Youth enrolled in the Kansas 4-H horse project will receive a big boost later this month with the release of a video series that promotes their career interests.

According to Kansas State University Research and Extension, 4-H youth development specialist Anissa Jepsen at the state office in Manhattan, said the five-part series is a combined effort between Kansas State University and Texas A&M, both of which provided equine experts to talk about the path to a successful career.

The videos, called the Equine Production Educational Series, were produced at the K-State horse unit on the north side of the Manhattan campus.

“We have so many equine project members that are interested in pursuing a career or building their own breeding program, so we wanted to develop a series that is focused on that, from embryo to equine,” Jepsen said.

“The youth that watch these videos will be ones who are interested in learning more about what veterinarians and breeding managers look at when they are starting their breeding program, selecting stallions and mares, and the technical aspects of this project area.”

Jepsen noted the series is for those with advanced knowledge in the project. It includes a five-part stallion series covering reproduction and the breeding process; and a multi-part mare series that covers foaling.

Information on accessing the videos will be available later in March on the Kansas 4-H website.

Jepsen said youth and parents soon will be asked to complete a survey form to help organizers determine the usefulness of the videos.

“We want parents to be aware that this is an advanced series and participate with their youth,” she said. “Also, we need to collect data to make sure these are the things that our equine project members want to see from the Kansas 4-H equine project area.”

“We have such a great resource with our K-State horse unit that we want to make sure we’re developing things that fit in with what our project members want.”

The video series will launch just prior to what is a busy month for the Kansas 4-H horse project. Starting in late March through April, Jepsen said the project will host numerous events as part of the popular Horse Panorama and Equifest, including hippology, quiz bowl, public speaking and horse judging.

“We are excited to be able to offer so many new adventures for those that are really interested in the equine project area,” Jepsen said. “The activities will be for beginning equine project members all the way to advanced project members with the video series.”

For information on all of the upcoming horse events, visit the Kansas 4-H website.