BY: Sydney Bartels
Hamburgers, bacon, eggs, wool, and milk are just a couple of the many products that come from animals that we use in our everyday lives. These things don’t just come from nowhere though. Ranchers put in a lot of work everyday to make these animals the best they can be to provide us with the best products out there. It is important to teach the younger generations what to look for in a great animal and how to raise them properly. On February 24, some of the Silver Lake FFA members went to Kearney to compete in livestock and poultry judging. This competition teaches students the best qualities in different species, and market vs breeding animals. Students are given a pen of four animals to examine. They closely look at each animal, take specific notes about the pen, and then rank the animals 1-4. These notes are used later, when competitors give their reasons as to why they placed the pen as they did. Among the tough competition was freshmen Jack Sorenson, Keaton Karr, Trey Vance, Brayden Hemberger, Reagan Rust, Kassi Jones, Savanna Junek, and Georgi tenBensel. The top four placings from Silver Lake were Sorenson, Jones, tenBensel, and Rust. These four will advance to the state competition. Ashley Bonifas competed as an individual for poultry judging. Great job everyone and good luck at state!