I will stress again that youth need to be doing the majority of the work with their animals. Family members can and should be involved; however that involvement should pertain to the member's age. For example, a 9-year-old 4-H'er would need more family help, while a 17-year old should only need minimal help.
5. Caring — Promoting the well-being of people and things in a young person's world. It denotes action and not just feeling. This would involve providing a clean area for animals, treating animals humanely and fellow exhibitors with compassion at all times.
6. Citizenship — includes making the home, community, and country a better place to live for themselves and others. By accepting instructions, winning or losing with grace, helping others at junior shows, teaching younger members, and ensuring that their meat animal is safe for human consumption youth members learn and practice citizenship.
The above list helps to define the positive influences that junior livestock projects can have on the development of young people. The tasks of daily feeding, and watering of animals contribute to the strengthening of at least four of the six core values.
It is also important to realize that the size of the animal does not have any effect on the values that young people develop. Thus, a child will gain the same character values by caring for a lamb, dairy animal, hog or steer, as a child who cares for a rabbit, dog or turkey. We need to remember we are in the business of producing blue ribbon youth — not blue ribbon projects.