Hatching Skills for the Future
For members of the LaRue County High School FFA, a trip to the Kentucky State Fair was about more than competition. It was an opportunity to put classroom knowledge to work while developing skills that extend far beyond agriculture.
LCHS FFA students competed in the Kentucky 4-H Poultry Judging contest Friday, Aug. 21, testing their ability to evaluate everything from live birds and eggs to processed poultry products.
The competition requires students to understand what separates a high-quality product from one that might never reach a grocery store shelf.
“You place carcasses of broilers and roaster meat birds,” LCHS student Adam Reding explained. “In addition, you place their carcasses and the quality of them.”
Students also evaluate ready-to-cook products, looking for discoloration, broken pieces or missing coating. Eggs are judged both inside and out, with students examining characteristics such as air sac size, calcium deposits, thin spots and foreign material.
Student Avery Bivens explained how carcass judging requires careful attention to details such as missing skin, broken or disjointed bones and damage to the meat. Students use those observations to determine whether poultry meets an A, B or C grade — or whether damage is significant enough that it receives no grade.
That level of detail makes the competition challenging, but it also connects directly to an industry that impacts nearly every family.
“A lot of these people that facilitate this competition, they are in actual real-life quality testing for the food you eat,” Reding said. “You don’t want that to be contaminated or somehow messed up or have a loss of quality.”
That real-world connection is one reason LCHS agriculture teacher and FFA leader Misty Bivens sees so much value in the competition.
“You’re probably going to buy chicken at the store. You’re probably going to buy eggs at the store,” Bivens said. “This is something they put into practice in their real-world everyday life, something that they’ve learned in the classroom.”
But poultry judging goes beyond understanding agriculture and the food supply. Students must rank live hens based on specific characteristics and then explain their decisions to a judge, requiring them to analyze evidence, make a decision and defend it.
“When they have to place those hens one, two, three, four, then — they have to justify that with reasons,” Bivens said. “That’s critical thinking that you don’t always think about students doing when they’re doing poultry judging.”
After spending significant time preparing for the competition, the State Fair gave LCHS students an opportunity to demonstrate just how much they had learned.
And whether those students eventually pursue careers in agriculture, food production or something entirely different, Bivens said the abilities they are developing now will remain valuable.
“This gives them the opportunity to put into practice what they’ve learned and to really hone skills that they can use in the future no matter what they do.”
