✍️Record book tips and a monthly routine

The secret to a blue-ribbon record book is boring: a little bit, every week. This page gives you the routine and the tricks that make it painless.

The 15-minute Sunday routine

1. Open ZSuite → your name → Record Books → this year’s book.
2. Feed: enter any new bags bought (date, brand, weight, price). Update the daily amount if you changed it.
3. Weights: if it was a weigh week, enter the weight. Note anything you changed because of it.
4. Expenses: enter receipts from the envelope. Shavings, dewormer, a new bucket, entry fees, gas to the show.
5. Activities: add this week’s meeting, show, or work day in one sentence.
6. Photo: upload one photo from the week with a caption.
7. Save. Done.

Month by month

Month	Record book to-dos
Oct–Nov	Create the book. Write 3–5 goals. Sketch a budget: animal, feed, pen, supplies, fees.
Dec–Feb	Log pen materials and tools. Photo of the pen build. Steers: purchase, first weight, halter-breaking notes.
Mar	Log Terms & Agreement, ShoWorks fees, W-9. Add the club meeting where you gave (or scheduled) your demonstration.
Apr–May	Animal purchase: date, seller, price, weight, photo of the bill of sale. Tagging day. Start biweekly weights.
Jun	Tagging for small stock. Feed bags. First ration change. Pre-fair show plans.
Jul	Weights every two weeks. Heat-management costs (misters, fans). Pre-fair show: entry fee, placing, what the judge said.
Aug	Buyer visits logged under Leadership. Draft your 4-H story. Fair entries and wristbands.
Early Sep	Final weights, final feed totals. Finish the story. Submit by the county deadline. Parent and leader sign.
Fair week	Save room to add fair weight, placing, sale price, add-ons, buyer’s name. Pick up the judged book Saturday.
After	Read the judge’s comments. Write two sentences about what you’ll do differently next year.

Recording feed the right way

• Write down every bag: date, brand and type (e.g., Show Feed 16% pellets), weight, price.
• Track the daily amount you feed (per feeding × 2). When you change it, note the date and why (“gaining too fast, cut to 5.5 lb/day”).
• At the end, ZSuite (or you) can figure total feed cost, pounds of feed per pound of gain, and cost per pound of gain. Judges love a sentence like: “My pig ate 640 pounds of feed to gain 210 pounds, a 3.0 feed-to-gain ratio.”

Recording expenses

• Everything counts, even small stuff: zip ties, a spray bottle, a bag of shavings, fuel to tagging day.
• Date + item + amount + one-word category (feed, supplies, health, fees, transport).
• Keep receipts in one envelope in the show box. Photograph the fuzzy ones before they fade.
• Donated items (Grandpa’s old panels)? Log them at $0 with a note. It shows you know the real cost.

Photos that tell a story

Aim for 10–15 photos with captions:

1. Pick-up day, at the breeder’s
2. The pen and shelter, before and after you built it
3. You feeding, at the same time of day you always do
4. A weigh-in with the number visible
5. Training: driving, bracing, setting up
6. The pre-fair show
7. Washing and clipping
8. Check-in at the fair, the scale
9. In the ring on show day
10. With your buyer after the sale
11. Writing thank-you notes

Captions: who, what, when, and one thing you learned. “July 12: Weighed 198 lb. Right on track for 270 by fair.”

Writing your 4-H story

One to two pages, in your own words. Use these prompts and just answer them in order:

• What project did you pick and why?
• What were your goals, and where did you start (age, experience, what you knew)?
• Getting the animal: how did you find it, what did you look for, what surprised you?
• A hard moment. Something that went wrong, and what you did about it. Every good story has one.
• A routine day. What do chores look like at your house?
• Training and showing. What was hardest to learn? What clicked?
• People who helped. Family, leader, breeder, superintendent, another 4-H kid.
• The fair. Weigh-in, the show, the sale, saying goodbye.
• The numbers. Total cost, sale price, profit or loss, feed-to-gain.
• Did you meet your goals? Be honest.
• Next year I will…

Write a messy first draft in one sitting. Fix it a week later. Have a parent read it for spelling only; keep your own voice.

Common mistakes

• Waiting until August to start. The feed record can’t be rebuilt from memory.
• Expenses that don’t add up to the total.
• Weights every two weeks that suddenly stop in July.
• A story written by a parent. Judges can tell.
• No goals, or goals with no “did I meet them?”
• Forgetting the club leader has to sign before the deadline. Submit a few days early.
• Forgetting to pick it up at the command trailer Saturday.

Back to Record books.