin on the alley. You can kind of make it bigger to make it work. That's one of the things really thinking about your tack room. You know, most of these trailers we're doing today have tack rooms on them. I think it's really important people think through that and how they're going to use it, what their showbox situation is, you know, what kind of stuff they're planning on really loading and hauling in that tack. It got to be. When we first started, you know, we never put a side ramp in a tack room. That was just not something you did. And Now I'd say 75% of them get a side ramp into the tack room. So you can roll that showbox in there. You can roll the fan carts or whatever you have, you know, in there, or just ease of loading it yourself is a lot simpler. Some of the creature things that people. It's one of the funny things is, you know, hydraulic jacks, electric over hydraulic jacks. I mean, we probably put them on 85% of the trailers. Now. One of the big things is. And a lot of people that end up bringing one back to get it put on didn't think about when they bought it. They said, all the kids can crank that well. They didn't think about the fact they were going to leave, you know, a bunch of stuff in their tack room. They were going to have a bunch of feed. They were going to have a big heavy showbox they're not going to unload. And now that thing's pretty hard to crank. So, you know, everybody wants that electric over hydraulic jack. That's. That's been a big thing. And then really getting your, your doors and your gates where, you know, you want them to make them work. We actually did. We've done a couple, three of these now. I mean, Tyson rule was actually the first guy that called me and said, hey, I want to do this.
- [22:27]
Steva Robinson
He.
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Kaitlyn Sister Urban
He put an escape door in the middle of his trailer. And I thought at first, oh, this guy's crazy. I don't know, this is going to work very good. But it made perfect sense. For what he did was, you know, basically doing deliveries on, on little lambs. It was easy to, hey, yours is in the middle pins. Instead of having to crawl through the back pin or the front pins, we can just open the side door and get in the middle set something really simple. Didn't cost a lot of money to do, but somebody had used a trailer enough to really know that they needed that, you know?
- [22:55]
Adam McLean
Yes, for sure. Do you feel like there's a certain size of a trailer that you can get, like the best bang for your buck?
- [23:02]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You know, that. That is a great question because we've had a lot of that, you know, people like, oh, I want a real. I want a little trailer just to pull around a little gooseneck. I want a 16 footer, you know, with just like four pins in it. Well, the problem is, is that little trailer cost basically about the same because it's really, at the end of the day, it's about the same amount of labor. It's just a little bit different in materials to build. That trailer still has to have the same rear post weld. It still has to have the same nose built for it. And so a lot of times, unless you just specifically need one that size, you're better off going up there and getting at least an 8 or a 10 pin, which is a 20 or 24 foot trailer. That seems to be where the bang for the buck comes in. Probably our number one seller is the 24 to 26 foot 10 pins, depending on how big a tack room you want. That's probably the most common thing we sell. It's the easiest thing to resell, but they're still able to get into fairgrounds and get around and not be so big that they're hard to maneuver.
- [24:03]
Adam McLean
So what's your thoughts between bumper pulls versus goosenecks? Do you have a preference? What do you think are the pros and cons on this?
- [24:10]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You know, we sell quite a few of both. We sell more goosenecks. I think if somebody that pulls one very much, they're going to want a gooseneck all day long over a bumper pull because they just, you know, they put the weight at a different place on the pickup. They'll actually turn a little sharper just because the pivot points, you know, in the middle of the bed of the pickup and not at the bumper, you. You just typically get more tack space, too. You got a whole nose and a gooseneck to use. To get the same amount of tack space in a bumper pool. We got to put a really big tack room on it, which then just makes it harder and heavier to pull. We see a lot of people that like, well, I want to. I want to use my half ton pickup. I don't want to go buy a big pull pickup. So I want to. I want a big bumper pull. Well, that's probably not the best scenario still. You're probably better off having a little bit smaller bumper pull, because what happens, you buy that big bumper pull, then you still end up going and buying the big truck because you get frustrated. The fact you can't pull it very good. So we're probably a bigger gooseneck fan. I mean, I like them a lot better at the end of the day. I know there's some people that love the bumper pulls because they can pull it with their tahoe or pull it, you know, with their expedition or something like that. But I think a majority of the stock show people realize real fast. A lot of times we run out of room and then bumper pulls and we need a little more space.
- [25:26]
Adam McLean
Yes, for sure. So my last question I have for you is, what is the constant struggle you see across the board with trailers that you're trying to fix?
- [25:36]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
You know, a lot of the trailers we fix, and I think it's very important when somebody buys one that, you know, the place you're buying it from has service, and they're going to take care of you and they're going to fix it or do their dead level best to try to get you fixed up. I. We see this a lot. You know, there'll be some guy that says, hey, I want to sell some Trailers. And he gets a few trailers and he doesn't have a shop. And then these people buy one and they got no place to take it, to get it fixed. And that is a struggle. And really we've gotten to the point that we can stay busy enough that we try to really just. We've about had to just focus on our customers that we sell stuff to. And that's just how it's had to be because of just. Well, between labor and, you know, as many customers as we have out there, there's always something. Basically, the biggest thing is general maintenance. A lot of people just want to use them, and they don't want to check wheel bearings. They don't want to have to worry about anything. And then before long, it's ruined the axle or it's really caused a problem, you know, and the fancier they get, the more maintenance there is. If you're going to put a bunch of air conditioners on and things like that, you got to be. You got to be dedicated to cleaning them out and getting any wood shavings out of them and taking care of that. That's a big thing. On trailers that are air conditioned, people just don't take care of the acs and don't want to stop to clean them. And I think it's the thing that you have to remember is they were really. The Mac's were not meant. Those companies did not build those to put in sheep trailers. They built those to put in grandma and grandpa's RV going down the road that doesn't have all the dust and nobody's peeing in the floor and, you know, the whole deal. So it's cleaning that stuff. And maintenance in these trailers is really important for the long haul, getting them down the road. And then of course, we see stock show time of the year. There's always just a few accidents. There's always a few people that leave that side ramp down and pull off and rip it off. And it just happens. I mean, life happens sometimes.
