4-H clubs give students hands-on learning experience
Logan Willis holds Maggie, his 4-H ewe lamb project.
Logan Willis uses his crook to capture Bert, his 4-H market lamb project.
BJ Jones 13, shows Christopher Hawk, 9, how to position his lamb when the judge is watching in the show ring.
Rick Patton and Janet Mawhinney discuss what to look for in a prize-winning market lamb.
Three West Greene High School juniors compete in this year’s shearing contest at the Adamson Farm near Oak Forest.
The winning shearers at Adamaon Farm: First place Jeremy Earnest, on top of the wool bag stand, second place Haley Pierson with her ewe and third place Joey Chapman holding his shears.
Chase Bonnema, 9, Erin Harbarger, 9, and Kolby Harbarger, 14, were the first place winners in Shepherds Lead with their Shetland sheep at the 2016 Waynesburg Sheep and Fiber Fest in May.
Cliff Whyte helps daughters Carly, 10, and Anna, 9, while they weigh Anna’s market lamb Sugar Ray.
Karston Williams and Allie Midla show off with their market lambs at the 4-H weigh in at the Greene County Fairgrounds May 16.
At the Willis farm in Cumberland Township, Mary had a little lamb and her name is Maggie. Now Logan Willis has a flock.
Shepherd’s crook in hand, the wiry 9-year-old boy pointed to a freshly shorn ewe standing in a stall.
“That’s Mary, and over there that’s Maggie,” Logan said while pointing to a fuzzy-faced lamb lying in a corner of the old family barn. “Maggie was born here on March 26. She’s my ewe lamb project this year. Last year, Mary was.”
Logan put his shepherd’s crook to work rounding up another lamb named Bert.
“He’s my market lamb,” Logan said.
Welcome to the world of 4-H market lambs and sheep breeding in general, livened by the hands-on learning that happens when kids and lambs meet in the spring for an adventure that ends in the show ring at the Greene County Fair.
From March to August, students take part in the everyday lessons of feeding, exercising, weighing, learning to lead, shearing and, most importantly, getting the sheep to stand square for the time when the judge stops to look.
“Lambs are a good first project for the little ones because they’re easier to handle than say, a market steer,” said Logan’s mother, Loni Willis. “Now that we have Maggie, Logan wants to start a flock. Oxfords aren’t that well known around here but they are docile, grow fast and lay good muscle.”
For this home-schooling family, being in 4-H is also part of the school day – that sometimes reaches into the night – that teaches the science, technology, engineering and math curriculum, better known as STEM. A hundred years ago it was called 4-H when land grant colleges such as Penn State University introduced educational materials to America’s schools to teach kids ages 8 through 18 the latest science of land management, animal husbandry and mechanics, from sewing machines to the farm equipment they would grow up to use as the horse and buggy era was left behind.
“They were called community clubs and kids could do any project that interested them. We don’t have any community clubs now, but we could help start one if there’s an interest,” Greene County 4-H educator Chris Becket said.
By the early 1970s, clubs began specializing and members learned everything about their project animal. Raising a market lamb, for example also includes learning best breeding practices, even though that is not the club’s focus, Becker pointed out.
In Greene County, the Market Lamb and Sheep Breeding clubs keep the region’s glory days alive. Wool production boomed during the Civil War and the market continued for decades, but when synthetic materials became the fabric of choice for uniforms, blankets and coats in the mid-20th century, many farmers switched from the fine-fleeced Marino to beef, or they gave up farming altogether. The growing popularity of lamb on the dinner table created a new market and 4-H clubs responded with market lamb projects.
On a brisk day in March, Rick Patton had a row of Hampshire-Suffolk cross lambs waiting in his barn in Franklin Township. Kids who stopped to shop would also get a lesson about what to look for when selecting the right lamb.
Patton ran his hands from shoulder to loin on one tethered lamb, showing the subtle differences in build that make a well-proportioned animal.
“This one has the best conformation but it was a twin so it’s smaller, so it will never be as heavy as the others here, ” Patton noted.
A month later the lamb, now named Sugar Ray, was getting his weekly weigh-in at the home of 9-year-old Anna Whyte. Sister Carly, 10 also had a Patton lamb named Bruce, weighing 20 pounds heavier.
“That means me and my sister will be in different classes and not be competing,” Anna explained with a happy smile.
Market lamb classes have nine categories from light to heavy weight, guaranteeing plenty of ribbons and winners when fair time comes around.
On May 16, nearly 100 kids from the lamb clubs spilled into the arena at the Greene County Fairgrounds. First a string of club meetings, then some practice time with leaders and older members to learn proper positioning for the show ring. Then it was time to stand in line to be weighed. Lambs weighing more than 100 pounds would be disqualified.
When fair time comes in August, the weight cannot be more than 145 pounds, nor less than 100, the optimum weight for a lamb to go to market. Kids learn to gauge the feed and exercise they supply against the weight, both fat and muscle, their lamb will put on.
Judges now use ultrasound to gauge the fat ratio of carcass lambs and every year 4-H’ers get the new information they need to stay abreast of the science that farmers of the future will use.
Thanks to enduring market for natural fiber, fine wool producers like Shetland sheep are still raised and 4-H students compete in Shepherds Lead at the fair to be judged for the quality of the wool of sheep they lead and the wool clothing they wear.
Sheep must be rid of their heavy coats each spring, even though the value of the wool produced by market animals is not in high demand.
“Some farmers throw it away,” said Ralph Adamson, a long-time sheep farmer near Oak Forest.
Adamson and Curt Hughes, an agriculture science teacher at West Greene High School, were at Adamson’s farm to judge the students from West Greene and Central Greene school districts who had come to try their hand at shearing some of his flock. By the second day, three West Greene students were back to be judged.
“I want to learn to do it better,” said Jeremy Earnest of Graysville.
He was there to compete against fellow juniors Haley Pierson and Joey Chapman. In the end, his extra practice shearing his own flock of six animals the week before gave him a first-place score.
“You all are good and getting better, ” Hughes told them. “Keep it up and you could do this to earn some good part-time money. Farmers need to have their sheep shorn every year.”
In the past, 4-H and the Future Farmers of America prepared most students for life as successful farmers,
“But now,” Hughes said, “these kids can grow up to be scientists, engineers, technicians, salesmen, teachers, anything they want.
“They learn to be leaders.”