The FFA Agricultural Experience

Video Transcript

"Every member in FFA or Pals, has to have a supervised, agricultural experience, which is part of the curriculum in our program. Students can choose to raise a hog, a steer, a lamb, or do their horse, as their supervised agricultural experience. When a student chooses to raise a pig for their supervised agricultural experience, they must first talk to other members, and decide where they'd like to purchase their hog from. From purchasing a hog, students tend to spend anywhere from a hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars, for their market animal. These market animals, are what we would like to call, of superior quality. These hogs tend to express more muscle, finish at a hundred and fifty days, and hang a higher carcass at the rail. Most of these hogs in the show circuit in our area, tend to be Blue Butts, or Hampshire hogs. The Blue Butt is a cross between the Yorkshire and the Hampshire hog. The Blue Butt tends to finish out at the rate of a Yorkshire, and with the muscling of a Hampshire, but not be as lean, and unpalatable as a Hampshire carcass. The Hampshire hog, in my opinion, is a very well balanced hog, but for palatability and marbling, you tend to lean more towards the Blue Butt, because you get a more desirable carcass."