Passion for Poultry Leads Jacobs to FFA Convention
Published: Friday, May 26, 2023
Paige Jacobs, 18, is the first NorthWood FFA member to gain the title of FFA State Star Farmer finalist. It's an exciting venture for the Nappanee youth and she says she couldn't have done it without her chapter's support.
"It was crazy. I went into the semi-finalist interview doubting everything just because I was told it was a hard competition," she said as a smile stretched across her face.
Jacobs said she walked into the interview telling herself, "Ultimately, it doesn't matter. You already got here and if you don't move on, that's OK, you have made quite the accomplishment of making it to the top eight," which was already more than she could have believed. Of course, with the final four in her sights, the suspense was growing.
The interview went smoothly, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Later, the results came in.
"The advisors came in (the FFA office) and something just clicked. I knew they were going to tell me," she said.
Jacobs is thankful that she got to spend the moment with her advisors, Grace Allen and Brandi Henderson.
"They've both greatly influenced my proficiency," she said. "Obviously, it's my proficiency, but if it hadn't been for both my advisors, I wouldn't be where I am today."
Although she has already exceeded her own expectations in reaching the top four, she says she would be happy even without the Star Award.
"I've already made a big impact for NorthWood," she said.
Her competition is tough, Jacobs said, but if she does win the Star Farmer award in June, she says she will submit her project for the national competition.
Jacobs' project was to raise 100 poultry animals per year, including geese, turkeys, ducks, roaster chickens, broiler chickens, pigeons and egg laying chickens. The experience led to a lot of growth, both for her poultry business and personally.
"My goal of my SAE is to become profitable," she said.
To achieve this, she has all the commercial animals processed in August after the county fair. The only animals she keeps are the pigeons and egg-laying hens, but she also keeps the meat from the other chickens and some turkeys. While the birds she keeps stay on her farm throughout the year, the commercial birds are raised within a range of six to 16 weeks.
Jacobs' passion for poultry was passed down the generations from her great-great-grandfather, Paul Rummel, who started raising egg-layer hens in the 1940s.
"I wanted to keep the tradition of having poultry animals," she said.
She started out with only exhibition animals, but in 2019 she realized she wasn't profitable, so she started working to gain commercial animals to build profitability. Jacobs also increased the number of birds she raised from 60 to 100.
"Hard work pays off," Jacobs said. "Researching how you can get better quality animals will always pay off."
Through her supervised agricultural experience (SAE), she has learned how to bring animals up to market weight more efficiently. At first, her poultry weren't growing at a fast enough rate, so she began digging into what was affecting this.
Some challenges she encountered included maintaining profitability and improving animal quality.
"Finding that balance of how many animals I can have to remain profitable is really big," she said. "With all the fluctuation between all of the prices, animal prices versus feed costs, you know, you're spending a lot of money when you have 100 animals in a year, and when you're pushing them hard for 16 weeks, you're going through one to two bags (of feed) a day."
She learned about the influence of light on animals' eating habits. She also changed the feed from 21% protein to 28% and added corn oil to encourage the birds to eat more. Another change she made to her operation was to do chores more often to make sure the water was clean and cold and getting the birds moving around some.
Ultimately, she found a balance and was able to raise the birds for approximately $5 per animal.
She plans to attend Purdue University in the fall to study animal science. As she moves up to college, she plans to pass the poultry baton to her younger brother, Brenden, so that he can start his own SAE in his freshman year. In the meantime, she hopes to get an internship at Miller Poultry so she can remain in the poultry industry. Jacobs also plans to continue her involvement in poultry after college, when she can get her own animals.
Jacobs is grateful for the FFA because through it she has grown a lot in her leadership and interview skills. And she is now confident that she could use the skills she has gained through FFA and her SAE to secure a career in agriculture.
"FFA has opened lots of doors for me," she said.
And she plans to walk through them.
Return to Top of Page