McIntosh County Spring Livestock Show: Prescribed for Treatment of January
Eufaula Show Office Issues Full Prescribing Information, Including a Boxed Warning That No Spring Is Included
EUFAULA, Oklahoma — The McIntosh County Spring Livestock Show, which is held every January for reasons the show office describes as “traditional and also thermal,” will include a folded insert in six-point type with next season’s entry packet, after a volunteer noticed that every exhibitor who attends reports feeling noticeably better by February.
“If it works, it needs a label,” the volunteer told Farm.FM, unfolding a sheet that covered two tables and a heifer. “People in this county read labels. We read the feed tag, the dewormer box, and the back of the seed packet. They will read this.”
The insert is reprinted below in part.
BOXED WARNING: THIS SPRING LIVESTOCK SHOW IS HELD IN JANUARY. Exhibitors expecting spring should not discontinue participation. Spring is a separate condition. It usually resolves on its own around March.
Indications and Usage for the McIntosh County Spring Livestock Show
INDICATIONS. Indicated for the treatment of January in 4-H and FFA members ages 9 to 19 throughout McIntosh County, including Eufaula, Checotah, Midway, Hanna and Stidham. Also effective against short days and frozen water buckets.
DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION. One show, taken annually, on a Saturday. Must be preceded by four to six months of daily feeding, administered at 5:30 a.m. and again after school. Do not double the dose to make up for a missed morning. The animal will know.
HOW IT WORKS. The mechanism of action is not fully understood. Researchers believe it involves a halter, a show stick, a wash rack and a teenager who has already decided the outcome by Thanksgiving.
Clinical Studies: 122 Hogs Versus 122 Broilers
Efficacy was established using the 2022 Census of Agriculture profile for McIntosh County, which counts exactly 122 hogs and pigs and exactly 122 broilers in the county. Show-office volunteers have called this “the only perfectly matched trial in the history of Oklahoma agriculture.”
Both arms were observed through one January. The hog arm gained weight, entered the show ring, and placed. The broiler arm did not enter the show and has been classified as the control group. The broilers were not told.
The county’s 136,253 laying hens asked to join the study and were excluded, because eggs were judged a confounding variable. The 46,475 cattle and calves were enrolled in an open-label extension, which means they were in the barn the whole time and nobody could stop them.
Investigators acknowledge that McIntosh County ranks 57th in the state in hog sales, leaving the hog arm statistically small. The hogs dispute this. The hogs are not statistically small. One of them is 274 pounds and leans on the gate.
Contraindications and Warnings From Checotah to Eufaula
CONTRAINDICATIONS. Not for use in watermelons. McIntosh County ranks third in Oklahoma in sales of vegetables and melons, with 424 acres of vegetables and 239 acres of watermelons, and every one of those acres is dormant in January. The vegetable growers have filed a formal adverse event report stating that the county’s most nationally competitive crop has never once been eligible for its own livestock show. The show office responded that a watermelon is not livestock. The growers responded that it is if you name it.
WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS. In rare cases, a single exhibitor may take grand champion, reserve champion and bronze in the same division, as happened in the heifer show according to last year’s published results. This is not an overdose. This is called practice.
DRUG INTERACTIONS. Do not combine Checotah Wildcats and Eufaula Ironheads in the same wash rack without adult supervision and a second hose. Avoid concurrent use with Lake Eufaula, the largest lake entirely inside Oklahoma, which can cause buyers to talk about bass for forty minutes during the hog show.
Adverse Reactions Reported by 4-H and FFA Exhibitors
The following reactions were reported during the January show. Frequencies were estimated in pencil.
- Numb fingers: 94 percent
- Misplaced show stick, later found under the same hog: 31 percent
- Sudden craving for pecan pie (county grows 846 acres of pecans): 58 percent
- Explaining the rate-of-gain chart to a buyer who asked about bass: 12 percent
- Hay in places hay should not be (36,180 acres of forage in county): 100 percent
- Talking to a market goat in a calm, reasonable voice that the goat ignores: 100 percent of goat exhibitors
How Supplied, Refills and Patient Counseling
HOW SUPPLIED. One fairground, a set of pens, and a coffee urn. Store the exhibitor at room temperature. The barn is not at room temperature.
REFILLS. One refill is authorized each February. The Eufaula Local Livestock Show and Premium Sale, hosted by the Eufaula Ag Boosters Club at the McIntosh County Fairgrounds, runs the show at 9 a.m., a premium dinner at 5:30 p.m. and the sale at 7 p.m. Take with food. The boosters will see to it.
PATIENT COUNSELING INFORMATION. This section was to be written by the show office. A 16-year-old Checotah FFA member read the draft at the entry table, asked for a pen, and wrote it instead. Her version reads, in full:
“The show is not the medicine. The medicine is the five months of 5:30 a.m. feedings. The show is just where you find out it worked. Also, the watermelon growers are right. Nobody gets a January show for melons, so I am using my premium money to plant two acres of Black Diamonds this spring, and they can judge those in July.”
The show office approved the edit without changes. The vegetable growers withdrew their adverse event report and offered her the use of a seed planter. By next summer, if the weather cooperates, McIntosh County should be growing 241 acres of watermelons, and the extra two will belong to an exhibitor who learned in a cold barn that the work comes before the ribbon.
The insert will be reprinted for the next McIntosh County Spring Livestock Show with one new line under Adverse Reactions, added by the same FFA member in ink: “Watermelons, two acres, sweet. Expected in July.”
Five Humorous Observations About Oklahoma 4-H Livestock Shows
- A spring show held in January is not a scheduling mistake. It is optimism with a halter on. Nobody in Eufaula has ever looked at a frozen water bucket and said “spring,” but they say it every year on the entry form.
- Exactly 122 hogs and exactly 122 broilers in one county. That is not a census, that is a standoff. Somewhere a chicken is staring at a pig waiting for the other one to blink.
- The county ranks third in the state in vegetables and the vegetables have never had a show. That is a lot of watermelons sitting in a field in July wondering where their ribbon is.
- One exhibitor took grand, reserve and bronze in the same heifer show. The rest of the barn did not call it an overdose. They called it a reason to get up earlier.
- The adults wrote six pages of fine print. A 16-year-old wrote four sentences, fixed the watermelon problem, and ordered seed. That is the whole label right there.
Farm Satire Disclaimer
Side effects of this article may include snorting at the breakfast table. No pharmacist has approved this insert, no watermelon has filed paperwork, and the broilers remain uninformed. This is Farm.FM farm satire, blown up for laughs from real McIntosh County numbers; the show and its exhibitors are real and worth showing up for. Rural folks need their own brand of comedy because nobody else understands why a frozen hydrant at six in the morning is funny, and somebody has to say it out loud.