- [27:36]
Adam McLean
Yes. Well, I think you had a lot of good, great input for us today, and thank you so much, Adam, for being on with us. We really appreciate you. And be sure to check out supreme trailers.
- [27:47]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
All right. Well, thank you. It was great.
- [27:53]
Adam McLean
I thought that was a really good episode with Adam Steva. What do you have on the. What do you have on for this week? So you suck.
- [28:00]
Steva Robinson
So our. So you suck at marketing has been really well received this week. I thought we'd talk about online apparel stores. Some of you may know branded show gear is our sister company to novel designs. Branded does like embroidery, printed apparel, promotional products, engraved items such like that. And one of the things that's been really big sales tool for us is online ordering stores, which you may be familiar with. It's. It used to be that everyone would have a hundred T shirts on hand or 100 hats on hand, and then you get stuck with the leftovers. Or everyone would have the same shirt and it wouldn't fit someone right, or they wouldn't like the style. And so we started doing these online apparel stores. I think the first one we did was for upper hand genetics. And they've really taken off since then. And what it is, is it's a way you can give your customers an offering or selection of a number of items so everyone can kind of pick what they want. Then you can also. It's a great way to show appreciation because you can go back and give a discount code. You say, hey sister, here's a discount code for my store. Thanks for, you know, buying sheep from me. Here's a discount code for X amount off. Just enter this at checkout and, you know, then they get some apparel and you pay for it. The way it works, at the end of the store, we total up all the discount codes used, and then that's what you, as the store owner get billed for. And then if someone spends over the discount code amount, they pay for that difference on their credit card. A couple questions that we get all the time on it is how many items can you have in a store? So we have different tiers. If you email into branded, the girls can send you the details. For example, like, tier one has up to 12 items. That means you have to sell $1500 worth of apparel off your store. If you don't hit the 1500, it's okay. But there's a $250 fee. If you do hit the 1500 dollars in minimum, that setup fee is waived. And you. You have to use one logo and the same ink colors across all items. So this is a really good way to think of, you know, like, instead of having to have boxes of T shirts or sweatshirts in your barn or in your office or in the entryway closet at your house to have on hand. This is a great way to reduce the amount of inventory you have to have and get your brand out to people. Then there's other tiers as well, which, like I said, if you reach out, we can kind of give you the details on that. There's three different tiers, and some of them Work well for, you know, a basic store. Some of them are bigger stores for breeders or businesses that have a larger following. And it's all custom, customizable. Aubrey Rye or Aubrey May and then Bryn Bagalka, they take up a lot of the help with it and Sister's helping with us on some of the stores as well. Now is a really good time. If you're thinking about doing one before a holiday season, now's the time to get kind of rolling on those. I don't know the exact date that we're going to close online ordering for Christmas, but it's, it's usually before Thanksgiving just to be able to give us time to produce everything and get it turned out. A lot of other people ask how it works. So you pick out your items, we send you the mock ups. Once it's approved, we get the store built, we send you the link. You can send the link out to whoever you'd like. We give you some store updates, we send you a report periodically while the store is open, let you know, here's how it's going, here's who's ordered, here's the dollar amount you're at. When you give us the approval to close, we then close the ordering window and all of your orders move into production. So we don't make anything until the ordering window is closed and then once it's closed, usually it's about two to three weeks, depending on where the items are coming from and what vendor they're coming from. We get everything produced, we ship it out and it goes direct to your customer's place. Now some people like to do like a pickup at say you're having a live sale and you want to have people be able to pick it up at your farm, that's fine. We can bundle it all and ship it direct to one place to help save on shipping. But most people choose the option to have it shipped direct to your customer's place. I guess if you want to get started or have any questions, reach out to branded showgear gmail.com or you can find our website or our banner ad on championdrive.com as well. Well, we do everything from breeder online stores. We do everything from, you know like seed reps or feed reps, feed stores, anything like that. So. And we do some non agricultural stuff too. And ordering through an online store is not the only way to do an order through us that probably makes up 50% of our business. But we still get people that just send an email that say like, hey, I'm interested in ordering five coats for Christmas. Or you know, I'd like to get 10 windbreakers or five T shirts and that's completely fine too. You just reach out to us, give us a call or shoot us an email and any of the girls are happy to help you. And you know, kind of a good time to get a jump on holiday stuff or stuff you want before Louisville or Kansas City. Now's kind of the time. So reach out to Aubry or Brin. And like I said, you can find our website on championdrive.com I know that.
- [32:51]
Adam McLean
I've gotten quite a few questions about it, so I'm sure that we'll, we'll get a few in. But I really like this week. So you suck. Let's get right into Keith's episode.
