Dairy cattle evaluation involves utilizing several skills. For example: keen observation, simultaneously evaluating multiple inputs, logical thinking, making decisions, and defending those decisions with an oral presentation.

Our 2018 4-H dairy cattle judging team which I helped coach was very competitive. At the national contest they placed first in the Brown Swiss and Jersey breeds, second in Ayrshire, and second in oral reasons.

The National FFA Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management Career Development Event has a portion in addition to placing class and giving oral reasons where the team has to evaluate the production practices of a hypothetical dairy farm. They then have to give an oral presentation elucidating the strengths and weaknesses of the production practices and suggest changes to rectifying the weaknesses. I have helped our state winning FFA team prepare for all facets of this contest. Training youth for the herd evaluation part is interesting because few of the youth are farm youth and none are dairy farm youth so they do not have prior knowledge about proper dairy cattle management practices.

Spencer County has won the state FFA contest for several years so they are usually the FFA chapter I work with. Spencer County has had the National Champion FFA Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management Career Development Event team nine of the last 14 years including 2018. I have helped train all of these teams and they complement the three National Champion 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging teams I have coached.

This is copied from an email from Bland Baird, Spencer County Vo-Ag teacher: "Dr. Heersche has had a tremendous influence on our students, and without his help, our competitive success would have not been possible."