Kristen Tangen is a senior in High School on Long Island. She has been a 4-H member since 1993 and a member of the Suffolk County 4-H Livestock Showmanship Program since 2001. She plans to study Elementary Education. She competed this year in the New York State Livestock Judging competition at the New York State Fair and writes about her experiences below.

What is Livestock Judging?
Livestock judging is a process of evaluating, selecting, place and learning the various livestock species--beef cattle, sheep and swine. Judging is the foundation of any 4-H livestock project. Livestock producers, breeders, feeders, buyers and packers evaluate livestock for their potential as either breeding or market animals. These people try to relate the "form" of an animal with the "function" for which it is intended to serve. That is why livestock judging is often called the application of "form and function" to livestock. Youth compete to be a part of their state team to then travel to Kentucky for the National competition.

Why judge livestock?
Stockpersons judge livestock to differentiate between superior, average and inferior animals within each of the livestock industries. They are looking for the most desirable animals for their particular needs. Stockpersons often compare their own livestock to those of others. Using their judging knowledge and skills, producers analyze the potential value of animals for meat content and breeding purposes.

BY KRISTEN TANGEN SUFFOLK COUNTY 4-H MEMBER

We spent a lot of time in the hog house. We knew that would be everyone’s weakest point. We would stand in there for almost a half hour at a time and the smell would sting our noses. Judging the hogs was not my strong point or my most favorite thing to do.

We also worked on judging sheep and beef cattle. We would round the sheep up into a catch pen and halter them. Sarah wanted us to learn how to feel the muscling on them. Let’s just say that wasn’t as easy as it seems. Most of our sheep are over conditioned (fat). So even though we felt them I really didn’t know what we I was looking for.
Judging the steers was not that much easier. We weren’t able to halter them so they were moving around the pen and it was difficult to get a good look at each one. It was also hard because I could never tell which one was which.

I spent my summer prepping for the livestock Judging contest at the New York State Fair with help from Sarah a former member of the State Judging Team. This was the true test to see if I really knew what I was doing. While I was showing in the beef barn I watched some of the beef shows to compare how I would have placed the class to how the judge placed the class. Surprisingly I wasn’t doing that bad. I also talked to friends in the barn and asked them questions about their animals. It was a great way to learn new terms when describing Tom spent a lot of time talking to me about the judging because he was going to be on a team with me. When the hogs arrived on Sunday Cody and I were introduced to Derek and his family who showed hogs and were going to help us out. Last year Derek was on the state team so he knew the stress we were under. It was a lot different looking at the hogs at state fair. You could actually see the muscle on their back and hams. Just looking at what market hogs were supposed to look like gave me a confidence boost. It also helped talking to someone who knew what he was looking at. Later Derek introduced us to a family friend in the sheep barn and he took us into a pen where we got to feel the sheep. None of these sheep were over conditioned like the ones on the farm. They were perfect. At least they seemed that way to me. After looking at these sheep I had a better idea of what I should be looking at come the day of the contest.

On the morning of the contest it was cold and rainy. Cody and I walked into the poll barn and saw Tom sitting in the bleachers with Sarah. We were all a bit stressed. Our other teammate was Lauren; (she was a little late so that didn’t help our stress levels).

Each team was split into four different groups. I was in the red group. After the directions were given we all walked over to the beef barn. We judged the steer class and then a breeding heifer class. After both classes I felt like I might have done ok. I mean I show beef cows so I should know what I’m looking at, or at least I hoped.

We had to walk back to the poll barn after that. It was time for us to give our oral reasons. I was not looking forward to standing in front of the judge. I was nervous that I had placed every class wrong and the judge would laugh. Luckily that didn’t happen. I did mess up on the hogs when I described one. I said the wrong number. But the rest went pretty well.

Once my team finished giving our reasons we had to work on a group project. This consisted of answering 20 questions as a group. We got really lucky this year, the topic was beef production. Both Tom and I work with beef cattle so that made things a lot easier. Tom was the greatest asset to the team because he knew a lot about beef production.

We argued about some of the answers, but that worked for us. We were able to find an answer that we all thought was right. We were all able to contribute something when we answered the questions. When we weren’t arguing about what should be written we were complaining about how hungry we were. We just wanted to get everything done.

