All Eastern Livestock Contest

All Eastern Livestock Contest 2014

After less than a week turn around after arriving home from Texas, we set off to compete in the last livestock competition for the semester. This time it was only in the next state over in Indiana. The competition was put on by Purdue University, Lafayette Indiana. This competition was a little different: the first day started in the afternoon (after a full morning of practice mind you!) with Market Animal Evaluation, second day was Breeding Animal (rank and questions), and then the last day was a normal livestock competition with 12 classes and then give 8 sets of reasons. This makes for a long and strenuous few days.

Surrounding producers and the university provided the sheep, cattle and pigs. This was quite an ordeal with the pigs as the university had just broken out with PED (Porcine Epidemic Diarrhoea) which is highly contagious and lethal. This resulted in having to move venues and to have a lower number and quality of pigs to choose from.
On the Saturday night after the competition had ended and before the Awards Banquet the next morning, the teams met up to socialise. We spent a fair bit of time with the Purdue team who very kindly showed us around. 

It was a fabulous way to end the semester and my American Judging career as we were High Point Team Overall. With 12 teams from all over the nation (including Florida!), we were very happy to return with the trophy for the 4th year in a row. 

As a team we got prizes in all areas of market, breeding and judging. One of our team mates, Nicole Worley, was the Individual High Point Winner Overall. 

The opportunity to be apart of the University of Illinois Livestock team has been incredibly valuable. My judging skills have improved immensely, and I have learnt many new skills in areas where I may not have had the chance to do so in Australia. I would like to extend my thanks to Angus Australia and the University of Illinois for giving me this opportunity and I will never forget my time spent here.
To my team mates: Seely Sayre, Nicole Worley, Sam Brumleve, Nick Bertsche, John Andress, Kendal Shirman, and Claire Geiger, and to my coaches: Chris Cassady, Dr. Daniel Shike, and Katelyn Jones-Hamlow, thank you so much for making this time so incredible and not just in the judging ring. You have all taught me so much, have been supportive and we have built great friendships that will last through our careers. Thank you.

Now that I have returned to the University I will be attending classes as normal and helping out with various activities with the 4H House and the University until the end of the semester. 

While I sadly will not have any more competitions to report on, I will be addressing some hot topics in American Agriculture over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

                                                                                    - Until next time, L. Grubb

National Meat Animal Evaluation Competition

After spending a few days in Chicago IL visiting friends and seeing the city, I caught a train back to Champaign and began my venture to Lubbock, Texas for the National Meat Animal Evaluation Competition. Our team of 8, plus 3 coaches, left on Wednesday and spent the day driving through Illinois and Missouri and into Oklahoma staying in Stillwater. The next day we practiced our Pig and Sheep, Market and Breeding evaluation at Oklahoma State University. This involves judging and ranking classes, answering questions, and predicting how they will cut (eg. fat back fat thickness, and rib eye area/loin eye area etc.). Their facilities were amazing with white picket fences everywhere and purpose built judging buildings.

Sheep Barn OSU

Hose paddocks OSU

Judging building OSU 

Barn OSU

Next stop was Amarillo, Texas. After a good night's sleep, we were up and off to a Tyson Plant to practice our Beef grading. Here we had many rails to set up to practice our yield and quality grading. This is much like Meat Judging in Australia, just in inches!
Then it was off to Lubbock, Texas. This town is the home to Texas Tech University. This university is well respected in agriculture and meat science. Their meat judging team visits Australia every 4 years or so to compete in the Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition. They are kindly hosting the National Meat Animal Evaluation Competition this year.
The following day was jam packed but probably my favorite. We visited a feedlot to practice our Market Animal evaluation - predict back fat, rib eye size, kidney, pelvic and heart fat, dressing percent and quality grade. They had a fair variety of cattle or many ages and finishing stage, as well as British, continental and indicus influences. We then headed to Texas Tech to do the same with some of their show steers.

Feedlot stretches as far as they eye can see.

Feeder calves- Introduced to feedlot as calves.

Pen of steers

Nice big steers almost ready for market

Texas Tech Show Steers

Real Texan pen riders!

