Market Goat Ownership- SAE visit #2

My second SAE visit was at Alex Heisey's Market Goat/ Lamb Operation. Alex is a junior at Cedar Crest High School and is also the FFA Chapter Sentinel. He is an active participant in my Agriscience 3 course. He is a vital member of our Parliamentary Procedure team that placed 1st at Big E last year, and is helping to train a younger team. 

Alex, in the middle, with his 2 brothers and his parents, with Goats they showed at the 2022 Lebanon Fair. 

Alex has a heard of 15 does and 2 bucks, that they breed and then kid out in December- February. They focus on breeding their heard for genetics in market goats, and they sell the kids to local 4-H'ers, so that they can show goats. His main focus for his SAE project is feeding/ watering and cleaning out their pens. He puts a lot of time and effort into walking and bracing his goats and lambs, to prepare to showcase them inside the ring. His favorite places to show his animals are at Lebanon County Fair, PA Farm Show, PA Youth Livestock Exposition, and in Louisville Kentucky. He also participates in jackpot shows across different states. 

While raising his animals, he helps to vaccinate them with de-worming medication, in order to prevent parasites from getting into their bodies. He also helps to monitor the does that are having kids during the winter months. 

The preparations that I made for this SAE Visit, are talking with my CT about what types of questions that he asks his students when he goes on these visits. 

As far as evaluating or rating the program, I think that he has a great market animal operation, which shows with his success in the show ring. He travels many hours to shows and spends a lot of time preparing for these shows with his animals. I did not have any specific criteria that I graded him on, as they get 2 grades a marking period for their SAE projects and entries. The recommendations that I made for his SAE Project are to find some other shows to go to, or to find their genetics for their herd. These recommendations came from asking questions and seeing how he could take this awesome project even further. His records were kept on AET, for his contributions to his animals. 

For grading SAE Projects, every student in an Agriscience class must have an SAE Project, and the grade counts as its own class. This comes up on their schedules as a period 9, so if they do not do well with their projects, their GPA will greatly be affected. Mr. Haussener grades their projects twice a marking period, or roughly every 4-5 weeks. Since there is a wide variety of projects for students that have access to different resources, some projects are more involved than others. He allows students to bake/ cook or grow simple plants at home, but they still get experience keeping track of records. When he grades their projects, he looks for a specific number of journal entries. 

Overall, the main thing I learned from this visit, are different questions to ask the students during these visits. I am excited for this semester to get the chance to grade their projects in AET. 

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