OKEECHOBEE — Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Okeechobee County Youth Livestock Show and Sale will not happen as planned at the Agri-Civic Center on Saturday, March 21. The livestock show committee made that difficult decision on Monday night. The county fair committee also canceled the fair, which was supposed to open Tuesday. The decision was inevitable; on Wednesday, the State of Florida shut down all youth livestock events statewide.

It was heartbreaking news for the 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) youth who spent much of the past year raising an animal for the annual show and sale. Okeechobee County won’t be able to choose a grand champion for the Steers, Swine, Dairy or Beef Breeding animals this year. There will be no showmanship ribbons for those classes. However, the livestock sale will go on.

OYLS has contracted with the Cattle in Motion website to broker the sale; however, each buyer will be invoiced by Okeechobee Youth Livestock Show Inc., and all payments from buyers will be made payable to Okeechobee Youth Livestock Show Inc. just as in past years.

Buyers are asked to register online at cattleinmotion.com in advance of the sale. If you have trouble, please contact OYLS at one of these three numbers: Dudley, 863-634-7137; Frank, 772-940-9595; or Brad, 863-634-7315.

The sale will start Friday, March 20, at noon and bidding will continue online through noon on Saturday, March 21. All of the animals will be available for bid throughout the entire sale period. A starting bid will be posted for each animal.

All buyers will be contacted within 24 hours of the sale closing by OYLS. This call is to determine if buyers want to accept the buyback of non-market animal purchases, choose to rail their market animal purchase or process their market animal purchase. Once again, Nettles Sausage Co. of Lake City will be the designated processor. As in the past, all processing fees will be at the buyer’s expense. Please be expecting this phone call/text/email Saturday afternoon, March 21, or Sunday morning, March 22. Nettles will contact the list of buyers that they are given to collect cut and wrap orders. All cut and wrap will be paid directly to Nettles. Once processing is complete, OYLS will contact those buyers about the date they can pick up their meat.

• Rail prices for Market Steers will be $.71/lb.
• Rail Prices for Market Swine will be $.30/lb.
• Buyback for Beef Breeding Heifers will be $600 per head.
• Buy back for a 4-year-old Holstein Dairy Cow will be $2,000.
• Buyback for the Bred Jersey Dairy Heifer will be $1,200.
• Buyback for Lambs will be $100.
• Buyback for Goats will be $100.
• There will be NO buyback for Poultry or Rabbits.

All lots will be sold by the head.

During the sale you will see the total cost of the live animal. OYLS will deduct the rail credit or Buyback Credit from this price if the buyer chooses this option when they are contacted by OYLS following the closing of the sale.

For the graduating seniors, their last chance to participate in the livestock show is gone. The seniors (along with information for their animals in the online sale) are:
• Lot #1 – Sierra Rhuda – Rabbit;
• Lot #9 – David Daniel – Beef Breeding;
• Lot # 12 – Cole Verano – Dairy;
• Lot # 14 – Kaitlyn Broadrick – Swine;
• Lot #15 – Chance Crews – Swine;
• Lot #16 – Cody Deloney – Swine;
• Lot #17 – Case Durrance – Swine;
• Lot #18 – Peyton Jarriel – Swine;
• Lot #19 – Rebecka Mims – Swine;
• Lot #20 – Elana Rodriguez – Swine;
• Lot #21 – Amanda Sparkman – Swine;

• Lot #22 – Kaitlyn Williams – Swine;

•  Lot#147-- Justin Ray - Swine;
• Lot #198 – Todd Addington – Steer;
• Lot #199 – Patrick Lehman – Steer;
• Lot #200 – Aubrey Pearce – Steer.

Don’t want to buy an animal? Help with an “add on.”

“An add on is if you don’t want to purchase the animal but you want to contribute to one youth or multiple youths projects, this gives the public the opportunity to support the youth of Okeechobee County,” explained Paula Daniel at the Okeechobee County Extension Office.

To make an add on, go online to okeechobeeyouthlivestockshow.com and click on “View the 2020 Add On Sheet.”

For questions about add ons or if you would like to make a donation to help the OYLS participants, please call Kimberly at 863-697-1565.

Below you can view the PDF of the Youth Livestock sale order.