Project Update

While looking over the needs of Knox county, I realized that they do not have a livestock club and went to the volunteer certification courses this spring to be the leader of the club. Since this we have not had many 4-H members express interest. Knox county has an ample amount of beef cattle as well as swine, goat, sheep and chicken producers that would support children who would like to show livestock. For my project I will be doing a beef cattle interest/information day. The reason for this would be that I show charolais cattle and have the facilities necessary to carryout good demonstrations for the students as well as their parents. This would be an all day event, in which we would host the information session in the morning at the extension office then provide lunch then go to my personal farm for the hands on demonstrations. In the information portion, myself and the other agents will inform the attendees of the proper nutritional needs for beef cattle, how to properly care for them, facilities necessary, the basic anatomy of a cattle, an introductory to breeds of cattle and the reasons that people have those cattle based off the characteristics that they possess. We will then have some type of beef for lunch, more than likely hamburgers and have some cattle producers grill these for us. Once lunch is completed we would then go to my families farm where I keep my show cattle. Here we discuss the daily care for show cattle and give students the opportunity to do it themselves. In addition to this we will discuss showmanship and the application of the cattle anatomy and how it relates to livestock judging. With our ANR being a livestock judge we will actually have the students who have shown put on a mock show so the children can see what it is like to see a cattle show. This will also give students a introductory to livestock judging and the reasons they would give about the animals and their placing. Overall I would like to see the end result be students that attend have a better understanding of beef cattle in general, but hopefully get students to want to show some kind of livestock and build a outstanding 4H livestock club.