The CHICKadees have arrived!!

Today is an exciting day at the office...WHY?? The baby chickens for the 4-H Chick-Chain project came in the mail! Thats right, the US Mail! We weren't expecting the chicks until yesterday and we got a call this morning from the postmaster saying, "Can you please come get your chicks, now??". For those of you who have been around baby chicks you can atest to the fact that baby chicks, for such little bodies, they can make quite the racket! This reminds me of when I was little and we would order baby chicks. My brother and I would sit around with a chicken catalog and pick out the ones we wanted to buy. Once the order was placed we would wait in anticipation for the big day when we would get the phone call from the postmaster.
What is Chick-Chain? It's a project that 4-Hers can sign up for. They pay a small fee upfront and have to attend a mandatory meeting before receiving their chicks. At the meeting we cover chick care, management, the equipment they will need to purchase and how to build a "safe place" for their chicks once they get them home. It's sort of like preparing for a new baby - you have to get a room ready, buy food, get waterers, feeders, a heat lamp, wood chips, etc. The kiddos will pick up their chicks on Friday afternoon and feed them for about 20 weeks. The chicks are breeds that will end up being laying hens and roosters. This is neat because it gives the kids an opportunity to start their own flock! The kids will take home aproxamately 10 chicks and then bring they back for the county fair. There they will show their chickens and be rewarded for their efforts by getting to sell a few chickens to people in the community. It's a neat project that teaches responsiblity, record keeping, and many other virtues!

Happy National Ag. Day!

In lieu of Agriculture Day, I spent the morning visiting with grade schoolers and middle schoolers about Agriculture. To say I was impressed would be an understatement! In this county, the school system has realized that Agriculture is the driving force of the economy and provides MANY jobs to residents of the county. As a result, they have made it a priority to educate students about agriculture in the classroom. They have a robotics team where they built a robot to catch genetically modified bugs...how cool is that?? The kids learned how to market their robot by finding its relevance to the farmer. One of the high school science teachers was present teaching the kids about hatching baby chicks. At our booth, we talked about row crops, horticulture, the 4-H program, and livestock. They also had the USA Rodeo Queen there signing pictures, a couple of the horse club members who had brought a horse and some equipment to share with the kids, and a goat producer who hauled a few goats to town! It was amazing to me how interested and how educated these students were about agriculture. They knew where their food came from and they appreciated it!
I taught them a little joke/conversation to have with people they run into: (student asks) "Where would you be without agriculture?" (the answer) "Naked and hungry!" Then I instructed the kids that they should explain further by going over the articles of clothing the person is wearing and how it is made (from cotton, leather, etc.) as well as the food they eat on a daily basis. The kids seemed to enjoy the joke....probably only because it had the word "naked" in it and they were middle schoolers. I'm sure the teachers will appreciate me for that one!

A trip to land of Disney - Orlando

I have to admit, it's a little hard for me to be sitting in Mississippi writing my thesis when there is an awesome conference going on in Tampa Bay this week...the National Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show! If you'll recall, last year I had the opportunity to serve as an intern for this conference, The experience of a lifetime - #NCBA12. I am pretty excited for some of my fellow cattle industry friends that had the opportunity to serve as interns this year!

I did get to make a little trip to Orlando, Florida earlier this week for the American Society of Animal Science Southern Section meetings. It was really nice to get away for a few days and meet up with some people that I hadn't seen in awhile. You might be wondering what goes on at conferences like this... Attendees have the opportunity to listen to presentations on current research and extension programs as well as have a little fun at the same time. There are several social events planned during the conference like the graduate student mixer (where you get to meet fellow grad students in the southeastern part of the US) and the graduate student lunch and learn (eat lunch with other grad students and listen to a few speakers).  I actually ran into one the girls I interned with at NCBA last year at the grad student mixer and met some pretty cool grad students from Oklahoma State University. At the conference, I presented on three abstracts (research summary) I had submitted. One on my thesis research related to cattle transportation, another on DNA markers for quality grade, and the last one on two extension programs we offer at MSU (the cattle facilities and herd health workshops).

Don't be fooled though...it wasn't all work and no play. One of the other grad students, myself, and one of the professors and his family played a pretty competitive game of putt putt golf! We also ate at some awesome resturants - my favorite was Fogo de Chao. It's a brazillian steak house where they bring around a variety of meats for you to try...my favorite was the Picanya (top sirloin) and Cordeiro (leg of lamb). By far the best meat I have ever had...and it was all you can eat! What a great way to load up on some protein! You can go to Orlando without having some kind of Disney experience so we went to Downtown Disney for dinner the last night we were there. It was a really fun trip and I am glad I was able to go!

A sampling of some of the great meat at Fogo do Chao!

Me and one of the other graduate students, Sam, at the lunch and learn session.

Myself and Brittany from Texas A&M - we both accepted travel scholarships at the awards banquet!