Healthy Farm Animals Mean Safe Food
The animal barn at the county fair is a good place to witness the
excellent care given to animals grown for food. The basis of animal
judging at the fair is to showcase animal health. Healthy animals produce
healthy and high quality meat, milk, cheese and eggs. Professional
livestock producers display their breeding stock at the fair alongside
4-H and FFA youth competing for prizes. The following guide explains
the criteria used for judging healthy beef animals, swine and sheep.
Livestock Judging Guide
for 4-H Members (Kansas State University)
Field Trip: Take a field trip to the animal barn at the county fair
and have students use the criteria from the guide above to judge animals
they see at the fair.
Easton, Patricia Harrison, and Herb Ferguson, A Week at the Fair:
A County Celebration, Millbrook, 1995. (Grades PreK-1)
Detailed account of the care and judging of animals at
a county fair, as told by a young 4-H'er showing her pig and the family's
horse. Nice photographs and a great deal of text.
Harvard, Christian, Face to Face With the Chicken, Charlesbridge,
2003. (Grades 3-5)
Information about such things as pecking order, predators, chick
hatching and more.
Patrick, Jean LS, and Alvis Upitis, Cows, Cats and Kids:
A Veterinarian's Family at Work, Boyds Mills, 2003. (Grades 4-6)
During the day and a half covered in this photo-essay, Shea
helps her father "pull" a calf (assist with a difficult birth, and Kendell
spends a morning with him vaccinating calves.
Schindel, John, Busy Barnyard, Tricycle, 2006. (PreK)
Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom is a program of the Oklahoma
Cooperative Extension Service, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture,
Food and Forestry and the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