- [33:04]
Steva Robinson
Hey guys, I'm here today with Keith Barry. Many of you know Keith from Berry Farms. Maybe you know Danny Tanner, Alexi, which are his kids and if fortunate enough, you maybe know Shelly, which is his wife, which is my favorite of the Barry family. But Keith is also going to be judging the American Royal coming up this fall and we thought it would be a great time to get him on the podcast. So thanks for joining me today. Keith, let's talk a little bit about how you got started in the industry and kind of how Berry Farms came about.
- [33:34]
Keith Barry
Well, we started in the late, probably the mid-70s. We had stock cows and we had farrow to finish swine operation. And I was in 4H and looking for a project that was kind of going to be mine. And so my dad had a cousin that raised sheep. So we went through about 80 head of commercial use that were for sale to find 12 that were solid mouth with good bags. And that was kind of the start of the commercial. And then when I got into it and I started showing a little bit, I bought two registered Suffolk ewes from Robert Lewis, which was also known as Roel Suffolk in the day out of Correctionville, Iowa. That was kind of my beginning of the Suffolk flock at the time. He, him and Bob Kim were very competitive in the Iowa ram test and raising, you know, really good market quality type lambs. That was where most of our beginnings kind of began in that era.
- [34:40]
Steva Robinson
So did you, you went from, you started out with those and then did you go to college somewhere? Did you stay on the farm and kind of grow up for there? How did you come to what you are now?
- [34:49]
Keith Barry
High school? I entered Iowa State and I decided that was not my cup of tea. I wanted to be in production agriculture and I Wanted to be in production agriculture right now. My grandfather retired that year and I moved on to his farm and rented his ground and then did some farming with my dad. And I did the farrow to finish on the hogs and then the sheep project was a combination of dad and myself. And then dad had the registered and purebred simmental cows at the time. That was kind of my beginning in the actual agricultural production stage.
- [35:31]
Steva Robinson
Did you grow up on? So when we all come to like look at sheep in the spring, is that the farm you grew up on then?
- [35:37]
Keith Barry
No, that was. We grew up three miles to the east of me. We actually had the sheep on a farm that did not have a house and nobody lived on and we lambed on that farm. So it was a mile and a half from dad and it was two miles from me and we drove that, you know, obviously in the lamb and time, you know what it was like. And there was no, there was no cameras so.
- [36:01]
Steva Robinson
Right.
- [36:01]
Keith Barry
We spent a lot of time driving back and forth and braving the weather. But Tanner moved on. My dad bought the farm where the sheep building is in 89 and moved there. We built our first shed in 89 and I believe we gave 41,000 for 152 by 70 foot building. And I'm pretty sure we didn't get our office built in our new building for that. So it just tells you how times have changed. But when my dad retired from the sheep, he still grain farmed with me for about 1012 years and then he moved to town when Tanner graduated from Iowa State and Tanner moved on to the his home place there. I live on my grandfather's place to the north of Tanner. So it's still kind of been in the family for I guess several years.
- [36:53]
Steva Robinson
So I got you. How many used do you guys run now work consistently?
- [36:59]
Keith Barry
Anywhere from about 475 to 550. We're probably back up to 550. We bought in 50 head of recip white faced ewes. As we've got into this flush program a little bit deeper. Just trying to see if we can get a little bit better percentage of carrying embryos from our flush program. We originally started with just using our bottom end blackface and oh, I don't know, every year it's gotten a little better. I'm still not comfortable. We're as good as we could be and hopefully the white faced use will be a little more receptive to doing the transfers and what our blacks are.
- [37:41]
Steva Robinson
Sure. So over the years your family has Obviously seen a lot of different industry trends and fads. I would assume, like, was Nick, which would be your nephew, right, that a lot of us know as Nick Barry?
- [37:56]
Keith Barry
Nick is actually my first cousin.
- [37:58]
Steva Robinson
Oh, really?
- [38:00]
Keith Barry
He is the last one on the family tree, and I was one of the oldest. And so his dad and my dad were, I guess, probably about 12 years apart in age. So with him being the last, me the first, he's not too much older than what Danny is, so. But he's the first cousin.
- [38:17]
Steva Robinson
I actually worked for Nick as a, like, student worker at Iowa State when he was working on his PhD, so. But. So you would have helped Nick and then Danny Tanner, Lexi, now Tanner's kids. What are kind of the changes you've seen in the industry? Do you think they've been good or bad changes? Guess what? What's kind of your take on that?