Last to be called were the members of the 2006 New York State Livestock Judging Team. They started going through the list and I hadn’t been called. Inside I was thinking ok this is good I still have a shot to be in the top four. They get to the 5th place and it was Tom. My heart sank. All I could think was he had done better in the oral reasons so how could I place over him. I don’t even remember who got forth because I just didn’t care anymore.

When Dana got to the 3rd member of the team she paused. I remember her saying in a really shocked voice “well this next person is from…where? ...Suffolk County. Congratulations Kristen Tangen.”

I MADE IT!!!! WAIT. ME?! I’m from Suffolk County, I’m not a farmer, how did I get on the team?? If you couldn’t guess I was so shocked and really really excited. I was on the team. All my hard work had paid off.

Well now I have a lot of work a head of me. I have to prepare for judging at the Keystone fair in October. That will be a practice run. The big event is going to be in Louisville, Kentucky this November.

Since State Fair I have been super busy. Not just with school work but all the judging work too. On a couple Fridays my co-coach Sarah came over to my house and we worked on reasons and terms. I have been working on just trying to substitute terms like “narrow in the middle” with “lacking width and dimension through his middle.” I’m slowly getting more consistent with using more professional terms.

A few weeks before the Keystone International Livestock Exposition I called my head coach, Bryan Wilson. I started working on oral reasons with him. Once I did my first set of reasons with him he had a lot to go over with me. He said I did a good job but I need better organization. He went over step by step what I need to fix in each comparison. Then he told me fix it all and call him back when I was done. Let’s just say I’m happy I took notes while he was talking because I had a lot to fix.

I called my coach maybe 4 times before Keystone and I felt a little more confident about my skills. I was looking forward to judging with my team. I was hoping they were working hard too. I really want New York to do well this year.

I left on Friday the 6th around 6 pm to go to Pennsylvania. The ride was less then enjoyable. We hit so much traffic and all I could think about was a nice soft bed because I knew I would have to get up early. Well I didn’t get to the hotel until almost midnight and I wasn’t too pleased because 6am came way to fast.

After meeting up with Tom the two of us had to look for our coach Bryan and other teammate Amy. I was so stoked to finally meet them. When we were with our Coach he handed out all of out materials and told us the basics of what we were going to be doing.

Like usual the team got split up. The adult for my group didn’t speak loud enough so I never knew what classes were for questions or reasons or even just the name of the class. I was not very happy with him.

The first class I had to judge was an Angus heifer class. The only thing I could think was ok well at least it will be kind of easy because I know cows best. Oh man I was so wrong! These animals looked so good. Nothing like what we judged at state fair. The only thing that kept me from freaking out completely was seeing a familiar face in the ring.

One of the girls I showed with at state fair, Mairen, was a handler for the beef cows. Seeing her made me calm down a little. She made faces at me which defiantly helped me relax.

Unlike at state fair we didn’t get to touch any of the market lamb classes and it made it that much harder for me to figure out my placing. Judging hogs was hard because there wasn’t a lot of room around the ring to see them so you just had to find a space and squeeze in.

Judging at keystone might have been the longest thing of my life. We had 12 classes to judge; five beef, four swine, and three sheep. I was so sick of looking at animals after those 3 hours of standing and judging. I felt like by the end I was just picking some random numbers to put on the card. The questions were super hard. One question asked ‘which pair of hogs were potential litter mates?’ I was like um I don’t know how to read ear notches and even if I did I didn’t take notes on that. We also had to give reasons on 4 classes. Let’s just say that didn’t go too smoothly for me either. I was so nervous. I went into I room and I told the judge “I’m sorry I forgot how I placed this class.” It was so embarrassing.

By the time judging was over it was almost 4pm. I was so exhausted. My brain hurt from all the thinking. We went upstairs to a room where the judges told us about all the classes we saw that day. They said how they would have placed the classes and what cuts were. Surprisingly I did well on a good portion of the classes. I mean I didn’t place all of them perfect but if I got it wrong I didn’t lose a lot of points. I was pretty happy with myself.

