Some of the most expensive hogs in the world live a couple miles south of Wauseon.
The Moyer family and a partner paid a record $380,000 for a boar at a sale in Oklahoma in 2013, according to the National Swine Registry. He’s named, appropriately, Sky’s the Limit.
They bolstered their herd with a $270,000 boar called In Control last summer and a $95,000 boar this summer, both of which were the priciest boars at the auctions where they were sold. A more typical selling price for boars, from which breeders collect semen and sell it for artificial insemination, is about $3,000, according to the registry.
With such investments, it’s no surprise that show pigs sold by the Moyers to 4-H and FFA members did well at the Ohio State Fair last weekend.
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Farms such as Moyer Genetic Edge, which sell breeding stock, semen, and show pigs at top dollar, have to be competitive at such events to stay in the business.
The Moyers, though, took the axiom that good things come in threes and went whole hog with it.
Last weekend marked the third consecutive year that the Moyers saw a pig that they had weaned and sold at a spring auction be chosen grand champion of the fair's junior market hog show — a hugely competitive event in which 4-H and FFA members exhibit more than 800 hogs.
It also was the fourth year out of the past six that the family has sold a hog that took grand champion at the state fair. In one of the two “off years,” the reserve champion hog was from their stock.
This year Moyer Genetic Edge had even more success with claims to four of the top six hogs in the show.
The grand champion hog, exhibited by Troy Elwer of the Delphos area of Allen County, was purchased from the Moyers as a 60-pound pig in an online auction.
So was the reserve champion, or second place overall, hog exhibited by Ashton Dominique, who lives in Fulton County, near West Unity.
The third overall hog, which was a litter mate to the grand champion, also was a Moyer animal. It was shown by Diana Weimer of Waterville Township in western Lucas County.
The sixth overall hog was fathered with semen sold by Moyers for artificial insemination. It was shown by Frank Riethman from the Fort Loramie area in west central Ohio.
“That’s the best we’ve ever done,” said Andrew Moyer, an owner who specializes in show pig and semen sales. “Everything just fell right.”
Customers say that’s not by chance.
“They understand the art of breeding animals. And it is an art,” said Dan Frobose, a Pemberville area resident who coaches Ohio State University’s general livestock judging team and has judged more than 700 hog shows himself. His daughter Hannah won the grand champion market hog trophy at last year’s Ohio State Fair with a Moyer hog.
Mark Hoge, a judge at this year’s state fair, buys semen from the Moyers for his farm in Illinois. He said Moyer hogs have a style that’s in vogue — lean bodies with heavy muscles, which should mean little fat and lots of meat in the slaughter house. The hogs walk in a way that is appealing in the show ring.
The Moyers, who have 140 sows in Fulton County’s Clinton Township, sell show pigs to youths entering about 50 fairs in nearly a dozen states, some as far away as California and Wyoming. Their Genetic Edge business is one of about 20 operations in the country with such a combination of semen, breeding stock, and show-pig sales at their level of quality, according to Brian Arnold, a vice president with the National Swine Registry.
It’s a whole different world from the more common business of selling hogs by the tractor-trailer load to be made into bacon and sausage.
Many commercial farms have 10 times as many sows as the Moyers but buy and sell hogs at down-to-earth prices.
This spring, 60-pound pigs for the commercial market sold for about $60. The 300 show pigs the Moyers sold ranged from $300 to $7,500, Andrew Moyer said.
Even in the middle of that price range, which he said is where the Ohio State Fair winners bought, there’s no hope of turning a profit, short of winning one of the top two spots in a show that features a sale as lucrative as the one in Columbus.
But the Moyers aren’t really in the business of selling pork. And they certainly aren’t aiming for a profit of $8 to $12 per hog, which is what many commercial hog farmers get in raising hogs from 60 pounds to 280 pounds.
What the Moyers market to families via their show pigs is the fun of caring for an animal for a summer and chasing blue ribbon dreams under the glow of a Ferris wheel.
“It’s going after the entertainment dollar of the people who participate [in fairs],” said Mr. Frobose, a former Wood County agricultural extension agent.
The Moyers help with that by visiting families that bought their show pigs and offering advice on feeding and shampoos, conditioners, and other grooming products for hogs.
Some top show pigs have as many hair-care products as the teens exhibiting them.
The Moyer brothers, Ben and Andrew, have children eligible to compete at the state fair, but they only show hogs at the Fulton County Fair.
“We do not compete against our customers,” said Ben Moyer, who also is a judge at hog shows nationwide.
This year the Moyers sold about 20 pigs that were exhibited at the state fair, and they sold semen that fathered about 25 more state-fair entries.
The Moyer brothers, now in their late 30s and early 40s, and their father, Tom, got their start in the business in 1986 when the brothers were kids new to 4-H and bought four female hogs from a great uncle.
The best they did at the state fair was a reserve champion trophy from the open-class competition in 1992. Then came college and full-time jobs, but their interest in show pigs remained, and about seven years ago the brothers returned to the farm full-time to work with their father.
They now have five full-time employees.
One of those workers, Shane Poulson, exhibited the grand champion market hog at the state fair in 2005 with a Moyer pig — their first big winner.
Big on pigs
Fulton County was a show-pig powerhouse long before Moyer hogs started winning. Its county fair show the Saturday before Labor Day is hugely competitive.
“It is like a very condensed state fair,” said Trent Dominique, Ashton’s father.
A few miles from the Moyer farm is the Creager Family Farm, which in 2001 sold a boar for $220,000 — the world’s most expensive hog at that time.
In 2002, Taylor Creager won grand champion with a hog that later was disqualified on a technicality many thought was unfair. The family, however, returned in 2003, and Taylor’s younger sister, Bailey, won grand champion.
In 2001, A.J. Genter from the Pettisville area had the reserve champion hog at the state fair after winning the same award in 1998. In 2006, Nick Barney of western Lucas County’s Monclova Township had the reserve champion.
But in recent years, it is the Moyers who have had a lock on many of the top awards.
Late on Aug. 8, after the state fair’s junior fair hog show ended, the Moyers wrote “What a day at Ohio State Fair” on their Facebook page for Tom Moyer & Family Showpigs/Genetic Edge Boar Stud. The farm’s page has almost 18,600 “likes” or followers.
The next night brought more good news. Diana’s third overall hog in the 4-H and FFA show on Aug. 8 took grand champion in the open-class show on Aug. 9. The Aug. 9 show was open to exhibitors of any age, but most of the hogs in it had been shown in the previous day’s youth show.
The top two hogs in the Aug. 8 show couldn’t be in the Aug. 9 show because they were being sold in the Sale of Champions that day. But that didn’t mean that the No. 3 hog on Aug. 8 would be the automatic winner the next day.
Hog shows essentially are porcine beauty contests. Beauty is subjective, but on a different day with different judges the Moyer hog came through again.
“Can’t do much better,” Ben Moyer said of the 2015 state fair.
That might speak for next year’s show pig sales too. Most hog shows never announce where the winning exhibitors bought their show pigs.
Nor are breeders listed along with exhibitors in printed programs.
But they don’t have to be. As soon as a division champion is chosen, word spreads through the show barn about where the winner came from.
“When you’re fortunate enough to win a big show, it does boost your business,” Ben Moyer said.
Contact Jane Schmucker at: jschmucker@theblade.com.
First Published August 16, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
