Beef Cattle 4-H Project Area

The 4-H Beef Cattle project area consists of three project manuals. Each manual covers three years of activities.

• In Bite Into Beef (Beef 1), you will identify breeds, locate beef parts, judge, halter break a calf, fit a steer, show a calf, recognize a healthy animal, select feed ingredients, and shop for beef and beef by-products.
• Here’s the Beef (Beef 2) provides challenging activities related to leg structure, oral reasons, feed ingredients, behavior, nose printing, parasites, fitting, ethical issues, beef carcass composition and retail meat cuts.
• Leading the Charge (Beef 3) encourages more in-depth learning about selection and judging, feeding, careers, health and reproduction, and meats and marketing.
  

If a member completes the 9 years of project manuals, they can work with their county Extension professionals to determine their learning opportunities for their remaining 4-H years.

Scoresheets

Record Guides

Youth who has selected a Beef Cattle 4-H project typically are raising an animal as part of their project work. A project record guide is part of the animal science project experience. If you enroll with an animal, you will need to select the Breeding Livestock Record Guide (4-H Beef Heifer/Cow) or Market Livestock Record Guide (Feeder Calf or Market Beef) to accompany this project. Record guides are available in both a print and electronic format.

Paper Record Guides

• Ages 8-10 – Beginner Market Livestock Record Guide
• Ages 11-13 – Intermediate Market Livestock Record Guide
• Ages 14-20 – Advanced Market Livestock Record Guide

Breeding Livestock Record Guides (ages based on Jan 1st of current 4-H year)

• Ages 8-10 – Beginner Breeding Livestock Record Guide
• Ages 11-13 – Intermediate Breeding Livestock Record Guide
• Ages 14-20 – Advanced Breeding Livestock Record Guide

For most species, the supplement records are lifetime production records, so the 4-H member updates these each year that an animal is a part of their project. Members will need to complete a supplement sheet for each animal included in their record guide. These supplement records will be available online only.

• Individual HEIFER/COW Record

Exhibit Ideas

• Most youth in this project area will exhibit an animal at a livestock show.

• Poster, Story, and/or Model on one of the following topics:

• Beef 1 - identifying breeds, locating beef parts, judging, halter breaking a calf, fitting a steer, showing a calf, recognizing a healthy animal, selecting feed ingredients, and shopping for beef and beef by-products.

• Beef 2 - beef quality assurance, nutritional needs, beef digestive system, safety and ethics, beef judging, and grading beef.
  

• Beef 3 - selection and judging, feeding, careers, health and reproduction, or meats and marketing.

• Examples of Blue Ribbon Exhibits

How Do I Sign Up?

The first step is to create an enrollment in our ZSuite website.

When you get to the CLUBS tab of the enrollment, you will want to ADD PROJECT.

For Beef Cattle, you should search for:

Project Videos

Related Events & Camps

Animal Health & Quality Assurance (AH&QA)

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