On Sunday morning there was an award ceremony, but no one on our team went. Amy had animals with her at the show so she couldn’t leave. Tom had a show in the morning which I was helping him with. So we didn’t find out how bad we did until we got home. Our team placed 8th out of 8. I guess we have our work cut out for us.

On the 13th of October I left for Cobleskill New York. The annual fall festival is held there to showcase beef cattle. Coach told me this fair was more relaxed than Keystone. I was so much more excited because I knew I wouldn’t be judging for as long so I would have free time to spend with my teammates and other friends.

Saturday morning was ridiculously cold. I mean I knew I was upstate but I didn’t think it’d be that cold. At 9 am we went outside to judge. We only had 3 classes of beef. It was so much easier than Keystone. Another plus was there wasn’t going to be questions on the classes. We still had to give reasons on one class and answer basic management and knowledge questions though. But that didn’t seem that bad until they only gave us 8 minutes to look at the class instead of the normal 15. I wasn’t too happy about that and neither were Tom and Amy.

It was funny the class we had to give reasons on. First off one of the heifers in the class was Tom’s. Second they were all different breeds in at once. There was a Hereford (Tom’s), two Angus, and a Shorthorn. That’s ok if you are judging for market but for breeding it made it a bit harder because I had to figure out which met breed standards.

Usually when you get ready to give reasons you have to be anti-social but at Cobleskill they didn’t care if you talked with other people. My friend Jake was joking around saying he was going to tell the judge that the Hereford placed first simply because Herefords are the best beef breed. The best part was he wasn’t joking, he actually told the judge that in his reasons. I wish I could have joked around like that but I knew Coach wouldn’t have been too happy if I did that.

I did much better with my reasons in Cobleskill. I didn’t forget my placing or my reasoning behind it either. I was really happy with myself. However when I went to go answer the questions I freaked out. I had no idea what the body temperature of a cow should be. Or what breed originated in Scotland, or wherever it was. We also had to look at breed pictures and name them, that I did ok on because that’s stuff I have studied in the past. But then we were told to mane the different feeds. Well let’s just say that was as easy. I called most of them poppy seeds because I had no idea what they could even be.
That afternoon Coach took Tom, Amy and me over to the college campus to look at some sheep. It was fun taking a 5 minute road trip with the team. We looked at some sheep and coach taught us how he wanted us to handle them when feeling for muscle. We also went over more terms while looking at the animals. I needed some help with sheep so it was worthwhile. We also looked at some hogs and just talked about them as a group. I liked talking over the reasons more than just trying to judge the class by myself. Coach and Amy left when we got back to the fair grounds to go home. Tom and I were left to find out the next morning how we did.

Tom participated in the meat classification on Friday and placed 5th. I wish I had been there for that, I probably would have learned a lot about what the muscle on the cow should look like. When they gave out the awards for senior judging challenge I was really nervous. I wanted to do well because beef was my best section to judge. When they called Jake as 5th I knew I had to have done ok because he goofed off in reasons, but I wasn’t sure how much better because I didn’t do well on the questions. Well turns out I did better than I thought. I got 2nd. Too bad Tom beat me. He got 1st. I don’t remember where Amy placed.

After all the awards were given out Tom had to get ready for a show. I was helping him with cow/calf again. We did really well that day. We placed 1st in the class, then Supreme in breed. He then went into a class with other breeds for an overall Champion but he didn’t win. It was awesome to get to show some more and gain more experience.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to go to the barns at OSU. On the way we stopped at the campus and picked up a freshman, Dan. He was an alternate on the team when Sarah went down in 2003 and he was on the state team last year with his brother Derek. He came to judge with us for fun. He was able to help us out by telling us firsthand what happened when he went down last year. It was just nice to have another person's input on why a class would be placed in that order.

When we were judging at OSU it was really cold and rainy. It did not make the day very enjoyable. It’s hard enough to concentrate on 14 classes as it is but when you can’t feel your fingers it's even worse. By the end of the day my notes were barely legible and I only wrote a few things down about each class. We judged 2 heifer classes, 3 steer classes, 3 hog classes, 1 ewe class, and 5 market lamb classes.

That night we drove to Lexington, Kentucky because Sunday we were spending a good part of the day judging sheep! Oh, loads of fun I know!