The next day- the day before Day 1 of competition, was spent at the same feedlot looking at pens of animals that the grader had graded to get our eye in on how he grades. We also spent a fair amount of time practicing calculations in preparation.
Day 1 of competition began with judging starting at 6am. We are each divided up into groups and then rotated around all the Market Animal classes. This took up half the day. We had the communications section in the afternoon, and our team was last at 3pm. This section involves working as a team to produce an informative skit on a given topic. It is always on a hot topic in the agriculture industry. We do not know the topic until we enter the preparation room. We then have 1 hour to prepare a skit with no outside help or supplies but our own knowledge. The topic this year was to design a communications plan on organic/natural verses conventional farming methods, and which we would recommend using. Our team went with conventional farming practices. Our skit was set up like a radio program. Each of us had roles including myself as the international perspective as a 'UN representative', there were producers, a representative from the National Cattlemans Beef Association, a Cargills representative, a small time packer, a supermarket chain representative, and consumers. We defined the difference between organic and natural branded produce, pros and cons of organic and conventional practices, addressed the sustainability issue with the rising global food supply demand, nutritional differences, management issues and costs,as well as how we can educated producers, packers, and consumers on the topic.
We have 10 minutes to present, and we are marked not only on our content and argument, but also how we speak and divide our parts.

Controversial topic worldwide - education is the key!

Day 2 of competition consisted with a morning of Breeding Animal evaluation. Here we rotated as before, ranking classes of 4 (with questions at the end), and doing keep cull classes - 8 animals, keep 4 and cull 4.
We are given a scenario and data for all classes and the questions are about applying the data to real world scenarios and details on the animals.
Once this was over, we has the Meats section. This involves pricing pork, lamb and beef, as well as ranking and questions as before, rank 8 pork carcasses, yield and quality grading rails of beef, and a class of a retail cut (this year was square cut lamb shoulders). This was all over at 5pm.
After a team dinner at a local Lubbock brewery, 5 members of our team headed out with some contestants from other teams to a local bars. This gave us a chance to meet contestants and coaches from other universities and learn about what they do and about their programs at their universities. It was also great to experience some Texan culture and I even learnt to two-step!

Out with some of my team mates

The next morning we had the Awards Breakfast Banquet. Sponsors are honored and individual and team winners are announced in each area. The university of Illinois got 4th or 5th in every area (Breeding, Market, Meat, Sheep, Swine, and Beef), and 2nd in Communications. This left us with 4th placed team overall, out of 12 teams. At the conclusion of the banquet we all piled into the bus and began our 18 hour long bus trip back to Champaign.
It was a fabulous week with a fabulous team. Our coaches are amazing and put in so much effort in order to give us the best chance of success and to also make our trip as enjoyable as possible. The team is very supportive of one another and we work well together. This week will always be in my mind as a truly great experience on yet another adventure around America on the 2013 Illinois Scholarship all thanks to Angus Australia.                                                                                                   - Until next time, L.Grubb

Competitions thus far!

Sorry guys but this is going to be a long one!

My livestock Judging team consists of 7 people including myself and 2 coaches. I am also on the Meat Animal Evaluation Team. This team consists of the same 7 people on the Livestock team plus one more and 3 coaches. The students on these teams are all juniors (3rd years) at the U of I and have experience in livestock judging through youth programs such as 4H and in community college, as well as being from varying agricultural backgrounds. This makes for a dynamic and talented team.

Training:
Typically training begins at 3pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and can go until 8pm. We train at the farms on campus, in the meat lab on campus, or we travel out to other establishments. We also train on Saturdays that we don't have competitions. These can run all day and sometimes we do mock competition with high school students. We train for all aspects of both types of competitions -they will be explained further down.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota
This competition was on the first weekend that I was in Illinois. In order to get a grasp of the competition structure here, I just observed. We left the day before and on the way over to South Dakota we stopped at a couple of cattle properties to practice. That night I sat in on my other team members giving their reasons as practice. The morning of the competition, we arrived at the venue at 8am to register. Competitors are then assigned groups. There was 2 sessions of 6 classes. They had to place 6 classes and then give reasons on 6 others as well as place them. Classes consisted of: bulls, show steers, sheep, pigs, and goats. You have around 7 minutes at each class before handing in your cards and then moving on to the next class. Depending on the number or people competing it can get very challenging to get a good view of class. Once the students have finished rotating around all the classes, they are then taken to another venue to give reasons. In this case it was on the same property.