- [38:39]
Keith Barry
Well, I think there's obviously both. You know, as. As breeders are, we want to. We've got to make changes so we can sell the next new new element out there, the new genetics. Probably some of the biggest things are, is, you know, I. We've gravitated towards an easier flush and easier keeping sheep more body. I'm not sure if there's actually a lot more lean muscle to them, but I definitely have better bodies. Better flank lines are a little heavier structured in terms of their. Their bone work. You know, back when my kids showed. And I've looked at those pictures, they're pretty hideous today. I'm not sure we would. I know we wouldn't be in the purple group at our state fair. And if there was a red group, we might actually slide down there. But just to tell you how things have changed, you know, obviously everything. If we had wool on the legs or the head, we kind of pulled it out, sheared it out. There wasn't such a thing as a hardly a hamp when we started as Lexi, which is 10 years younger than Danny, kind of finished up then the hamps and the wool was becoming more predominant in the winter circle. But biggest thing is, I think just the flushing ability, the ease of flushing, probably maybe a little bit negative aspect of it. I don't think those sheep grew as good. Traditionally, you could not take those sheep to a heavier weight without getting extremely fat. I know I've heard this story a few times in the sheep barn. How many times we won the state fair with the last class of the day in the sheep show. And I will promise you today you're lucky if you can be in the hunt. If you win the last division, let alone the last class, and we show by weight. So when I say divisions, it's not breeds, it's its actual weights. But I think there was three or four of those lambs come out of the very last class of the day. And I always got a kick out of it. You know, they'd be running around in the Graft family and the Dale family would be winning Division 2 and 3 and somebody come over and say, well, it looks like that's a grand in the show. And I'm thinking, golly, I felt like I got my butt just kicked. And we haven't even showed the lamb yet because we're all in Division 4 or 5. And it was always, it was always fun to be able to come out of those divisions and be competitive. But as times have changed and we've made the sheep more moderate, you know, it's going to be very, very hard to win with a super heavy one. I still like a heavier sheep. I like a sheep that has more grow in it. I think those females are better. You know, I hear it costs more to feed them. Well, sure it costs more, but if you take a 175 pound, you that's going to have 130 pound lamb and that's as big as he gets. You're still going to feed him, but you're not going to put any weight on him or at least anything that's efficient in terms of conversion. Whereas a bigger lamb, you know, you can show him at 130, but he would still be competitive if you wanted to feed him up to 160 or 70 pounds and not be overdone. And I think that's a, a little bit more of a, a negative to the sheep today. I'm not sure our sheep milk as good today as they used to. I know fertility issues in that. And I don't know if this is genetics or just the fact that we cannot get enough wool on our sheep for the industry, at least for the show lamb industry. Maybe we've made them swear they have so much wool that, you know, the body heat has a tendency to stay in them and it's harder to get those. Used to naturally cycle, we used to turn the bucks out. Seven days later we'd have 50% of our use in heat and this would be Christmas time. I hardly get any. I don't turn a buck out till the middle of January because of the AI now. But we've tried natural breeding and it's a struggle to get those types of use we have today to breed natural forest. So consequently, we've kind of went to all AI and the price of the bucks. You can service so many more use with that buck. So a few of the trends that I've seen through the years.
- [43:05]
Steva Robinson
So that kind of leads into one of the other questions I had. You know, the norm, like you said, always used to be to turn a buck out for Christmas babies or, you know, we'd all go around and we'd find the buckland we were going to buy. And now it seems more and more, you know, people are going to more AI and flushing. How has that changed your operation? I mean, you touched on it a little bit, but how do you. What. What do you do now? I guess.
- [43:28]
Keith Barry
Well, we're not any different than anybody else. I mean, we're trying to find the best bucks to use. You know, the one thing that was always a benefit to us was running 500 use is we could go to one of these ram, you know, sheep sales. And, you know, let's go back, say, the corporation time when that was flying big and a lot of stud bucks were bought out of that corporation sale, which was the end of April, we could go in and buy one. And price was very, very. I don't know what the exact word is. It was. It was such that you could afford it with the number of use we had because we were breeding so many. And that probably gave us a little bit of advantage over a guy that had 20 ewes because they couldn't justify the ram. The AI program today lets everybody have access to the best bucks out there. You know, whether you're a nobody and you went and bought the grand champion, you at Sedalia or whatever, you've got the same option to use the elite bucks that we do. And then with flushing through on top of that, that just enhances the opportunity for. For lack of a better word, somebody that's not really well known to go out and do the exact same thing the best breeders in the country can do. And it makes an interesting deal. I think it gives everybody a chance. It all gives us that great hope that we can raise the next one that might win the American Royal or Louisville or Houston or the Wisconsin State Fair or the Iowa State Fair. I mean, we all have that dream to do it. But for me, the reality of it is with owning bucks, I've got to have so many bucks regardless to breed naturally. And when you're AI and 500, if we get 75%, we're still going to have way over 125 ewes or so to breed naturally. So we still got to have quite a bit of live matings. But what I've liked about that fact, it lets us probably keep more of our buck lambs. It used to be we could go buy those bucks and I think everybody out there is well aware of what they cost. It's pretty prohibitive to think you're going to go out and go to John Doe's place and you're going to sort through his bucks and you're going to get a chance to buy that high $1, because he's probably going to go to the auction online and if he's anything at all, he's going to be 20 to $100,000. And I've just found, and getting back to our question maybe about things that have changed, I don't see the consistency in our sheep being as consistent from birth to 60 days to maybe the six month age as they used to be. I think with the HAMP pedigrees that have been incorporated, those sheep change more. It's really hard to justify going out and spending those big dollars to buy that one buck and you may not get control of him or ever be able to use him live. It kind of forces you to readjust your thinking on it and probably be a little bit more frugal with your money. And hey, instead of buying ram for a hundred thousand, let's just buy a couple jumps for 5 to 7,500 or whatever the price is. And at least if it doesn't work, you're not wondering what you're gonna do with a hundred thousand dollar ram. Because they're hard to resell.
- [47:10]
Steva Robinson
Yeah, I think in the spring, you know, a lot of people think, oh, I'm gonna buy in this and resell a bunch of semen on them and recoup some money. And I kind of have taken the same thought process as you like. I'll watch them to a certain point, but at some point, heck, let's just buy a couple jumps on them and you know, be able to kind of wait a little bit and see how they pan out. And I hadn't really thought about the fact of from, you know, birth to 60 days and then 60 days to like the fair, how they do change quite a bit in terms of consistency that like, you're right, it never used to be that way. And I had never thought about it maybe coming from the HAMP side of things, which is a really good point, I think.
