Though they live in a dairy cow rich county, Danielle Holstein, Desiree Holstein and Jenna Shackelford know their chickens.
Chris DeCubellis, Gilchrist County 4-H agent, coached the girls who represented Gilchrist County 4-H on Monday at the state poultry judging contest held at the University of Florida’s Animal Science Building.
2009 marks the second year in a row Gilchrist County 4-H has won first place at the state competition, though DeCubellis said the team members are all new this year.
“Once a team wins they are out of it,” DeCubellis said. “They cannot compete again, which makes it hard in a rural county to have enough kids interested, but we have smart kids around here.”
According to DeCubellis, the team has praciticed since April, just after the Suwannee River Fair Livestock Show and Sale ended.
“We actually practiced less this year than we would have liked to,” DeCubellis said. “But you can bet we will be practicing hard between now and the national contest.”
This year’s team will represent Florida at the national 4-H poultry judging contest in November, which will be held in Louisville, Kentucky.
After winning the state contest last year, the poulty judging team from Gilchrist County placed 12th at the national 4-H competition.
DeCubellis said he is anxious to see how this team does at the national contest.
At the contest, team members judge two classes of white Leghorn hens. One of the classes requires the team to prepare oral reasons for their selections.
Team members are also required to evaluate exterior egg quality, candle eggs in a dark room, break out some 20 eggs, and judge chicken carcasses to give each one a grade A, B, or C rating.
Another part of the competition requires team members to identify parts of a chicken such as breast, wing, drumstick, thigh.
According to DeCubellis, Danielle Holstein won high individual senior in the state.
Fellow Gilchrist County 4-H poultry judging team member, Desiree Holstein placed second high indivdual in the contest.
The 4-H agent said that the county also had a junior team competing in the state contest.
Junior team members were Chandler DeCubellis, Tucker McDaniel, Dakota Harding, Savannah Harding and Spencer Hewitt.
The junior team placed fifth in the state junior competition.