Well, as the weather warms up, many of you are thinking of the summer months and relaxing in the sun. Some youth in Kiowa County have different ideas of how to spend their summer. It will be full of hard work feeding and preparing their beef projects for showing at the county fair. 

The official Market Beef weigh in was February 28. Kiowa County youth weighed in nine head of market beef for 2020. This is the same as last year, but instead of five participates, we have seven this year. Six are 4-H and one FFA. This increase is a due to having three new youth entering calves in the project this year. 

There were eight steer calves and one heifer, ranging from 622 to 888 pounds. Although the same number of cattle were weighed and tagged, the total weight of all calves was 1860 pounds more than last year. With this increase of size, it changes the Average Daily Gain contest, as only three head were under the 750-pound mark compared to all cattle being eligible last year.  

I am happy to see interest in this project old and new. It is a very tough and time-consuming project that is hard to get a return of the investment and time put in. But the youth that take this project will know the value of hard work when they get to show and possibly sell their projects at fair time. 

I would like to thank the parents, leaders and volunteers for helping and keeping the youth interested in these worthwhile and educational projects.