- [47:46]
Keith Barry
Well, I, I think today we you know, as people raising show lambs, everybody wants to win, to win and raise that great one that does win the big show, and we're willing to step out and. And maybe we're not. Maybe we're a little more hobby stock people today than we used to be. I go back to the days when we kind of started, and the breeders that we went to to buy bucks, I felt very good about. That's how they made their living. And today, I don't know as if I see that. And part of that is with the AI and the flush work, you know, anybody can raise one of those. Sometimes you need a little bit of luck. But the degree we had of success with having numbers of sheep versus the smaller flocks in the old days, that distance has really, really closed the gap. We could do a lot of things with numbers and a few good bucks that other breeders or people couldn't. And today that window is closed significantly to what those newer breeders can do with a handful of ewes.
- [49:02]
Steva Robinson
How do you think selling sheep has changed since you started?
- [49:06]
Keith Barry
Well, I think that that's a question that we ponder every year when we take pictures and everybody's bitching and moaning about getting the lambs up and. And cleaning them up a little bit on the stand and carrying them outside on a. On a little box and taking a picture with a nice background. I said, you know, this takes about, let's say we're probably about 10 to 15 minutes of lamb to. To get everything we done, want to do done right? And I said, you guys, you got to remember, we used to do this live. We used to shear, and we used to wash them, and the lambs would be steaming when we were washing them, and we'd put tubes on them, and then we'd put a cover, a blanket over the top to keep them warm. And then you went to a live sale, which hopefully in March and April, in the northwest part of the country where we are, you wouldn't have a snow or rain or a weather issue, and you probably had to clean a few lambs up. You had to take the socks off and the tubes off and all that stuff again. And it just seemed like it was endless amount of work we did. And we would sell anywhere from 40 to 60 lambs a weekend for about three weekends in a row. And I just. I just love the fact all I gotta do is do a picture and put him up on a webpage, and I don't even have to haul him and I don't have to shear him. I think it's better for the sheep. I love the fact that they're not stressed as much. Bad thing is I. I wish people could see them all.
- [50:44]
Steva Robinson
Sure.
- [50:45]
Keith Barry
You know, versus a live sale and. And we still do some live sales. I. I think with the younger generation and the newer people that are coming into the sheep, we always need to have a couple sets of sheep we haul to a live sale. I just think it's valuable that those people that have heard of Berry Farms yet, you know, they see the pictures on the Internet, have not ever seen them in person. And I think sometimes for the cautious buyer, you've got to see them in person to feel comfortable dealing with that individual.
- [51:19]
Steva Robinson
Absolutely. Did you used to have. I forgot all about this. Didn't you used to have sales in Des Moines? Right.
- [51:25]
Keith Barry
Yeah, we had one actually. We called. It probably isn't appropriate today, but we called it the re. Tag sale or the reload. It was Memorial weekend when all the big western breeders, Olson's and them from out west that had a lot of the range type sheep, Joe Warwick and. And those would come in and sell them and we threw a little weather sale in there. Most of those sheep actually did go down south just because of their age. But it was. It was fun. It was a nice time of the year to do it. You know, you get towards Memorial Weekend, the weather gets a little nicer. We'd take 50 or 60 lambs down there and it was a fun sale. We always kind of enjoyed it. And at the time there'd be seven or 800 different, you know, sheep for sale down there. So.
- [52:16]
Steva Robinson
Right. I just vaguely remember that, like hearing about it. I don't think I ever went to it. But so on to the next question. Who has been the biggest influence on getting you into the sheep industry and also getting to where you've been today?
- [52:30]
Keith Barry
Oh boy. I don't know if I get. I read that question when you sent me the text and I. There's a lot of people I have to be thankful that I came in contact with in the sheep. You know, my dad helped me out and was very positive about doing this adventure and. But somewhat on the local stage, you know, Bob Kim and Bob Lewis and. And Gary Testrote. Even at the time, which was Arlo Farms, we bought all of our rams were pretty local within Iowa. But as we branched out and thought we had. You know, it's always better if you drive aways to buy one. They're always better. I don't know why people think that, but we got it's greener on the other side of the fence, I guess. But we had to go to Oklahoma and we had to spend some money down there. We got involved with Joe Harrell, Larry Shell McGolins would bought a couple bucks. Kerr Ranch. Martha White. I was back when the brother Bob deal was kind of flying pretty high. You know, I think Larry Shell and. And Joe Harrell were the two from down south that probably influenced our. Our sheep project the most. And I still really, I appreciated the fact when I went there, I didn't get a sales pitch. We just talked sheep and we got an honest evaluation of the sheep and what they thought would work. And my favorite part is when I bought a buck at those places and I might throw Cabinet's family in also. We bought several bucks there, a couple from Bradley Johnson. When we bought those sheep and you went, you know, we'd go early and then we'd get them like say, corporation time, the end of April. Those sheep look like I expected them to look, and I always appreciated that fact. Now when I buy one, I go to pick it up. I'm almost scared to wonder what it's going to look like. I mean, they really do change. And. But those. Those were the. The basic genetics of where we started. And then after that, you know, we've obviously, in the last 10 years, we've branched out like everybody else has with AI we've used quite a few of Tyson's sheep. Brian Riley's made some good bucks and have worked extremely well for us. So I'm not scared to try something different. It used to be we were selling more sheep and as breeding type sheep and rams. And I think at the time those sheep that were a little tighter bred. When we followed in with the brother Bob stuff or what have you, they brought a little more consistent. And we were selling rams, and I thought that was, you know, we'd sell 20 or 30 rams a year, and I thought that was important. But as we move forward with the air and that stuff, there's not as much in terms of ram sales. People wanting to buy a ram want to buy a cleanup ram. They don't want to buy one for a flock sire. So consequently, they don't want to. They'll spend more on a jump of semen than they will on a buck. So that's changed how we've analyzed that stuff today.