We started the day off by giving a set of reasons to Coach before we left for the farm. At least we didn’t have to give them in front of everyone. That would have made me very nervous.

The farm we went to for sheep judging was owned by the University of Kentucky and that day it was open to all the other Livestock Judging Teams. They set up 7 classes of sheep for us to look at. Five were breeding ewes, one was rams, and the last was market lambs. Once again it was a little chilly in the barn. It was harder for me to concentrate Sunday because I was looking at the other teams trying to figure out what kind of competition they’d be.
Well, that night back at the hotel we gave about 8 sets of reasons. It was insane. We gave mostly sheep but a few swine as well. It was ridiculous. I was trying so hard to not make each set of reasons sound the same because I was still didn’t know a lot of terms. When I gave my first set that night the coach seemed really impressed. He could tell I had been working really hard on memorizing my set and using the right terms.

Well, that night we gave 3 more sets of reasons. On our last set instead of the last person coming and telling us it was our turn Sarah did. I was so nervous because I had a feeling that meant our teammates would be listening. Well let’s just say I didn’t give my best set of reasons that night. I completely forgot my order and got all flustered. I get so nervous when I have to speak in front of peers. After we all went coach had us try an interesting activity where we were all going to give our set of reasons at the same time. It was so hard to concentrate. I would be trying to think of the terms I had use and then in my left ear I heard Tom and in my right I heard Amy and right in front of me was Martin all using theres--I got so confused! But it was super funny when we all finished.

We were given the rest of the night off until the coach returned from his meeting. I was so happy to get a chance to relax. Too bad it felt like the coaches meeting was so short. We meet in the chaperones room where we were told about the classes we would be judging in the morning. We were told that they threw a trick in this year, we would be judging Corriedale ewes. This is a breed that is not only used for market but for wool so we would have to take its wool into consideration as well. The rest of the classes didn’t seem too bad; they were like any other that we had practiced on. Before bed Tom went over terms with me because he knew I needed some help. We also asked the chaperone from the Skillathon Contest about Limousine heifers because she breeds them and we were told we would have to judge those as well.

All of our preparation came down to Tuesday morning. We were to judge 10 classes, give 4 sets of reasons, and answer 20 questions. We stood looking at the classes for hours, and these animals were so good looking. It was so hard to find problems with some of them. Looking at my first class of hogs all I could think was “um, well I guess that one isn’t as wide.” I was freaking out. I felt like every class I placed was wrong. I was second guessing EVERYTHING!

By the time reasons came around I was exhausted. I didn’t know how much more I could think about judging. The worst part was that they told us be ready in 15 minutes for your first set, but there was no clock to tell how much time had passed. And then when it seemed like we were finally about to start they came and told us they couldn’t find a few of the judges, we will be another 15 minutes. That definitely did not help my nerves. I was memorizing the same set of sheep reasons for the whole time and I was starting to get distracted.

Overall, I was very pleased with my sets that I gave. I had most of it memorized and I didn’t stumble too much. I was freaking out inside but I don’t think I showed it too much. I didn’t mess up like I did at Keystone which is a definite plus.

We were finally finished after almost 8 hours. When it was all said and done we had to sit and listen to how the classes were officially placed. Personally I really didn’t care, I wanted to back to the hotel and sleep--I had no energy left. Well it turns out most of my classes went okay. I scored 40 something out of the possible 50 points in most. The one class I messed up big time was the bulls. I got a 26 on that class. I knew I had messed it up but I also think that some of the cuts were outrageous. Everyone else on my team agreed with me on that too.

After it's all said and done it was an amazing experience. I may not always remember exactly what made us laugh for hours or what we argued about or what upset us, but I’ll remember the friendships I walked away with. I became so close with these three 4-Hers that it will be hard to forget them. The trip is something I will remember for the rest of my life. I learned so much about not only livestock judging but myself. I know that with a lot of hard work anything is possible. I have learned to feel confident and how stand up in front of strangers to give a speech; I’ve learned to open up to new people because you never know who a best friend might be. And best of all I never thought a city girl like me would be on a livestock judging team traveling to Kentucky.

It’s surreal and I can’t believe it’s over.