Animal farm at PHS

PRESCOTT – Students in the Prescott School District interested in raising and showing animals at the fair will soon be getting their chance.

The Organization for Youth Education in Agriculture (OYEA), has built barns on 10 acres of land on the Prescott High School campus by the bus barn. The concept is simple, the students will be assigned animals and be responsible for their care, grooming and training. The students won’t be out anything other than time as all other costs are being handled via donations.

Darren Neal, county agent with the Extension Service, said everything has been set up to be safe for the students. One barn will house pigs, sheep, goats and eventually cows, while another is being used for rabbits. There’s also a space where students can work with the animals similar to a show arena.

There’s several acres of pastureland that will eventually be cross-fenced for cattle. Plans are to take up the grass there now and replace it with Bermuda grass this spring and get it going before the cross fencing is done and cows introduced.

Neal said Fred Harris worked hard on this project, adding Percy Malone donated $50,000 to help build the barn. Neal continued saying others in the community have also made donations as they realize how important agriculture is in Nevada County. To date, almost $100,000 in cash and in-kind labor have been donated to the project.

At this time, there are several pigs and rabbits in the barns. There’s one boar to five sows on the pig side, and one buck to five does. All of the female animals are pregnant at this time. Harris said the rabbits should drop their first litter by the end of this month or early March. The current animals are basically seed stock to provide rabbits and pigs for students to raise and show. The black rabbits are New Zealand, while the black and white ones are California breed. Both are primarily meat rabbits.

Students will be assigned an animal and work with it from the time it’s weaned until it’s been shown. Not all the animals will be assigned, Harris and Neal said, some will be sold to help raise money to feed the rest. Harris pointed out the barn for the rabbits has been rebuilt as what was there was about to fall down. Now, the structure has been wrapped and insulated with an automatic watering system in each cage so the animals can drink when they want.

Rabbits, he said, were selected because of their short gestation period. Students will take responsibility for the lives of the rabbits from birth, and could have the chance to witness the birthing process. The other reason they were picked, he added, is because they’re soft, cuddly and non-threatening, though they will bite. However, students have been coming over and playing with the rabbits, getting used to them.

Neal said a lot of schools have farms, but Prescott’s is unique in that other schools simply allow students to bring their animals to school, whereas the animals will be furnished at Prescott. Students, he added, are out no expenses. “This is for the ones who may be interested but can’t have an animal. In this way, they can be involved and shouldn’t be penalized.” The reasons some students can’t have animals he added can range from their living in town, to family finances and lack of parental involvement.

What also makes this a worthwhile endeavor is it’s set up as a 501c3 organization, making all donations tax deductible. Harris said 100 percent of donations go to the program and aren’t used for anything else. This program, he added, has no overhead not covered by donations.

The animals will be shown at the Nevada County Fair, possibly the Third District and State Fairs as well. The money raised at the premium sales will go directly to the students as they are the ones who’ll have raised and worked with the animals shown.

Neal pointed out this is a working farm and the students will learn the economics of farming and ranching. “They need to understand the process,” he said. “Life lessons can be learned, along with them developing a work ethic.”

“What we’re trying to focus on here,” Harris said, “is life lessons and character building.”

The OYEA program is a nonprofit, charitable organization set up to support an educational environment outside the conventional classroom in various aspects of agriculture. The program started about a year ago with the Prescott school administration asked Neal to spearhead an effort to reestablish an Animal Science program there.

Goals were established for a successful program, with the primary goal being to develop an environment that would afford each student interested the opportunity to have a hand-on learning experience involving conservation practices on all aspects of forage and livestock production. Students involved in the program will get one credit toward graduation. OYEA will own the animals which will be raised and shown by the students.

OYEA and the Prescott School District entered into an interlocal agreement, as this is a 4H program with the extension office.

While the work is 90 percent done, according to Neal, there’s a lot to be done. Plans are to insulate the big barn and install an automatic watering system for the animals. A facebook page is also being developed and should be up soon. This page will detail what’s going on with the program and keep the community and donors informed of the progress.

The goal is to have 50-60 students involved once the program gets up and running. Harris and Neal said a ribbon cutting will be held later on with the public invited to see what’s been and being done.