Because the Boer was selectively improved for its meat production ability and its ability to pass on that trait to its offspring, along with other traits including pasture hardiness, the addition of a Boer buck to a commercial meat goat herd can improve the meat characteristics of the offspring without making them too soft to be pasture grazed.

Guests can watch the Open Breeding, Junior Market Goat and Junior Wether Does in Stadium Hall 1 (junior barn) during the first week of the Stock Show.

Contemporary North American llamas are bred and raised for packing, wool production, cart pulling, animal-facilitated therapy, companion animals, and exhibitions. Alpacas are also great guardians of other livestock, such as sheep, and increasingly used as FFA and 4-H projects.

Grease-free and lightweight, llama wool is warm and luxurious. A valuable commodity sought by fiber artists, such as weavers and spinners, the wool is a marketable product for llama owners.

The llama show at the National Western is one of the oldest and largest in North America. Be sure to attend An Afternoon with Llama and Alpaca where you can interact face-to-face with the llamas, alpacas, and exhibitors too!

Known for their ability to graze in poor conditions, sheep are popular with farmers in the arid, almost desert-like, climates of the western United States. In addition to producing two marketable products, meat and wool, they also are raised with a lower overhead budget than most cattle.

A standard at the National Western Stock Show since it first years, sheep and wool events continue to make up a major segment of the West’s premier livestock exhibition.

The National Western breeding sheep show features nine popular wool and meat breeds exhibiting their best quality stock of rams, ewes and lambs.