Members of the Luck FFA took part in the state career development event on April 25-26 at UW-Madison. The team consisting of Lydia Uhlig, Ella Tretsven, Macy Johnson and Rose King competed in the poultry judging contest. A career development event, or CDE, is basically a contest, based on current industry standards, where FFA members can demonstrate their knowledge and skills gained from classroom instruction, their supervised agricultural experience, or SAE, and other FFA activities.
The individual participants were presented with four market broilers and four egg-type production hens for placing. Contestants rank the egg-type production hens in order of production qualities. Hens are placed based on present and past production, with emphasis on number of eggs laid.
Contestants were also given four whole, ready-to-cook chicken or turkey carcasses and 10 whole, ready-to-cook broiler carcasses, hung from shackles, or 10 broiler parts, or a mix of carcasses and parts. Each had to be graded A, B, C or No Grade, according to the USDA quality standards, in addition to 10 poultry carcass parts which they had to identify.
They were given samples of precooked, boneless poultry products and samples of precooked, bone-in poultry products to be evaluated for defects by using written quality factors. Ten white- or white-tint shell eggs were to be graded for interior quality only, based on USDA standards, into AA, A and B, and 15 other chicken eggs were to be evaluated for exterior quality grading based on soundness, cleanliness, etc.
Last, but certainly not least, each participant had to complete a 30-item written test, consisting of 25 multiple choice questions and five problem-solving questions. The test is very important in the poultry CDE and usually is the deciding factor in who wins a contest.
The scores of all four team members counted toward the team score. As a team, Luck got 20th out of 36 teams. Uhlig placed 18th overall individually and Tretsven placed 35th overall individually. Tretsven was the only student at the event to earn a perfect score on the written test. The students were accompanied by FFA adviser Kirsten Konder.
There were also other contests during the FFA CDE held including Wildlife Management, Dairy Evaluation, Livestock Evaluation, Ag Mechanics, Horse Evaluation, Ag Sales, Agronomy, Vet Science, Farm Business Management, Forestry, Floriculture, Meats Evaluation, and Milk Quality & Products.
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