COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — Like the top human competitors at the NFR Open at Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo, the livestock also has elite status. A lot goes into making sure the animal athletes are healthy and ready for peak performance.
"They're just incredible animals," said Dustin Murray, livestock superintendent for the rodeo.
At a typical rodeo, one stock contractor brings in a collection of good, better, and best animals. For this rodeo, there is a prestigious selection process building a compilation of animals from rodeo companies across North America.
"The contestants select the best animals from all of the contractors and they bring them here," said Murray.
It is a lot of animals with high dollar value.
"We have over 150 head of roping cattle here. There's 130 bucking horses, 50 head of bulls, all from across the country," said Murray.
Like most top-performing athletes, there are regimens and nutrition plans.
"They send us back that, you know, they're fed, say a bull gets eight pounds of grain in the a.m., eight pounds of grain in the p.m., 10 pounds of alfalfa," said Murray.
It requires a plan laid out on paper to offer individual diet plans to hundreds of animals. It also takes a lot of feed.
"16,000 pounds of grain is fed this week, 70,000 pounds of grass hay and alfalfa hay are fed this week. We have a dedicated crew that goes and feeds the animals, and they're primed, ready for action all week long," said Murray.
A large percentage of the livestock coming to this year's NFR Open has already been to the National Finals Rodeo. Many will be going back.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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