- [55:46]
Steva Robinson
Absolutely. So what does your typical day look like now? You. You farm and then you raise sheep like, so what does your typical day look like? And how do you and Tanner work Together.
- [55:56]
Keith Barry
Well, we both got sheep at a. Each had our own house, our own places. I predominantly keep a few of the bucks and all the replacement ewe lambs here just so we can kind of baby them and. And feed them a little bit more individually. Because I've got a barn and a couple big sheds here that we can spread them out. Chores in the morning. He'll take care of them over there. The bulk of the sheep are over there. We'll have. We've got about 90 acres of pasture we've got sheep on, but we try to get the bulk of the chores done in the morning. There might be a little feeding on some show lambs or some bucks at night, but the heavy feeding and the heavy lifting is all done in the morning. So we can do that together and then take off and do the daily adventures, whether it be farming or, you know, planting, harvesting, hay in whatever. Whatever it takes to get through the day and move on.
- [56:53]
Steva Robinson
How do you balance not only farming, but raising show lamb? So, like, if, you know, like during the middle of harvest or, you know, during the middle of lambing, obviously that works well where you're not harvesting or in the field, but it's still a lot to. To tackle. How do you balance both? Because I think it's interesting we get some people in the industry that all they do anymore is raise sheep where you're still farming full time and raising sheep full time.
- [57:15]
Keith Barry
Well, I'll put it like this. I don't want to be the first one done with planting or harvesting, but I sure don't be the last one because they're. They even talk about you more if you're the last one than the first one. And I like to be someplace in between, but. But for us, it's just been, you know, a daily grind. I think if you've got livestock and you're trying to farm livestock has to be a priority. You cannot say walk through those use when you're feeding in the morning and one don't come out. She's sick. I'm going to give her a shot tonight. You get out of the tractor, you go give that shot, and then you go about your. Your farming activities. The window for farming is. Is small, but I think it's a little better than, you know, those sheep. Even in sale time, if we have somebody comes through and you know what it's like, somebody will call 15 minutes before they're driving down Highway 20 on the way from Charlie Hills to Tyson rules, and we can stop in if you're there. Well, if it works, we'll stop in. But, you know, you got to take care of those guys that want to stop in because they're on the route and they may be driving 2,000 miles that weekend and they are not coming back if you don't take the time to do the sheep deal first. So we've tried to put the priority on the sheep and honestly, in terms of return of revenue versus the cost of production, it's a lot better in the sheep than it is in the grain farming.
- [58:49]
Steva Robinson
Interesting. I guess one question I did skip by what tips or words of advice would you have for a younger breeder just wanting to get started raising sheep?
- [59:00]
Keith Barry
Well, I think first of all, and I still believe that I don't care if you're younger, older, find a source or two to buy them from that is reputable and maybe been in it for a little while. And I don't mean you got to be in it for 50 years like we are, but, you know, been in it for a while. They'll treat you honest, them. I don't think you need to buy genetics all over the country, especially in terms of use. If you're wanting to just raise them yourself, go to a couple breeders, buy, buy your group of use, try to keep them somewhat closely related. And then when you buy a buck, you can buy a buck that will service a bunch of use versus having to individually hand pick them from 20 different breeders. Or say you want to go to a sale, online sale and buy 20 use from 20 guys, you're probably going to need 10 different types of bucks to service them. So I think that's the important thing. And, and I do like consistency to a point. With the number of sheep we have, we've tried to have a little bit more variety just because of the number of sheep we have. It takes a lot of buyers to sell 700 lambs in a year. And we need some variety in terms of types and kinds. We need some variety in terms of ages and maybe a smaller breeder. If you got 20 to 50 ewes, you don't want to have that much variety in your program. I think consistency is more crucial to those people than maybe it is with somebody that's got more.
- [60:34]
Steva Robinson
Sure. Let's move on to. Let's talk about your kids a little bit later this fall. You are the head judge for the American Royal. And Tanner, your son is going to be the associate judge. Describe your feelings towards the two of you getting to sort a show of that magnitude together.
