FRANKIE HAD A LITTLE LAMB, WHOSE ....(Part 2)

To get a grade in VoAg, we had to have one major project per year to get our grade. The project could be an animal or a truck crop project of one acre or more. While most of the kids in my Ag class lived in town, many of the kids going to San Jose High School actually lived on farms. The truck crop (plants) projects were mostly for those kids who lived on a farm. For those of us who didn’t live on a farm, our only option was a livestock project at the school ranch. We had a choice of raising at least one steer, a sheep, or hog. I decided to raise a sheep. In fact, I ended up with two in my frosh year. A lamb required a $10 deposit for each sheep. The hog was the same price, but they really STINK! What I really wanted was to raise a steer, but it required a $50 deposit, and my mom just didn’t have $50 …. She barely had the $20.

With money in hand, Mr. Ralston took us to the Bank Of America downtown and we got a loan from the bank for the rest of the money needed to buy the animals. The project ended when we sold our animals at auction at the Santa Clara County Fair the next fall. We then would take our check to the bank and paid off the loan. The rest we got to keep. I made that trip three more times while in high school and borrowed money for steers.

That first year in Ag I learned all kinds of things about raising and caring for animals. Even though we had our own project, we had to work the entire farm. I remember moving irrigation pipe in the pasture, graining animals and unloading hay. We learned to worm animals, tag sheep and cattle by putting a permanent metal tag in the ear (talk about ear piercing), relieving cattle with bloat (whew, as smelly process). To relieve a bloated steer, you drive a sharp steel pipe into its belly and the gas whooshes out! After removing the pipe, a dressing is then place on the wound so it heals. The pipe actually hurts less than the gas bloating … or so I was told. I wonder who told that to our teacher. Certainly not the steer!

My first project as a freshman were my two sheep. I can’t remember what I named them, though. Unlike a dog, or even a steer, sheep have no personality and like a cat, never warm up to you. No matter how often you worked with them, you always had to catch them. I guess I wasn’t a very good shepherd, or if the sheep knew my voice, they thought it would be fun to make the fat kid run around the corral trying to catch them. Once we caught them, though, they pretty well stayed put. During the year we didn’t do much with the sheep besides making sure they were fed and got the proper medication. Since there was a whole herd of sheep, and since sheep all look the same, we had to find a way to quickly identify each sheep. This was so we could find our own lambs, but also to keep a record of what sheep had been medicated, etc. So, we used a stencil and ink and blotted a big number on their back. The number was the same number as on the metal tag we put in its ear. Simple enough. The freshman classes of the three high schools had the task of stenciling the sheep.

Another task we had was to move cattle into a squeeze. The squeeze was a pen that would actually render the animal immovable. The messiest job was moving cattle up the chute to the cattle squeeze to tend to the animal. Cattle feeding on alfalfa pasture for the first time develop scours, or the runs. These young steers were only in the pasture a few days when we had to work on them. Needless to say, their rear ends and tails were covered with … well you know with what they were covered with. You must coax a steer to go down a chute, and the easiest way is with a cattle prod, which the school did not use. We had to do it the old fashioned way, grab the steer by the tail and twist the tail up to get the animal to move. This caused a little discomfort to the animal, and he moved! It also caused a great deal of consternation to a 14 year old to grab a tail full of runny cow poop! We tried to find a few clean hairs and gently twist. But our mentors, the Ag Shop students made us grab the tail and twist. After all, we could wash our hands later! So, I learned to roll up my sleeves and grab on to the tail, poop and all, and then wash my hands. It is a lesson that would stay with me thru high school, and thru my life …. It especially helped when it came to changing diapers!

In September we went to the Santa Clara County Fair. We would show our sheep for judging. We had to walk our sheep into the ring and then have them stand still while the judges looked over the animals. Before the judging, we had to prep our sheep. We put the sheep on a stand with its head immobile, then we would trim them up so they looked almost square. Wanted the back straight as a board.

Of course, the best part of going to the fair was meeting the 4H girls. One girl was trying to get her lamb upon the stand to trim it up when the sheep bolted out of her arms and headed for the freedom of the midway. We were in the sheep barn and the animal had to go down several isles before reaching freedom. Once free, the animal would have been impossible to catch, and would actually run itself to death – not to mention a cute 4H farm girl losing her project. Several of us tried to catch the runaway sheep, but most people just jumped out of the way. As the sheep rounded the last corner before its freedom, I made a beautiful open field tackle and brought the sheep down. It was great. The girl was really grateful, but that was it. She would never talk to me again. Stuck up Junior farm girls just don’t talk to Freshman city boys who were trying to pass off as Juniors, and trying even harder to be country!

At the appointed time, I entered the arena along with 9 others and our sheep were judged. Most of us got blue ribbons. I got one for each sheep. I think I still have them. A few days later our sheep went to the auction where I sold both sheep. The auction was on the final day of the fair, and after the auction I returned the sheep the their pens, and never saw them again. I am sure they ended up as lamb chops in Safeway! After the fair was over, Mr. Ralston took us all down to the bank and we paid off our loans. I think I ended up with about a $50 profit total for both sheep.

Raising sheep was okay, but I had determined that I would never raise another one. Sheep are really stupid animals and I decided to let others raise them!