A 17-year-old Salmon Arm resident has shown great promise in the cattle business after a successful year of competing.
Riley Schweb is a fourth-generation rancher.
He says that’s one of the main reasons why he decided initially to join 4-H in Salmon Arm.
Now, six years later, not only has Riley got two awards under his belt from this year alone, but also competed in the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede this year.
“There was a lot of people there, he says. “We have quite a good show, but their’s was different. They had fireworks going off and there was a lot more of a rush there.”
He explains how, at the Stampede, people live for such competitions, while in Salmon Arm, the competitions are not as intense.
Riley says the trip was definitely worth taking,
“I learned some technical things from being there.”
He hopes to return to the Stampede in the future, but he says it all depends on his cows.
“If I think I have a good enough animal, I will go back again.”
According to Riley, the process of picking out a calf is a fairly difficult one at times, and certainly time-consuming in itself.
In the past he has simply obtained a steer from his uncle’s farm. But this year, he went looking elsewhere.
He looked at more than 500 head of cattle throughout the Okanagan before he eventually found what he thought could be a winner at a ranch in Abbotsford.
There are a lot of technical details Schweb had to consider when searching for his calves.
“There is a whole list of things you need to look for in a calf,” says Riley. “For example, it needs to be shaped like a tissue box almost, it needs to be quite thick.”
Once Riley found his calves, the work didn’t diminish.
Riley washed and shampooed his show steer four to five days a week, as well as trained it and fed it special feed.
His work certainly paid off, however, as both of his cattle did well locally at the 31st Annual Okanagan 4-H Stock Show.
One of Riley’s cows was named the Grand Champion Fed Calf, and the other won the Grand Champion Market Carcass Steer.
Riley’s mother, Trudy Schweb, explains that in the Grand Champion Fed Calf competition, “the judge is looking for a quality animal that is what they consider to be finished.
The cow needs to be ready for slaughter, it needs to look good, but it also needs to have the correct thickness.
It is not just how it is going to look as it is hanging as a carcass.
“He is a really classy steer with beautiful colour,” she says of the Grand Champion Fed Calf.
“He holds his head up and has a really nice coat.”
Trudy explains that the Grand Champion Carcass steer is determined only on the meat. They need to be able to make good cuts, with the right amount of fat.
Riley was able to sell his cow for $5,100 at $4 a pound, says Trudy, and a sale like that doesn’t happen often.
Riley would like to one day run a ranch of his own and says 4-H in Salmon Arm has been very beneficial in helping him reach his goal.
He explains that the program has taught him about record keeping and how to make sales, skill he believes will be become useful later in his ranching career.
