Animals

Reptile and Amphibian Study Merit Badge

Ten requirements, and the one that decides the shape of the badge is requirement 8: a month with an animal in your own custody, or three months of weekly visits to one in somebody else's. The prohibitions that govern it (no venomous reptiles, no protected species, no collecting in most parks) are in a standing note above the requirements rather than in any numbered one.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Conservation Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

Pets Merit Badge

Five requirements, and the first one is four months long with approval required BEFORE it starts, so a pet you have kept for years earns nothing until the clock is started deliberately. Work done for other merit badges cannot be used here, which collides with Dog Care's own two-month clock, and the choice at requirement 4 is decided largely by what kind of animal you keep.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Merit Badges Requirements

Insect Study Merit Badge

Nine requirements. The long parts are raising an insect from larva to adult (3(b)) and observing 20 live species from at least four orders (4(b)), which then become a scrapbook (4(c)) and a choice of eight species and their roles (4(d)). Requirement 5(b) is an ant colony or a bee hive, and 9 is a career. The rest are safety with ants and bees, anatomy, ecology, insects and people, and conservation.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Conservation Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

Mammal Study Merit Badge

Seven requirements, two of which are choices where the routes are nothing like equal: requirement 3 is 6 hours in the field, 15 hours across five days, or no field time at all, and requirement 4 offers seven routes from a book report to making study skins. Requirement 4(c) points back at requirement 3(c) by number, and requirement 5 is a project a counselor has to agree before it starts.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Conservation Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

Horsemanship Merit Badge

Twelve requirements, eleven of them linear and one of them a single continuous ride disguised as seven lettered items. Five requirements need a horse in front of you, requirement 7 cannot be finished on a day you do not ride, and the badge numbers saddling a horse before catching and tying it.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety

Dog Care Merit Badge

Ten requirements, of which nine are conversations and one is two months long. Requirement 4 keeps and cares for a dog with a nine-item log including a weekly body weight record, and the things that log records are explained in requirements 6 and 8, both numbered after it. The rule that work here cannot count towards another badge now sits above the whole badge rather than inside requirement 4.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Health Merit Badges Requirements

Bird Study Merit Badge

Thirteen requirements. The long one is requirement 5: 20 wild species observed and identified, each in a field notebook, and requirement 7 then asks for five of those same 20 by song alone. Start early. Requirements 8, 9 and 13 are choices, and two routes in 8 need a club or a banding program.

Elective Merit Badges Animals Conservation Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements