by Kaylee-Lynn Daines
On June 8th from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, the Dundas County Dairy Club held their 3rd meeting at the Velthius’ farm. This was a double meeting. We started the meeting with Vice President, Ethan V. leading the 4H pledge, and we asked our Secretary, Emily V. to provide the minutes of the last minute meeting and a roll call. Our question was “How many times have you worked with your calf?” Then Taylor M. handed the meeting over to the leaders.
Leader Dave then showed us how to clip the top line of a calf and gave us tips and tricks. We then got into groups of three for clipping. Each group was assigned a calf, a set of clippers, a blow dryer, and some brushes. During the time together in our groups, we were to clip our calves and blow up our top lines, as though we were getting ready for a show. Once everybody had finished clipping their calf, we took a break for lunch and had pizza and juice boxes with ice cream sandwiches at the end. After we finished lunch, we were split into two teams, where we were to name the parts of a cow. After we were told the correct answers and found out which team won, we moved back over to the barn where we talked about sire selection to improve the faults on our calf that we had clipped earlier in the meeting. Each group went over the proof sheet and talked about the faults with a leader, and once everybody had talked about it, we went over the selections as a club on what we thought would be best sire for our calf. At the end of the meeting, we thanked the Velthius family for hosting our meeting and Ethan adjourned the meeting. We all enjoyed a snack of cookies and Kool-Aid.