- [60:52]
Keith Barry
Well, first off, when they called Me and maybe go back a few years, they'd call me to judge the weather dam show. And I think it was maybe the first year or two come into existence. And at the time, I believe the show was either a week ahead or it was three or four days ahead of what the weather show was. And as much as I wanted to do it, it, you know, October is a hard time of the year for us to leave. We get involved with harvest and we're still making breeding decisions here at home. And so I, I declined it because of the fact I knew I was, I was going down to watch the weather show and I just didn't feel I could justify taking two days off, one to go judge and, and then another day to watch the weather show and, and when they call, I thought, well, I probably shot that one in the foot. I'll never see an opportunity to judge at the American Royal again. So when they called this spring, I, I was really pleased to have the invitation. You know, obviously it's one of the premier shows in the country and I have not judged a show for a few years or I think three or four. Last one I did was Tulsa. And it's just the, there's a lot of things going on through your head when you're sorting these sheep. And you know, I think the number one thing is our business has really grown in the last four or five years, but especially the last two or three. And you know, a lot of those same people that come to the farm buying sheep are going to be the same ones showing to you. And I don't care what anybody says, I'm. You're not, you're not going to kid anybody. That always comes into your mind. But, you know, we're going to go with the intention of sorting them as the way we would see them, regardless of who's got them. And I'm excited about it. I, I told them I'd think about it a week or two and, and they said, well, if you do this, we want a list of people you would be okay with as an associate judge. Well, when they said that, the lights kind of went on. I thought, you know, this could be really cool, it could be really, really fun. I mean, you know, we do this on a day to day basis analyzing the sheep in the program from the time they're babies to our breeding decisions to keeper ewe lambs, to helping kids pick out show lambs. We just do it every day. And I don't think that'll, that'll be the fun part. Just Getting to go out there and talk, you know, talk sheep between the two of us. And I'm excited about that opportunity. It's. You know, I think the only time I've ever judged a show is I believe you were there out at Reno the first year they had an inaugural, so they called the show, and I judged it with Kyle Smithwick. And I had. I had some reservations about judging with another person. Just not exactly sure who it was going to be. And when they said Kyle, I was fine with it. I. I know him personally, and I think he's a great guy, and he's a really good sheep judge. And I think we. She see sheep, you know, fairly consistent. So it was fun. And I thought, I don't know if it can get any better in judging with your son. I mean, maybe it won't turn out. I don't know. We'll see.
- [64:07]
Steva Robinson
Hopefully there's no knockdown drag out over who's gonna win.
- [64:10]
Kaitlyn Sister Urban
Maybe.
- [64:10]
Steva Robinson
Maybe you'll be on the same page.
- [64:11]
Keith Barry
So, yeah, I think we'll get close. We'll try not to at least make it look so public that everybody notices.
- [64:17]
Steva Robinson
Argue about it on the way home. Right.
- [64:20]
Keith Barry
There you go.
- [64:21]
Steva Robinson
So I get for some people that are listening, might not know on some of our younger listeners, but your daughter Danny had a heck of a run, and then Tanner had a good run. And, you know, with Lexi, the Berry family had a tremendous kind of dynasty, I'd call it. At the Iowa State Fair and at the national shows. What's the favorite sheep? Or what's your favorite sheep your family has shown?
- [64:49]
Keith Barry
Oh, boy, that's. That's a tough one, I guess. You know, probably the. The first one that I'll bounce back to is when Danny showed. And I couldn't even tell you the year, but we had a lamb called Herman that was out of E1, which was an Eller Brock ram. And, you know, when you start buying enough rams, you run out of names. So some of them got numbers. This was E1, and we went from E1 to E2, E3, and E4. But anyhow, I think it was. I think it was. Gary Jennings judged the show, but that was one of our favorites. We showed him one time at the Progress show in Ida Grove, and he won that, and then we just kind of kept him home probably. Another one that comes to mind was Dorothy. She was out of lottery pick, which was a Mike Hancock buck, and she was the Ulam. And I don't know if you're familiar with our state fair in the FFA they show a market ulam and a market weather and then they pick a grand market overall. And it was really interesting because Cody Schmincke had won the weathers and then we were reserved with the weather and then we won the market used and you know the competitive spirit come out both of us. I really didn't want to lose that market you but you know, your thoughts are you can maybe beat the weather. And so we sent Danny out on the market U and lo and behold that's one that ends up reserve and we could have just well put the weather in and been reserved with him and wouldn't hurt so bad because we sure missed that U she was one of the favorites and probably the third favorite that I, you know, recollect show. And Tanner had a sheep. Logan McLennan judged the FFA show must have been about 2012 or 13 and that lamb come from John Schroyer and he was a fun one. We jackpotted him two or three times and he'd won every time out. And he was a little bit ahead of his time in terms of still being cocky and touched real good yet started to have some of the trends that we're seeing today. I thought he was an elite one and those are the three that probably stick out the most to me anyhow.
- [67:02]
Steva Robinson
Well, the last I've got two more questions for you and they're about sports. And before we started recording today you'd mentioned that it had rained and you're hoping to maybe get to an Iowa State game. And as a big Iowa State fan, I got to know what's your prediction for the football season and what's your prediction for the basketball season?
- [67:19]
Keith Barry
Oh boy. You know, in football I'm optimistic. True Iowa State fan. I'd hope for 10 and 2 but I'd still be happy if we were probably 8 and 4. You know, it's, we've, we've, we've not been fortunate to have those consistent 10 and two teams. So we enjoy the atmosphere. I like the coach and as much of it is as with Iowa State, I still get to see all my sheep friends when I go down there on top of it and I really enjoy that. Basketball I think is a little bit more. It's a little tougher to pick your placings there with the transfer portal and that stuff. There's so much can change overnight. I don't know where I would go out on a limb and say we'll end up there. I'd hope we can make the top three in the conference and I think that's saying quite a bit in a really tough conference. But I'm optimistic on the football team. I think Campbell's done a nice job of coaching and the people are really behind him. I don't know if we can ever recruit those four and five star candidates, but they want to talk about the five star culture and so far that's done him well. Let's hope he can continue that pace.
