Greene County 4-H’ers that are planning on showing certain livestock need to be reminded of a couple of important dates.

Greene County ISU Extension 4-H and Youth Coordinator Samantha Hardaway tells Raccoon Valley Radio that 4-H’ers must identify any market beef for either this year’s Greene County Fair or the Iowa State Fair by February 1st on 4-H Online. Hardaway talks about the number of beef that participated in December’s initial weigh-in on the county fairgrounds.

“We had about 50 head go across the scale in December. Granted, a lot of other kiddos went to different counties and weighed there and we had some other kids from other counties at our weigh-in too. I’m hoping to see some increase in numbers at fair this year, and I’m excited to see those kids’ projects.”

Hardaway points out that swine ear tags will also be available starting February 1st. 

“So I’m going to go ahead and open that up a little bit earlier this year because I know as pigs get bigger and we get closer to May 15th they become a lot harder to tag.”

Hardaway adds the deadline to pick up ear tags is May 15th and they are $1.50 per tag and payment must be done at the time the tags are picked up.