SAE Visit #1: Tagging Along!

Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE's) are a critical part of Agricultural Education. At Mifflinburg High School, all students are required to maintain an active SAE, which is included as 10% of their classroom grade. Along with the online or paper record book, students are also expected to schedule a minimum of one visit per year. Wednesday, February 11th, I had the opportunity to attend one of these visits.

This visit came up kind of last minute, as a student needed to have his Dairy Beef steers tagged for the Union County West End Fair. Not much preparation was required for this visit. We simply needed the tagger and tags. This particular student is in 10th grade, and is extremely active in the FFA Chapter, currently serving as an officer. This student is very active in the local fair, showing every animal from pigs to steers.

After our Parliamentary Procedure practice (the student is also on the team), Mr. Kessler took the student home and I followed in my car behind. After a short drive down Route 45, we arrived at the students' home. He led us to the barn, where we met his mother and two small Holstein calves.Mr. Kessler asked if I would like to do the tagging. I was hesitant at first, because the only animal that I have ever tagged were pigs. Mr. Kessler tagged the first calf as the student held it's head still. He then handed me the tagger and I tagged the second calf. It certainly was much easier than tagging a pig, but very similar.

After we had finished tagging, the student's father arrived. As Mr. Kessler chatted with the student's parents, I helped the student feed the calves milk replacer. It brought back lots of great memories from my childhood (we had dairy until I was in about 5th or 6th grade), and it gave me a great opportunity to ask the student questions about his project. He told me that his calf was born on Christmas, and is named Leon (Noell backwards). He also mentioned that his sister's calf, the other one that was tagged, was named Fern and was born on New Years.


After finishing the tagging and feeding, I had the opportunity to also talk with the student's parents. Mr. Kessler did not look at the SAE book during the visit, because it is on AET. Instead, Mr. Kessler told the student to show him the book tomorrow at school. When Mr. Kessler looks at the books, he likes to see overall completeness and accuracy.

Overall, I think that this student had a great start to his SAE project. The calves seemed very spoiled, and were very healthy. The student seemed proud of his project, and excited to raise, show and sell these animals. Mr. Kessler did not make any recommendations for improvement, because the calves seemed to be doing so well, and I also did not see any need for this. I am looking forward to many more visits similar to this one, where I will have the opportunity to see students outside the walls of the classroom, working with projects that they are passionate about.