- [68:40]
Steva Robinson
I haven't been back to Iowa State per game. I mean, I'm probably the last time I was there I tailgated with Danny, I'm guessing, and I'm sure we were well behaved. But I haven't been back in a long time. But it sounds like a lot's changed and it's still a fun atmosphere, but they've really improved it a bunch. So hopefully I'll get back in the next year or two because things are not well for my Badgers.
- [69:02]
Keith Barry
It's a great atmosphere and it's a fun one for kids. I think they enjoy it. You know, it's, it's family oriented. The parking is all close around. They, they are changing it where they're putting some, I don't know if you want to call it a power light district. Right north of the football stadium they've kind of got parking lot tore up and there's going to be vendors and I don't know if it'll be bars and restaurants or what put in, but it's going to be a pretty classy deal for the average Iowa State fan. I think they'll really enjoy it.
- [69:35]
Steva Robinson
Very nice. The last question I've got. So your kids are pretty competitive. You're pretty competitive and I'm sure there's been some, probably some pickup basketball games have happened a time or two of the kids. Which one are you putting on your team and what are the two you want to play against?
- [69:54]
Keith Barry
Well, if I'm going to have a team and my kids all, they played all the sports up through junior high and into the start of high school and then they kind of, you know, picked down and, and weeded a few of them out. Danny was. Loved softball and, and then basketball was her famous forte as she got older. Tanner loved football. He did the other two sports too, but I don't think that was his passion. But he did love playing football and I loved watching him because he played fearless for his size and always had a positive feeling about if it could be done, he could do it. Lexi kind of did a little bit of everything and, and in the tail end. Her. I think her funnest sport was softball. I remember when she got a wisdom tooth pulled and she was still halfway under the. Under the anesthesia drug. And she started talking about being an all state catcher and stuff. And it was. I think Shelly's got it. Maybe it's on one of the Facebook pages, but it's hilarious. And we went to. Us. We went to a softball game this year, and Lexi went with. Because that same same coaches she's had since beginning, but he was still coaching. There was a young gal there that I think she may be a junior, but she had. She'd had four home runs so far this season. And Lexi was getting really, really worried that her home run record was in jeopardy. And so when she come home, she had to go down the basement to the trophy case and count how many home run balls she had. And that's how competitive she is. I think when you get down to overall and all around, I'd probably pick Lexi. But if it's gonna play basketball, you want Danny on your team. She was the only one. And playing pickup ball, you could foul a whole lot more than you could in the gym. And I'm gonna tell you, if she didn't have three fouls or four fouls by halftime, she wasn't playing defense because they gave her five files and she made sure she could use them all. Generally, by the end of the third quarter, she was watching from the bench. But I'll tell you one thing about. About Danny, and you'll get a kick out of this. We played team in our conference, had the leading score, and we had a really, really good basketball team at the time. And the girls went on to. To play. Play down the road quite a ways. But Lexi, I believe, was a G, or excuse me, Danny was a junior. And this gal was the leading scorer in the conference. And the coach, and he's fairly competitive, but he doesn't. He doesn't mince any words. He just says it like it is. He says, danny, I want you on her all night. I don't care what she does. I want you in her face. If she goes to the bathroom, you go to the bathroom with her. So she's out there guarding this girl. I don't know. She averaged 26 or 28 points. And she shot her down to four points. And the end of the third quarter, the girl come out of the game and went to the bench and was crying. And Danny went to the bench too, and got a standing ovation. And I was pretty proud of her that night that forgot about individual awards and she took one for the team and guarded that high point score and basically shut her down. So I know when I need something done. I'm not scared of any of my kids to be on my team. I think they're all hard workers. I probably wasn't the easiest guy to live under. I wanted them to work hard. I wanted to be self sufficient. I probably didn't give them any easy rides anywhere. They kind of worked for it all. When I got time for college, the kids had all saved enough through their projects and they're showing that they didn't have to borrow any money and they come out of school debt free. And so I think there was some merit to some of the projects we had. But the sneakiest one in the group, he's a little harder to. To get a grasp on. You don't talk a lot. When he wants to do it, he's going to do it, but he might not tell you he wants to do it or he might say he does, but you won't know until he does it. But.
- [74:07]
Steva Robinson
Well, I think he did pretty good. I think they're all three pretty good kids and we enjoy working with them. And I know we caught up at Iowa State Fair. It's good to see you there. And we will see you in a couple weeks in Kansas City. So thanks for being on with us today.
- [74:21]
Keith Barry
You bet. Well, I'm looking forward to it and I think it'll be a fun atmosphere. It'll be fun to judge and again get out in the ring and it'll be fun to have Tanner in there. And I've been there the last, I don't know, six, seven years in a row. And the quality of the sheep is, I think, just gotten amazing all across the country, but I think it's really improved down in Kansas City.
- [74:44]
Steva Robinson
Absolutely. So, well, thanks again. We'll let you get back to enjoying your rainy day since you can't be in the field and we'll catch up with with you in a few weeks.
- [74:55]
Keith Barry
All right, sounds good, Steve. Take care.
- [75:02]
Steva Robinson
Well, thanks for tuning in this week, guys. I thought it was a really good episode. For those of you traveling to Exarban, Tulsa State Fair, Texas or any of the jackpots you might be going to. Safe travels and we hope you catch catch up on some of the past Champion Drive podcast episodes and be sure to drop us a message if there's any topics or people you'd like to have on and we'll catch you in a couple weeks.
- [75:31]
Keith Barry
Sa.