Twenty-seven students recently competed in the Piedmont Regional Youth Cattle Working Contest that was held at the Alamance County Cattlemen’s Association Livestock Facility in Snow Camp.
Nine teams of 4-H and FFA students competed from Alamance, Chatham, Vance, Rockingham, and Stokes Counties. This is the second time that there has been a Piedmont regional contest, the state contest has been going on for about ten years.
There are four regional contests in NC that send the top two teams to the state contest each year. The 2022 state contest will be held at the Upper Mountain Research Station in Laurel Springs next month.
Alamance County 4-H, winning 1st place, is one of the teams advancing.
The Alamance County 4-H team members are Lane Whitfield, Aiden Kernodle, and Hope Andrews, coached by Lauren Langley, Livestock Extension Agent.
Competitors demonstrated their skills in processing young beef cattle for health and productivity and learned the concepts of Beef Quality Assurance. For this contest, youth were required to give two vaccinations and deworm the calves while demonstrating low-stress handling techniques.
In addition to working cattle, contestants also had to identify cattle breeds, feeds, and equipment during a skillathon rotation as well as take two tests. The tests were on general cattle knowledge and Beef Quality Assurance.
