Production principals being taught

Are you looking for more information to help make your livestock enterprise more profitable? Penn State Extension will be offering three Extension Home Study Courses this winter, beginning Feb. 1. The purpose of the courses is to teach producers about production principles for beef, sheep or meat goats that will help their operations become more profitable.

All three courses are available through the postal service and the sheep and meat goat courses are available through e-mail. Each course has six lessons that are to be completed weekly. The lesson topics include basic production information, nutrition, health, reproduction, marketing and financial issues. Each lesson has information about the topic and a worksheet for producers to complete and mail or e-mail back to the extension office for comments. Producers also can submit any questions that they would like answered.

Melanie Barkley, Bedford County Extension Educator, says “Each course is a great way for producers to learn new information without having to rearrange their schedule to accommodate a meeting. Producers can study the lessons at their leisure in their own home.” The worksheet questions are designed to ask producers about their current operation so that comments from the instructor are tailored to participants’ individual situations to help them improve their management skills.

According to Barkley, more than 1,400 producers from across the country have taken one or more of the three courses. Comments following the courses show that information contained in the courses is very beneficial and that producers are able to adapt the information for use in their own operations.

For more details or to sign up for a course, go to guest.cvent.com/d/sdqb58 or call 877-489-1398. Copies of the informational brochure also are available by contacting the Butler County Extension Office at 724-287-4761.

To speak to one of the instructors, you can contact the Penn State Extension Office in Bedford County at 814-623-4800 or in Fulton County at 717-485-4111. Cost for the course is $45 if taken over e-mail (sheep and meat goat courses only) and $80 if taken through the postal service. Deadline for registration is Jan. 23.

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The Penn State Extension Office will be closed Dec. 23, 26, 30 and Jan. 2 in observance of the holidays.

This material is submitted by Donna Zang, extension director, and the staff of the Penn State Extension office at the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center complex.