State Rules and Format:

1. A livestock management team will consist of five (5) individuals who may work together as a team to answer questions, complete hands-on activities, or solve problems associated with the various species-specific stations. Although you may work together and visit as a team, please be aware that there will typically be two teams present at each station at the same time. Teams may also elect to split-up to effectively “divide and conquer” the various activities associated with each station.
2. The event will consist of six (6) separate species-specific stations including beef cattle, dairy cattle, horse, poultry, sheep, and swine. In addition, a 7th individual exam station has been added. All teams are required to complete all 7 stations.
3. Teams will have 13 minutes to complete each station.
4. NEW - Starting in 2017, each species station will be assigned a primary disciplinary focus. For that species, all questions, hands-on activities, and problems will based upon and/or related to the assigned disciplinary focus. Each year thereafter, the disciplinary focus will rotate through a four-year cycle as follows:

1 = Nutritional Management

2 = Breeding, Genetic, and Reproductive Management

3 = Quality Assurance and Herd Health Management

4 = Business Management, Marketing, and Product Evaluation

Thus, in Year 1 (2017), the beef and poultry stations will focus on breeding, genetic, and reproductive management (Focus #2). The dairy and horse stations will focus on nutritional management (Focus #1). The sheep station will focus on quality assurance and herd health management (Focus #3), and the swine station will focus on business management, marketing, and product evaluation (Focus #4). Then, in Year 2, the focus of each species station will rotate to a new focus as identified in the table above. Same would be true for Year 3 and Year 4. Thus, after a four-year cycle, each species will have provided a focus on nutrition, breeding/genetics and reproduction, herd health, and business/marketing management.

Although questions and activities for a given species will have one disciplinary focus, an attempt will be made to address management of that discipline (i.e., nutrition) from both applied (including basic, related hands-on skills) and scientific perspectives.

Objectives of the event modification include 1) reduction in redundancy between species stations (i.e., not having to identify soybean meal at 4 different stations), 2) to reduce the redundancy of stations from year to year, 3) to enhance learning and ease of event preparation by providing focus to each species station, and 4) to enhance learning by allowing for more potential depth of study with greater focus.

5. NEW – Starting in 2017, to facilitate your team’s preparation for the Livestock Management Contest, a series of one-hour webinars has been scheduled to provide an overview of each of the disciplinary-focused species stations. These webinars will identify, in general, what your students should know; provide example or possible problems to be solved, sample scenarios to work through, potential listing of items to identify or characterize, etc. In addition, a listing of easily accessible, inexpensive resources (i.e., extension publications) will be provided for each that may be used for study and preparation. All webinars will be recorded and posted to the CDE website so you may access the information at any time, even if you are unavailable for the live webinars.

Webinar Dates - Webinar Schedule (All webinars to be conducted from 4-5 pm)

• Thurs., Jan. 12 – An Overview of the New Contest Format
• Thurs., Jan. 19 – Beef Cattle (Breeding, Genetic, and Reproductive Management)
• Thurs., Jan. 26 – Dairy Cattle (Nutritional Management)
• Thurs., Feb. 9 – Swine (Business Management, Marketing, and Product Evaluation)
• WED., Feb. 15 – Horse (Nutritional Management)
• Thurs., Feb. 23 – Sheep (Herd Health Management and Quality Assurance)
• Thurs., March 2 – Poultry (Breeding, Genetic, and Reproductive Management)

To join these Zoom webinars, please click this link: https://nebraskaextension.zoom.us/my/bryan.reiling.

If you can’t connect via Zoom or are having audio issues, you can dial-in by calling 415-762-9988 and entering Meeting ID 718-293-4560. It’s preferred that you connect via the link above using a computer or tablet so you can see the screen and participants.

In addition, next fall, another set of webinars will be provided to focus on the disciplinary focus assigned to each species station for Year 2 (2018). We will continue to provide these webinars each year thereby creating a “library” of educational and preparatory recordings specifically related to this event.

6. NEW – Per recommendation of FFA advisors associated with the Livestock Management CDE “revision subcommittee”, an “individual” assessment station will be added as a 7th station within the event.

1. Each member of each team will be given an individual 20-point multiple choice exam.
2. Contestants will have 13 minutes to complete the exam.
3. Exam questions will equally represent each of the 6 species. For example, if there are 30 questions, 5 questions will relate to each of the 6 different livestock species (beef, dairy, horse, poultry, sheep, and swine).
4. Exam questions will function to test students’ overall knowledge of our animal agriculture industries including history, current production levels, trends and issues, etc.
5. Team member’s individual scores will be added together for the team score (100 pts)

i. Teams of less than 5 may compete, but they are at a competitive disadvantage For example, a team of 4 would have a score of 0 included and their maximum team score would be 80 rather than 100.

7. Each station is worth 100 points; 700 pts total.

8. The majority of this event will be conducted in the livestock arena (sand floor), and most stations will involve some direct contact with livestock, horses, or poultry. Students should dress appropriately.

9. Supplementary notes or materials are NOT allowed and may result in the disqualification of your team from competition.

10. Use of cell phones (including the calculator function) and other electronic communication devices is NOT allowed during the competition and may result in the disqualification of your team from competition.

Required Supplies

1. Writing utensils - pen or pencil (ideally, everyone on the team should have a writing utensil).
2. Clipboards – at least 1 or 2 per team (ideally, everyone on the team would have a clipboard).
3. All other items needed for the event will be provided … including calculators.

Scoring

Team:

Beef Cattle - 100 points

Dairy Cattle - 100 points

Horse - 100 points

Poultry - 100 points

Sheep - 100 points

Swine - 100 points

Individual Exam (5 team members; 20 pts each) - 100 points

Overall Team Score and Ranking is based upon the total of all scores across all seven (7) stations = Beef + Dairy + Horse + Poultry + Sheep + Swine + Individual Exam Scores

Tiebreaker

1. Within each species, the faculty coordinator or event superintendent will identify a specific question or set of questions, prior to start of the event, as the “tie-breaker” for that species.
2. For Overall,
   1. 1st tie-breaker will be the highest average score of all 5 team members on the individual exam. If a team competes with only four team members, the 5th test will receive a score of zero; the same would be true for the 4th test of a 3-member team.
   2. 2nd tie-breaker will be the more desirable average team RANK across all stations.