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