Hard work, long days: Students spend months prepping for Austin Rodeo

Luke Bauer led his brown heifer American Dream gently by a rope halter around his family’s Bastrop property earlier this month.

The Cedar Creek High School junior and Dream were getting ready for Rodeo Austin, one of the nation's top ProRodeos sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, where they’d both show off months of work.

Getting the animals prepared is a matter of feeding them right and teaching them to respond to commands, Bauer said.

“She’s bonded with me,” he said. “She doesn’t like other people to mess with her.”

Bauer is among many area students who will show heifers, steers, lambs, chickens and other animals at Rodeo Austin, which kicked off Friday and will run through March 25 at the Travis County Exposition Center.

For students who show their animals, the rodeo is an opportunity to display the fruits of their hard work and possibly earn some cash they can use toward their college education.

The students who show animals are typically part of their school’s agriculture program or Future Farmers of America, a nonprofit youth group that promotes agriculture education.

Getting animals ready for the show is tough work that requires daily diligence.

That means feeding, bathing and cleaning up after the animal, said Katie Hartman, a sophomore at Dripping Springs High School.

Hartman is showing her lamb, Willie, at Austin Rodeo.

“We get life skills, maturity,” Hartman said. “It is a living thing. You have to take care of it. If you can’t come up here, they don’t get fed.”

Students also have to find the right combination of feed and supplements to make the animals grow big and muscular, said Emma Henson, a senior at Dripping Springs High.

Henson is showing her swine, Prada, at Rodeo Austin.

Judges rank animals based on the muscle structures, so students will adjust food to get the right balance of fat and muscle, a sometimes costly experiment, Henson said.

“It adds up,” she said. “You end up spending a lot more than you think you will.”

Students will typically put a lot of work into their animals’ looks, too, by shampooing and conditioning fur, shearing lambs or using air vacuums to make animals’ fur extra fluffy.

For months, Bauer has brushed Dream’s fur so it falls forward instead of back.

“It’s a tedious task with cattle,” Bauer said. “You want their hair to lay forward because it makes their hair pop more.”

Bauer is also showing goats and chickens in Austin.

Students have to teach their animals to follow their commands in the competition ring.

Henson used a long baton to tap Prada’s cheeks and give him directions.

When Prada fled to a narrow path behind the pig stalls, Henson lured him out with his favorite snack: marshmallows.

“These pigs, they’re going to get treated better than pigs on any farm,” Henson said. “They get baths. They have little balls they play with. They’re treated like little kings and queens.”

If the animals place well in the show competitions, students can earn college money for their months and months of work. The prizes are often generous. The 2022 top steer at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the largest event in Texas, fetched $1 million.

Because the students work with the animals daily, they usually get pretty attached.

Standing in the school barn Thursday, Hartman patted Willie’s head as he nuzzled against her.

"It's so hard not to get attached," Hartman said. "They're really sweet."

That bond means it's often so much harder at the end of major rodeo events, when students often have to give their animals up.

Some heifers can be shown more than one year and some animals are bound for breeding, but the majority of the animals are headed for consumption.

That’s a tough reality, and Henson cried when she gave up another one of her pigs at the Houston Rodeo this year, she said.

“You have them for months, and you raise them since they’re little babies,” Henson said.

Still, Henson keeps coming back to the barn year after year. She wants to become a pig breeder someday so she can help other students show at rodeos.

“I see myself succeeding, and I want to do that for another kid,” Henson said.

Several days of competition are planned for the Austin Rodeo.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin Rodeo: Students spend months prepping for PRCA event