Purdue Livestock Judging Team took first place at All-East Competition
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Eight Purdue University students traveled to the All-East Intercollegiate Livestock Contest, held at The Ohio State University April 16-18, and took home high team honors and first place at the overall competition.
“This year’s team was very inexperienced to start,” said Matt Claeys, Purdue Livestock Judging Team coach and Extension beef cattle specialist. “This is a group that has worked really hard and come a long way in the last couple months.
"They’ve learned how to cognitively think and keep the big picture in mind, which led to their success at the All-East.”
The Purdue team was:
• First in the livestock judging contest, where participants were asked to rank 12 classes of livestock and give reasons for eight of the 12 classes, including performance classes of breeding livestock and market livestock for each species.
• First in the breeding and selection contest, where participants had to answer questions and rank female classes based on their reproductive capabilities, genetics and performance data.
• Third in the evaluation contest, where participants had to estimate the composition, determine the value and figure the economics of three species of market livestock.
Nicole Fitzsimmons, a junior studying agricultural education, won high individual for the selection and overall competition and Katherine Kuykendall, a junior studying agricultural communications, took fifth in the overall competition and high individual in judging, as well as evaluation.
“This class is more than just judging livestock,” Fitzsimmons said. “It’s learning fat deposition in meat, conformation, reading genetic data, and putting it all together.”
Fitzsimmons, who plans on being a teacher, said the one thing she will take away from the class is improved communication skills.
“I think I will be able to communicate to my students more effectively with fewer words,” she said.
Kuykendall also added that judging livestock teaches critical thinking.
“You have to be able to look at the animals keeping their purpose in mind, rank them and then give supporting reasons,” Kuykendall said. “It was a long three days of judging, but we just took it one day at a time stayed focused. As a team we really hung in there and judged the livestock well.”
Team members include Ian Brooke from Albany, Ind.; Rob Defreese from West Point, Ind; Fitzsimmons from Columbus, Ind.; Chris Grimm from Wawaka, Ind.; Kuykendall from Richland Center, Wis.; Kyle Lehman from Napanee, Ind.; Katie Linhart from Louisville, Ky.; and Ryan Linn from Camden, Ind. The team was coached by Claeys and Kyle Culp, a graduate student interested in the nutritional effects on reproduction livestock.
A team picture is downloadable at http://www.ansc.purdue.edu/LivestockTeam2009.jpg .
For more information about the Purdue Livestock Judging Team or individual results, contact Claeys at 765-494-4834 or mclaeys@purdue.edu .
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