Success StoryBeyond the Chute to the Lab- Hands-On Beef Quality Assurance & Cattle Handling & Care Certifications



Beyond the Chute to the Lab- Hands-On Beef Quality Assurance & Cattle Handling & Care Certifications

Author: Michelle Simon

Planning Unit: Campbell County CES

Major Program: Beef

Plan of Work: Beef Cattle Production

Outcome: Intermediate Outcome

Scott ANR Agent partnered with Scott County High School Agriculture department to educate advanced animal science students on ruminant care, nutrition, and management while training them to become certified in Beef Quality Assurance and Cattle Handling & Care. These students would have the opportunity to “test out” of introductory animal science classes at the collegiate level due to the AP test. If they did, they would not have the opportunity and experience of dissecting ruminants to learn the bodily functions which would not allow for them to have hands-on experience before completing more advanced production classes. In response, Scott County ANR Agent collected a variety of ruminant body parts for dissections to emphasize and provide hands on examples of the material covered in the video trainings. The students dissected cow eyeballs and learned the anatomy and understood what happens to the eyeball during a pinkeye infection and learned management practices like clipping pastures, fly control, and vaccination protocols to prevent eye infections. These students also learned that nutrition is the controlling factor of several bodily functions such as reproduction. The students dissected a sheep digestive tract and identified the different parts (rumen, reticulum, abomasum, omasum) and completed a worksheet describing what each part played in the role of rumination. They also learned how to tag and implant cow ears to improve nutritional efficiency. Following the nutrition lesson, these students dissected reproductive tracts of a sow, gilt, and heifer and identified the different parts and understood the reproductive function and how the tract changed following gestation and parturition. These students learned by these visual aids the science behind the Beef Quality Assurance and Cattle Handling & Care certifications and were prepared to participate in more advanced level animal science courses beyond the collegiate introductory courses and labs.






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