This year’s NJ Junior Breeder Symposium will be held online, via Zoom, from 8:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 27 (NO fee this year). We have put together an all-star line-up of Rutgers professors, veterinarians, animal care professionals, graduate students, and volunteers. Register today (it’s FREE) to learn about animal care, behavior, training, breeding, … [Read more...]
Learning how to do research in the field: A Pilot Study in Guyana for Coral Snake Mimicry
Or how research really goes in the field! Everyone talks about research being done in the field. It can sound glamorous, especially when the results are exactly what you hope for or even expect. But the reality is just the opposite. More often than not, it is what you don’t find or what doesn’t work that helps you learn and adjust your experiment. Anthony Sena, a first … [Read more...]
Hometown Hero: The Blue-spotted Salamander
If towns are shutting down entire roads for you, you must be important, right? Every spring in central New Jersey, temporary road closures are created to protect amphibians who migrate across roads in search of perfect mating grounds. In March and April as the temperatures warm to 40-45 degrees, amphibians including frogs and salamanders make the trek from their winter homes in … [Read more...]
Club Support: Animal Vital Signs Activity
Pennsylvania 4-H has a resource page of at-home 4-H activities that can be useful to 4-H clubs meeting remotely during COVID-19 social distancing. One series of at-home activities that may be assigned to club members this year is appropriate for companion animal projects as well as livestock: the Animal Vital Signs series: "Vital Information" - What is Normal? … [Read more...]
What can snakes on Madagascar teach us about evolution?
Arianna Kuhn, PhD Candidate, City University of New York, American Museum of Natural History As a PhD candidate at the City University of New York, my current work aims to understand the evolutionary events that cause new species to form, but my career in herpetology actually began with geckos from Africa! As an undergraduate at Villanova University, I knew that I … [Read more...]
Rutgers Campus Farm to Host Special Day for 4-H Members (canceled due to COVID-19)
For 4-H members and families interested in animals, Saturday, March 28 is your special day! Come and learn about horses, goats, sheep, cattle, and rabbits from leading veterinarians, professors, and other experts – all at your state university in New Brunswick. The Junior Breeder Symposium is for all youth and families interested in learning more about animals. You have the … [Read more...]
Improve Your Herd with Good Record Keeping
Record keeping is an important aspect of sheep production. It helps to identify which lambs should be kept as flock replacements, which ewes should be kept in your flock or culled, and which rams sire the best lambs. The National Scrapie Eradication Program requires producers to keep records on all animal dispositions (sheep that leave your flock) for five years. As a 4-H … [Read more...]
Sheep Identification – USDA Requirements
Proper identification is an important aspect of raising sheep. Whether you are a 4-H member raising only one market lamb per year or working toward establishing your own breeding operation, you will need to know U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) identification requirements and NJ Division of Animal Health rules. Scrapie Identification is required by the USDA for almost … [Read more...]
Paleontologists identify small fossils as that of oldest frog relative found in North America
This article was first published in the February 27, 2019 Virginia Tech News https://vtnews.vt.edu/. A team of paleontologists led by Virginia Tech’s Michelle Stocker and Sterling Nesbitt of the Department of Geosciences have identified fossil fragments of what are thought to be the oldest known frogs in North America. The fossils are composed of several … [Read more...]
I’m All Ears – Understanding the Universal Ear-Notching System for Swine
The Universal Ear-Notching System used to identify individual pigs in a litter has been around for.., a while.., but finding the actual historical roots of the how and why this system originated has proven elusive. What was found is not altogether that informative, nor does it come from any legitimate primary source. As of this writing, the best guess at the history of the … [Read more...]