Every summer, families pour thousands of dollars into teaching their kids hard work, responsibility, professionalism and good sportsmanship.
They kick in more than cash. They give time, effort and a whole lot of sweat.
Just ask the Pickerel family. For five years, Emilee Pickerel has shown pigs at the Johnson County 4-H and Agricultural Fair. This year, a much younger Kinlee Pickerel joined the club.
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Now, with both daughters involved, Alisha and Brandon Pickerel have spent more than $4,000 on the four pigs, which they turned around and sold for about $100 each this week, Brandon Pickerel said.
“It’s a little bit upside down, just slightly,” Brandon Pickerel said, laughing.
Still, it’s worth it, he said, because his daughters are learning important life lessons.
The Pickerel’s don’t operate a farm, but they built a hog barn at their house in Trafalgar so their daughters could have the experience of raising pigs, the only livestock the family owns, and selling them.
It’s a business, Brandon Pickerel said. But it’s their business. The girls do the work.
It starts in March every year. The family buys the pigs — two for each daughter — at about two months old and raises them up, walking them twice a day, training them, feeding them and caring for them, which often includes expensive vet bills for issues ranging from a cough to mites to skin problems.
“There are people who spend a lot more than what we do, I know, and there are people who spend less,” Alisha Pickerel said.
The Pickerel’s tally includes: buying all four pigs; a bag of feed every four days; new bedding at least twice a week; vet bills; medicine; entry fees for open shows around the state; gas to transport the pigs; and show clothes for the girls.
“With the girls being as young as they are, they are growing, so we have to buy new stuff every year,” Alisha Pickerel said.
“It keeps adding up and adding up. There are friends who think we’re crazy. You could have had a pool by now, they say. You could have gone on a really nice vacation by now.
But it’s worth it because the girls are learning life lessons that they don’t learn in school.”
They’re learning agribusiness, Alisha Pickerel said. They are selecting the pigs they want to buy and selling them at the end of fair week. Alisha and Brandon Pickerel let the girls save the money they make on those sales to buy things they want, or spend it on better, more competitive pigs the next year, she said.
Emilee Pickerel pays her own way through club volleyball with the money she earns from selling her pigs, and she bought a 1988 livestock trailer to haul the pigs, feed and bedding to and from shows and the fair.
“It helps them learn great responsibility, taking care of something besides themselves,” she said. “Where other kids might be sleeping in this summer, or sitting in front of a screen, they have to be outside, outdoors doing other things.”
When they first started showing, the Pickerels didn’t have a house with space to raise pigs, so they asked some friends whose kids also showed pigs if they could house one in their barn, just to try it out.
“(Emilee) did really good that year. She loved it. And it’s just one of those things that kind of sticks. You get addicted to it,” Alisha Pickerel said.
“Next thing we know, we’re trying to find a different house where we could have a barn,” Brandon Pickerel added.
Mom and dad were both 4-H’ers as well.
Emilee Pickerel has already decided she wants to be a livestock judge when she grows up, and participated in some junior judging this week.
“It feels great to talk about the pigs like that, not like in a bragging kind of way, but just teaching people about them,” Emilee Pickerel said. “That’s what I love about the fair.
It takes so much dedication and effort. You have to understand the pig, and the pig has to understand you. It’s a team effort.”
In the end, the pigs are sold for meat. It’s a sore subject for the girls, Brandon Pickerel said, but they understand.
“We know their purpose. Their purpose isn’t to be a pet. If they were a pet, they would get big and miserable,” Emilee Pickerel said. “You’re giving back to the people and community.”
“Well, you’re giving back to the consumer,” Alisha Pickerel chimed in, “and knowing that the consumer is going to get something that was well taken care of and not given anything harmful. That’s the idea behind it.”
Their last hurrah with the pigs is showing them, and seeing their four months of hard work come to fruition. This year, each girl showed their pigs six times for various competitions.
Their days start earlier and end later because they don’t camp at the fair, like many families do.
Fair board member Amanda Martin’s family is one of many who camp at the fairgrounds all week.
They squeeze five people into a camper — Martin, her husband and their three daughters, who show pigs and rabbits. They live minutes away in Bargersville, but camping at the fair is about the experience as much as it is the convenience, she said.
“It makes it a little bit more relaxing,” she said.
“And it makes it easier to get here at 8 o’clock in the morning for feedings,” her daughter, Emily Martin, said.
The Martins spend thousands of dollars per year as well, but it can range so much from year to year and family to family, Amanda Martin said.
It’s worth it because it teaches the kids about more than just the animals. It also teaches them public speaking skills and professionalism, having to be center stage in front of hundreds of people in a show arena.
“There’s this level of professionalism that is expected,” Martin said. “There’s a lot of value in it that you can’t put a price on. It’s definitely an investment in our kids.”