Sioux Falls, Goat class - hands on allowed

Here they are all seated and given an order and sequence of rooms to go give their reasons in. Generally competitors have about 20 minutes between delivering each set. When giving reasons you enter the given room and deliver your set to one person. Generally you aim to make it around 1 minute 45 seconds long. It is very particular how you deliver these sets, not just what you deliver. It is important to give a confident impression, so competitors stand with hands behind their backs, project their voices, and maintain eye contact with the reasons taker. There is also a formula as such as to how you present your reasons. Beginning with your placing, then describe your 1st placed animal, grant the 2nd placed animal, then reasons why the 2nd placed animal came 2nd. Then you move onto 2nd vs 3rd etc. It is all about accuracy and creativity. You need to be able to create a picture of the animal you are describing and include some emotive language to persuade the reasons taker that your placing is best. Reasons are scored out of 50, and it is possible to get a high score even if you did not place exactly the same way as the committee.

Sioux Falls, Sheep class- always slick shorn with leg warmers

It is quite nerve racking and it is very different to our more conversational style competitions. While it is different and doesn't quite prepare their competitors for judging real shows, it really makes you think about what you are saying and to confidently describe the whole animal, not just what you used to place the class.
These competitions generally last all day, and in this case, didn't finish until 5pm, when we went straight back to Champaign.

Sioux Falls, Hog class-short, stocky animals

Iowa Beef Expo:
The next weekend we traveled to Iowa Beef Expo to compete. This was the be my first competition, and man was I nervous!! The format was pretty much all the same, except this time we only judged cattle. There were lots of competitors as college students were competing with juniors at the same time (some as young as 8). You had to really fight to get a good spot and then you couldn't move to get any other angle. We had many breeds as well as a mix of bulls, heifers, steers, market animals and show animals (called club animals here).

Iowa, Heifer class for practice

We arrived at the local high school to prepare reasons, lunch was provided, but like most people I couldn't stomach anything. Going in to deliver my first set I was very nervous and my delivery was less than perfect with a lot of stuttering and breaks in flow. However I found after giving a couple of sets my nerves disappeared and I was able to deliver them fluently and with confidence. I thought that delivering the sets without notes would be difficult but when you create a mental image of the class it isn't so hard.

Iowa, Shorthorn class for practice

When registering the coaches have to nominate a team of 5 who's scores will contribute to the University's score and the remaining competitors for the University compete as individuals and can still get awards. At this competition U of I got 4th overall and no individual awards.
It is very competitive, with some students being drafted by universities and community colleges to judge on their teams. The individual winner of this particular competition only dropped a total of 12 points for the whole competition. Upon arriving back at Champaign everyone was exhausted; it is a full on day of constant thinking, judging and recalling.

Meat Animal Evaluation Contest - Madison, Wisconsin
This is a different type of contest. It spans 2 days. The first day competitors evaluate, judge, and answer questions on breeding animals. Estimate things such as dressing %, Rib eye area, back fat, and Kidney heart and Pelvic fat, as well as price and rank market animals (cattle, sheep and pigs). The second day is judging carcasses. It is a lot like our Meat Judging competition. We judging beef, lamb and pork, do estimates, answer questions, and place carcasses and retail cuts. Competitors are scored on their ability to answer questions, predict the carcass traits of market animals (actually measured against final carcass) and their ability to estimate carcasses.

Practice comp at Illinois Beef Expo

On the way up to Wisconsin we stopped in at Jocelyn slaughter plant, which is a beef plant, to practice our beef grading. Everything here is measured in inches and their quality grading is different to ours. I haven't found the change over too difficult as I had some practice doing this in Brisbane as part of the Top 10 for Intercollegiate Meat Judging.

These competitions, whilst not having the stress of giving reasons, also require you to take very good notes on classes, as questions are not asked until the end of the day. The pressure of judging a class is also high as you are having to price animals etc using formulas that you have to remember and under time pressure. This competition is all about strategy to gain the most points and learning to look for certain things to answer predictable questions. My meat judging experience has definitely helped in this competition type.
The U of I Livestock team has to also compete as part of this team as it helps to angle your view of animals to more finite details as well apply the knowledge of livestock in a terminal sense.

One of the great places we get to stop at on road trips.

