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Higher livestock numbers at Neb. State Fair
The Nebraska State Fair’s move to new facilities in Grand Island in 2010 gave a boost to livestock numbers at the fair.
According to state fair board member Van Neidig of Madison, numbers of all species were up about 18 percent, across the board. “The open class beef was up 22 percent. 4-H beef was up 28 percent,” says Neidig. “Sheep and swine, I believe, were up in that 18 to 20 percent range. Meat goats was up our highest, over 30 percent—and dairy goats were up somewhere around 12 percent.”
Neidig says the three new livestock barns and the new livestock arena received very high marks.
“We’ve had visits from 16 or 17 state fairs and nine national livestock shows already through the grounds here—from West Virginia to North Carolina to the National Western—from Houston, Fort Worth and Billings,” he says, “and they tell us, this is the best there is. Hopefully it is—we tried to make it the best.”
Neidig says the state fair board hopes to host some of the major livestock shows in the years to come—but he says it could take a couple years for that to happen.
“Some of the larger junior nationals, they’re actually booked or scheduled into 2012 and 2013,” Neidig says. “So yeah, we hope by the time we have the larger activities coming here, we have refined and perfected all the little details.”
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