Livestock Quality Assurance

The 4-H Quality Assurance (QA) Course teaches youth about the quality of meat and food products that come from livestock. Quality assurance for livestock producers means making a promise to the consumers, or the people who consume the meat, eggs, milk and dairy products, from food production animals. The promise made is that products from livestock will be the highest possible quality and producers will do everything possible to make these products safe to eat.  4-H youth ages 8-18, who are enrolled in a livestock project (beef, dairy cattle, dairy goat, meat goat, poultry, rabbit, sheep, and swine), are required to complete QA Training each year.

 Options to complete the QA Training are:

 Face-to-Face QA Training by Extension Educator/Club Leader – Material is available to conduct face-to-face QA Training at your club meeting.  The material has been adopted from some of the earlier items that have been used to conduct training sessions. If you want to conduct QA Training at your club meeting, contact the office for the material.

 Test-Out Tests - Intermediate and Senior Level youth are eligible to take a written test to fulfill QA age level requirements. Practice tests are available on the online course, however, the actual test must be taken at the extension office. Passing is 70%.  Study materials are listed on the Livestock QA Course webpage at http://4h.unl.edu/qualityassurance

Online Course:  The Livestock Quality Assurance Online Course has been developed to assist youth with learning about major areas of proper animal care, including:  daily care and management; prevention; handling; carcass quality; and medication.

               4-H youth ages 8-18, who are enrolled in a livestock project (beef, dairy cattle, dairy goat, meat goat, poultry, rabbit, sheep, and swine), are required to complete three modules in the QA Online Course by June 15 of the current year in order to complete that year’s QA requirements. The online course has been divided into three age levels:

•             Junior (4-H youth ages 8-10)
•             Intermediate (4-H youth ages 11-14)
•             Senior (4-H youth ages 15-18)

Upon completion of each module, youth will be able to print a certificate of completion to give to the extension office or just contact the office that they have completed.

All 4-H youth will have to pay $5.00 annually to participate in the online QA program.

               The QA Online Program can be found at http://campus.extension.org/.  To enroll in the self-directed online course, Internet access and an email address (each   4-H youth will need their own unique email address to register) is required. To assist you in getting registered and paying, instructions and other resources are available at:  http://4h.unl.edu/qualityassurance.