Travelling almost every weekend with the judging teams has enabled me to see to much of the US already and to visit many fabulous properties with outstanding livestock. Spending many hours on the bus with the judging team has lead us to forge strong friendships and I have learnt much about agriculture in America through them, especially with a youth focus.
Since I've arrived in America my knowledge of livestock has increased exponentially, especially my knowledge of sheep, pigs, and goats. It is completely different over here and I believe it will help me in my future endeavors. While it is nerve racking to have a reputation to withhold and to learn a whole new style of judging I really do believe I will be a better judge because of it. There are no words to describe just how valuable this experience really is. Everyone with an interest in livestock should definitely apply for this scholarship or any of the others that Angus Australia has to offer.
-Until next time, L. Grubb

4H House

During my time at the University of Illinois, I am staying at the 4H House Sorority. The house was founded in 1934 for girls who have been a part of the youth program 4H and were wanting to attend U of I.
The four H's stand for: head, heart, hands and health. 4H was developed in America to educate youth and to develop their leadership skills. It is mainly an agriculture based program with clubs in most countys around the US. Kids can join from a young age and participate until they are 18. The 4H foundation holds competitions for students in all types of showing and judging, including livestock, as well as other special interest areas and runs education programs to equip students for higher education. It is a wonderful network and everyone that I have talked to about it, looks back on it fondly. It is a great initiative that really gets kids involved in not only agriculture, but installs values and skills that they can carry with them for life. If you would like to know more about the 4H Foundation then visit this website: http://www.4-h.org/ 

Mattress surfing

My room

The 4H house accepts girls from any leadership group background. There is currently 53 girls living in the house, with ages ranging from 18-22. Everyone shares rooms with 2 to 3 other girls. These rooms are for study and lounging around in. The house then has 2 dorms where everyone sleeps in bunk beds at night. Unlike other sororities, the girls in the house cook and clean on a roster system (other houses have chefs and cleaners). This not only heavily reduces the cost of living in the house, but also teaches the girls useful skills. Facilities in the house include a commercial grade kitchen, laundry, computer lab, various lounges, laundry, and gym equipment. Surprisingly with so many girls in the house it all runs fairly smoothly.

Ice Hockey game with my room mates

Themed nights - Hawaii

There is a large emphasis on education, with girls having to meet a minimum GPA to remain in the house. Social events are organised for at least once a week. Most of these are 'exchanges' with frat houses. Sororities on campus have to follow strict rules and are not allowed boys to stay over and there is no alcohol consumption allowed on the site. Fraternities however do not have these restrictions. Exchanges are often themed and everyone is encouraged to dress up and participate. They provide drinks and put on games including the stereotypical beer pong, flip cup, slap cup etc (just like in the movies!). Other social events include sporting teams with frats, sorority bake offs, and cook outs. These events are great as it allows you to meet many people from all over the US and with a variety of majors, as well as maintaining a good work/life balance. And with 50 other girls in the house, there is always someone doing something fun.

Great Fratsby themed exchange

Typical frat party

Moving in and navigating the university and classes was made so much easier living by with 50 wonderful girls who are more than happy to help you out and show you around. It is a completely different dynamic to what most of us in Australia are used to at University but I can definable see its merits, and will miss the girls when I have to leave.  -Until next time, L. Grubb

University of Illinois

I arrived at the University of Illinois on the 21st of January, the day before classes started for the Spring semester of 2014. The US school year begins in August/September, right after summer break.So I arrived in the middle of the school year after their winter break.
I was greeted at the airport by my room mates of the sorority house I am living in (more on that in another post), and by temperatures of -20 degree Celsius!

Snow covered paths around uni

Snow plough at uni

The next day I met with Dr. Shike, who will be my supervising professor for my time at U of I. As well as being on the Livestock Judging team as part of the Angus Australia Scholarship, I also take classes. I am taking ANSC100 Introduction to Animal Science, which is designed to give new students a brief overview of not only livestock but companion animals too. We cover topics like nutrition, basic meat science, and behavior. With labs every week, spanning trips to animal shelters, taste testing meat samples, and hands on digestive system work with a fistulated steer. ANSC224 Growth and Reproduction is a higher level class where we delve into the development of animals from conception to adult hood. This is quite scientific and I have found this a great test and recap of my prior university learning. This unit also has weekly labs following a group of piglets through their growth and development, dissections, and Ultrasound machine usage. ANSC409 Meat Science has to be one of my favorite units as I have a strong interest in meat production. This is a great unit as it goes into thorough scientific detail on muscle and meat biology, and further on we will be doing meat production labs. ANSC209 Meat Animal Evaluation is an introductory course for my Meat Animal Evaluation Team, where we learn to evaluated live animals on Monday afternoons, and then evaluate their carcasses on Wednesday afternoons. This is a great class which can be applied to real life. And finally I have ANSC211 which is my Livestock Judging class. This means that students on the livestock judging team can get credit points for it. The University of Illinois has so many wonderful classes to offer its students, so you can direct your learning into any field you wish.

