The Buena Vista County junior 4-H team won 1st place last week in the junior division of the Iowa Pork Producers Association’s Youth Swine Judging Contest.
A total of 517 students participated in the contest’s senior and junior divisions. A plaque was given to each of the 15 junior teams. BV County’s junior team consisted of Brock White of Storm Lake, Beckett Svuba of Laurens, Will Voyles of Sac City, and Kooper Bean of Marathon.
BV County’s senior division team had the 10th-highest score out of 120 squads.
Points were awarded for activities including tests on meat quality, knowledge of commercial pork production, judging four classes of hogs in which students were required to test their commercial gilt selection and market hog evaluation skills, score a keep-cull gilt class, and a live carcass evaluation which involved examining ten pigs individually to determine each animal’s weight, loin eye size, and back fat, and then comparing and ranking them on carcass value.
The event also included a demonstration of pork carcass fabrication, and a seminar about careers in the pork industry. This is the 15th year of the Youth Swine Judging Contest.
(BV 4-H team members…Front, from left, are McKinley White, Storm Lake; Jaelyn Hartnett, Storm Lake; Mady Forbes, Albert City; and Landon Voyles, Sac City. In back, from left, are Kooper Bean, Marathon; Will Voyles, Sac City; Leah Bean, Marathon; Brock White, Storm Lake; and Beckett Svuba, Laurens)
