# WHAT DO YOU THINK?



## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

I was just pondering 4-H, and our club and the fact our 4-H/FFA livestock & country ham sale is coming up in 10 days and in our county even in a regular year we have NO livestock shows that pertain to 4-H/FFA in our county, just the county fair, which is a great show, but nothing for our county kids.
There are not many kids in the county that show, and this year there are only 4 animals in the sale! Normally 8-12. But some kids do show breeding animals, and other species.
In our state most county fair shows are open to other counties, of course this year most shows were cancelled including our county fair.

In getting ready for next year, I want there to be more participation from the kids! I've pushed and pushed to revive the 4-H youth expo shows in July. They have the youth expo but nothing for livestock! Only for other projects to get judged/selected for state fair (in August). It's highly disappointing.

So if we can't at least get a show revived (youth expo shows in the past were open to other counties, but very poorly advertised so attendance was low).
After seeing that another county had a poster contest along with their Showcase show, it made me think... maybe we should make it so the kids have to do a poster for the youth expo and talk about their project animals for the year whether it's market or breeding? Including pictures, descriptions, etc. ? It would give the livestock kids at least some way of participating because I am really disappointed in the lack of participation in livestock. We have a great club, really we do, good kids, but most are doing the country ham project which requires them to cure a country ham, and write a speech on whatever topic is selected for their age group. They select their best ham (they learn to cure 2 hams), give the speech at the youth expo & again at state fair then best finishers go in our live sale and the others go in the silent auction. I believe we have something like 40+ kids that do the ham project. So I don't know if we should just open it up to not just your project animal, but any livestock kids who would want to do a project poster on livestock animals, especially any that may raise animals but not show them, or if they just have a general interest. 

I know it's a long shot, but I'd really love to recommend it to our state fair as well! The 4-H section is so full I doubt they would go for it, but would be neat to work into that in the future and have a way to do posters. If there are only 1-2 posters per county it wouldn't be too many I wouldn't think where they couldn't pull it off, or at least just select the champions per species, then showcase the best of show only. 

I wanted to get thoughts here before I contact anyone. Again random thought while cleaning in the kitchen this morning and mulling over 4-H. 

The only other thing I can think of is having kids do project books which are not required in our state, but I worry kids will not participate as well as I'd want. I doubt our agent would even require kids to do stuff like this and would make it optional, but IMO if kids are going to participate they NEED to actually participate and do the work. I like the idea of involving the whole club myself, even if we never get this idea to state fair.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

I think doing the posters is a good idea.


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

I do too.


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## Moers kiko boars (Apr 23, 2018)

I think it sounds fascinating! Those interested in goats..could some be on milking? Some making soap? Some on cooking the meat? That would be interesting.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Thanks Everyone! I am going to email our agent about it tomorrow!



Moers kiko boars said:


> I think it sounds fascinating! Those interested in goats..could some be on milking? Some making soap? Some on cooking the meat? That would be interesting.


Honestly I am thinking it will be kids choice and they can make the poster on anything they want, something about a species of their choice, or if they are showing, then about their project or favorite project. I feel to make it work we need to let the kids have fun with it and decide on their own  
I got the idea from the other counties neat poster contest but also made me think about it while pulling up some old pictures of 4-H sale fliers my kids made for their projects years ago so my daughter can get an idea for making one, she doesn't have photoshop though so guess who gets to piece it together in a few minutes? haha...
This is the old fliers I found, my kids would pass these out as they invited buyers for the sale.


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