My Livestock Judging team consists of 7 people including myself. Most people on the team have judging experience in high school and community college. It is a very different environment over here and I will write a separate post on the competitions.

Frosty creek at uni

Lots of bikes and squirrels!

U of I has around 40,000 students and several campuses. It is very well known for engineering, and also has a medical school and veterinary school. The main campus at Champaign-Urbana is a town campus with cafes, restaurants, bars, gyms, ice rinks, sport stadiums, cinemas, doctors, grocery shops, and clothes shops, all on campus. With research farms for beef, dairy, sheep, pigs, poultry, and crops, as well as a working slaughter house with sales room. They have a bus system which runs all day and into the night. it is a very social campus with countless groups and clubs to join for just about anything you can think of! It is a very historic university that was founded in 1867, and has some wonderful architecture that makes it a joy to walk around. Being this old, it was also built with tunnels running underneath, this means you can get to almost anywhere on campus through these tunnels- very handy on freezing cold days! 

Tunnels under uni leading to different buildings

Main quad on campus - standing at the music
auditorium facing the Union building.

U of I is very patriotic and everyone here is very proud to be a part of their university, everywhere is orange and blue (the university's colors) and everyone wears the logo and colors all the time! It is considered a very prestigious uni to go to and every takes pride in it. U of I is part of the Big 10 which means that the sporting teams are really good and compete against the best in the country. 

Ice hockey game on campus
Illinois vs East Michigan Uni

One of the many sorority/fraternity
houses around campus.

U of I is a wonderful University and is a true representation of a big American tertiary institution. It truely is an eye opener to what 'college' is like in America and what large fees and loyal alumni and do!                            -Until next time, L. Grubb

National Western Stock Show

My American adventure began on the 15th of January, arriving in Denver Colorado to work with an Angus stud called Prairie View Farms, which is owned by Alan Miller. PVF had a team of 22 animals (bulls and heifers), and a human team of over 15 people! The majority of these people were a part of the fitting team.
The animals have in excess of 2 inches of hair to work with, so as you can imagine, with the right people, tools, and plenty of adhesive, you can finish animal in such a way to make it as close to ideal as possible. It is thing of joy to watch a team of fitters work on an animal, with detail down to literally the last individual hair!

Fitting team working their magic

Double blowers

Brush on drill to brush up legs

My main role as part of the team was washing, blowing, feeding, watering, and moving animals between the barn and tie outs. Not all breeds are exhibited every day. The Angus show was held over 3 days while I was there, along with the Herefords. They also hold bulls sales out in the yards. The first day was the Junior Show, with handlers being under 21, and the next day the Open Show. An auction is held, with prices topping $100,000's of dollars! The part fo the show held out side include carloads and pens, these are judged as a group of animals.

 Now there is also no 'roughing it' in America either, teams are always put up in nice hotels for their whole stay - no swags full of shavings here! When they say everything in America is bigger, well they really mean it! The sheer number of people, animals, equipment, product, and hardware was extraordinary! Our team alone had 2 chutes, 6 double blowers, 3 boxes of tail adhesive, and the best of everything! Showing is a very serious business over here!

An Angus Heifer class

PVF's Reserve Champion Angus Female

The PVF team were absolutely wonderful to work with, and willingly answered the hundreds if not thousands of questions I asked, and if they didn't know, they would promptly find someone who did. I met many amazing people from all over the US who not only educated me, but were also very interested in Australian agriculture. If any of you get the chance I would definitely recommend going to the National Western Stock Show and spending a few days at least to take everything in. There are horses, dogs, sheep, pigs, machinery and just about everything you can think of on display and for sale! It was a huge kick start to my American Ag Adventure! Until next time, L. Grubb.