A Wakarusa girl and her cow compete

Jul. 22—GOSHEN — Taylor Yoder was born into a 4-H family.

Both parents were 10-year members. Her father Jon raised swine and dairy feeders and her mom Brandie participated in Home & Family Arts.

Taylor Yoder, 11, of Wakarusa is showing dairy and dairy feeder cows this year.

The cows come from her grandparents' farm, where they stay throughout the year also. She and her siblings — Kaden, Hadley and Elijah — go to the farm daily to train their cows, nine in total.

"When we walk them, we try to keep their head up," she said. "We try to walk them daily. ... We usually go down the road some and back to get them used to halter."

Taylor explained that the family brings the cows back to the fair year after year — first as calves, then yearlings, then as milking cows. Her father job explained that the family also breeds them and then the children can choose to care for those cows as their 4-H project also. Right now, Taylor's cow Kailey has a calf at the fair this year alongside her.

"As they continue to reproduce, then there's a lot more calves to look for and they start to learn what's important to look for in the cow and what makes it a good dairy cow, and they can pick and choose the cow they want to bring back that they think will be able to complete the most," Jon said.

"Apparently you want dairy cows to be skinny," Taylor said. "Judges like to see their bone structure."

Dairy cows are thinner because they use their energy to produce milk, rather than storing the calories to be turned into food, like dairy feeder cattle.

This week, she's entered into several competitions with Kailey, with the majority of them taking place on Tuesday.

"I had a lot of fun this morning going in and seeing how other people show their cows," Taylor said.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at [email protected] or at 574-538-2065.