Monday, August 19, 2024
While many teens at the Wisconsin State Fair were focused on carnival rides, eight students from MPS’s Vincent School of Agricultural Science were hard at work, caring for their lambs and showing them in the ring.
The tasks for the students in the State Fair’s Sheep and Goat Barn were seemingly constant: cleaning the lambs cleaning the pens, and cleaning outside the pens; watering the lambs, feeding the lambs, and shearing the lambs — and knowing how the male and female lambs should be sheared differently.
These were not tiny lambs that the students were wrangling. The animals, about 6 months old, weighed an average of about 120 pounds each.
The students already had worked with their lambs for months, looking after them since May and training them to be shown at the State Fair. In late June and early July, students attended a camp led by local experts to learn the ins and outs of showing their lambs, organized by Vincent staff.
One of the first things students do with their lambs is get them used to being away from their flock. “They rely on each other,” said Tayevion Hopgood, who will be a senior at Vincent in September. The lambs also have to get used to being handled by a human, he said, because the judges will evaluate the lambs in the ring through touch.
Markell Jones, who also is a rising senior at Vincent, could tell that his lamb was anxious when away from the other lambs. But, he said, “She’s a nice girl; she’s good.”
It was Markell’s second time showing lambs at the State Fair. He and the other Vincent students learned at school how to put halters on their lambs for training, how to set the lambs so they stand properly for the judges, and how to walk their lambs in front of the judges. The lambs have to be able to walk without a lead in the ring.
As Tayevion worked with his lamb over the past months, he could see the progress. At first, “he did not like me doing anything — he tried to push me away,” Tayevion said. The lamb eventually became used to behaving how Tayevion wanted him to behave.
It was her second year showing at the State Fair for Elizabeth Weiss, who will be a junior at Vincent. Over the summer, she saw her lamb every day for at least an hour, “to train and just spend quality time with my lamb,” she said.
Also showing lambs at the State Fair were Vincent students Kayziah Smith, TreShawn Conner, Tatianna Hudson, Gabrille Irvin, and Khamari Moutry.
The students arrived at the State Fair by 8:15 a.m. Monday, August 5, and stayed at the dorms on the fairgrounds until Thursday morning to be ready to care for and show their lambs.
Students who raised female, or breeding, lambs showed their ewe lambs on Tuesday, August 6; students with male, or market, lambs showed their ram lambs on Wednesday, August 7. All the students showed their lambs on Thursday, August 8, when judges evaluated students’ showmanship. 
Monica Gahan, animal science teacher at Vincent, said Vincent students must apply to be chosen to show a lamb at the fair. Vincent’s ewes are bred in late summer; the number of lambs born in January or February determines how many students can be accepted into the program, she explained.
Vincent students first took part in the livestock shows at the State Fair in 2017. Back then, the school purchased three lambs for students to show, before the school started having its own ewes bred. The program paused in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic and resumed in 2022.
After the State Fair ends each year, the school sells the ram lambs for meat; it will decide whether to keep any of the ewe lambs for future breeding or whether to sell them, Gahan said.
The students already are thinking about their careers after high school, and their time at Vincent is having an influence. Markell said he wanted to continue to work with animals and hoped to work at a neighbor’s farm. “This (experience) could actually help me really well,” he said.
Tayevion wanted to become an engineer, but his interest became more focused after a Vincent teacher introduced him to agricultural engineering. (His Vincent connection also helped him get an internship at the Milwaukee County Zoo this summer.) “I’m happy that I get opportunities like this,” Tayevion said.
And Elizabeth, who originally wanted to be a small-animal veterinarian, now wants to become a veterinarian specializing in farm animals, “animals that I never thought I would be working with,” she said — all because she was placed at Vincent for high school.
Vincent School of Agricultural Sciences is at 7501 N. Granville Road, Milwaukee 53224. The high school will have a new barn in the new school year for its agricultural program.