National Western Stock Show: Denver still international hub for cattlemen

Over the past 104 years, bigger livestock expositions have faded into history, but the National Western Stock Show in Denver is still going strong, pulling in more than 600,000 visitors every year from around the world. Unique from other shows, Denver invites visitors to “the yards,” where “carloads” of bulls and heifers are on display during the 16-day run. It’s a nod to the past, although the cattle no longer arrive in railcars and often return home to sell through on-farm production sales. On the last full weekend of this year’s show, some breeders had already packed up and moved out, while a section of pens normally used to promote breed associations and herd sires was in the process of being converted into an arena for stock dog trials. Still, streams of visitors continued to flow into the yards drawn by mild weather. Hereford breeder Walter Douthit of St. Francis, Kan., was still hoping to make a sale or two before the show’s conclusion. “This has always been a tough market, but this year it’s even tougher,” he said. He noted that some of his potential Mexican customers had been impacted by the growing violence and instability in that country, saying that getting animals across the border is becoming more difficult. Raul Tellez, a marketing specialist with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, brought several Mexican ranchers to the show. He has suspended his routine trade trips to Mexico due to the violence there, but said it hasn’t dampened the interest of ranchers to come to Denver and see the cattle. “They don’t want to spend their time at the show, they want to spend their time in the yards,” he said. “If a Mexican rancher wants to look and buy, he’s going to buy.”...read more