Jefferson County 4-H Project Learning Day – Livestock

This learning day hosted by Jefferson County 4-H Youth Leaders is for youth in grades 3+ interested in learning about beef, sheep, swine and dairy. Sessions related to feeding & nutrition, daily care, herdsmanship, fitting, and showmanship. Youth will attend 3 sessions and can choose different species for each session if interested to meet education requirements for the Dane County Fair. Must attend full day 9am-12:15pm. Lunch at 12:20pm is optional/$5 and Awards & Prizes will be held from 12:45-1:00pm.

Date: April 18th, 2026

Time: 9:00AM – 1:00PM

See Registration Form for Session Choices

Where: Jefferson County Fair Park, 503 N Jackson Ave, Jefferson, WI

Entry: each youth and/or parent that is eating lunch will need to pay $5, the committee is covering the remainder costs for everyone!

Prizes:

– There will be randomly drawn raffles that will consist of one bucket per species with some show day essentials!

– There will be “Outstanding Species Camper” banners! 

**Important to Note: unfortunately, there will be no chickens, rabbits, or goats for this date. It will be too cold for the chickens and rabbits, so they will be hosting their learning days on May 17th (the original date). Goats will not be rescheduled at this moment in time, unless further noted. For people seeking more knowledge or a camp for goats, please look into the Junior Meat Goat Association as they will be hosting something similar solely geared towards goats.

This is approved education for the Dane County Fair.

All youth planning to show Livestock at the Dane County Fair (DCF) must meet these species specific educational requirements:

• Complete Youth for the Quality Care of Animals (YQCA) certification between 9/1/2025-6/1/2026 and upload certificate to the DCF online portal by June 1.
  • YQCA is a national multi-species quality assurance program for youth ages 8-21 with a focus on three core pillars: food safety, animal well-being, and character development. There is a $12 fee for the online training.
• Attend at least one approved education event – list is available on the Dane County Fair Education webpages.
• Complete all training and submit education card and YQCA certificate into the online portal by June 1.
  • If showing in more than one species, youth must complete and submit the requirements for each species.
  • To upload the education card, please save the document as a JPG, TIFF, or PDF. Youth can take a picture of the education card to upload.
  • The Dane County Fair education card will be uploaded into FairEntry and the portal will be available in April.