Inside the small Franklin barn, about a dozen cattle wait with varying levels of patience for their first meal of the day.
Most mornings, a group of young people comes out here before school to feed the animals. They provide water, bedding, and spend a little time showing some love for their animals. In the evening, they’ll do it all over again.
Raising cattle is hard work. But for this group of kids, they’re learning important lessons about responsibility and time management. They’ve been working with farmers Steve Williams and Susan Hart, who have served as mentors and guides through showing cattle.
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“They’ve helped me be a good person in and out of the barn,” said Ella Burgett, a 15-year-old Trafalgar resident who has worked with Williams and Hart for the past six years. “They treat me like one of their own. They support me in everything I do.”
For the past 10 years, Williams and Hart have been using their cattle to help local youth take part in 4-H. The kids commit to caring for a calf for 18 months, coming over to the couple’s Franklin farm multiple times during the week to feed and clean the animals.
Over that time, they’ll be able to take part in the Johnson County 4-H Fair twice, as well as show their calves in other shows such as the Indiana State Fair.
The project was envisioned as a way to instill important life skills in kids.
“We’re not training them to be farmers or cattle people. We’re teaching them to be better human beings, using cattle as a tool,” Williams said. “What better way to teach responsibility and commitment than using these animals?”
But at the same time, Williams and Hart have found working with young people to be incredibly rewarding.
“It’s hard work, but it’s a lot of fun,” Hart said. “The kids learn a lot. We’ve been through a lot together.”
Both Williams and Hart grew up on farms, and raised animals themselves throughout their childhood. On their rural Franklin farm, they raise crops as well as a herd of Brown Swiss dairy cattle.
With their background in agriculture, it made sense that they’d have experience with 4-H. Hart’s son was active in the organization, showing animals all 10 years until he graduated from high school in 2009.
After her son finished his 4-H career, Hart and Williams wanted to find a way to stay involved in showing animals.
“I kind of got that empty nest syndrome, and thought, well, it’d be fun to do this. The rest is history,” she said.
The first kids who Williams and Hart started working with were Adam and Matt Jordan. The boys were Williams’ nephews, sons of his sister, who lived in Franklin Township.
“They lived in town, and they weren’t on a farm. It was another kind of the deal where their parents wanted them to do it,” Williams said. “It gave them some foundation and structure in their life.”
Caring for the cattle was hard work. Adam and Matt Jordan would wake up in the early morning to come feed his calf before going to school, then would do it again at night. He would have to scoop manure and clean out their pen, dirty tedious work.
When the weather warmed in the spring, he would take more time to wash and clean the animal, walking it around the yard and preparing for showing it in the summer.
There weren’t very many days off, but you learned responsibility and time management.
The project has laid the foundation for both Jordan brothers to find success. Adam Jordan is a project manager for Piper Construction, while Matt Jordan is attending school at Vincennes University at its fire science and safety program.
“The reward is what’s nice. You get them when they’re two weeks old, and it’s a two-year-long project. It’s great to see them grow, and you’re growing yourself,” he said. “I takes determination and a strong work ethic to do this.”
Those who have taken part in the project are either neighbors or family friends of Williams and Hart.
Some of their families have agricultural backgrounds, but no longer farm. Others show different animals, such as hogs or goats, but want to try their hand at raising cattle.
Ella and her family had cattle of their own, but not dairy cattle. So this was an introduction to an entirely new type of animal.
“I thought it would be a good responsibility, and a way to learn time management,” Ella said. “And, of course, they’re cute.”
She has learned how to take care of the cattle, learned about their biology, feeding and other aspects of the animal. Ella works with the animals every day, feeding before and after school.
When the animals are babies, she makes bottles for them so they can feed properly. She and Williams have worked out a chart system, to keep track of how much food different calves need at different times.
On occasion, she has very carefully given the animals medication or shots to keep them healthy.
“It’s an everyday thing,” she said. “You can’t just not do it. You have to go out and take care of these animals. And you have to love the animals.”
Trevor Sichting had been in 4-H for a year before he started working with Williams and Hart. He had shown pigs, but wanted to branch out and show cattle the following year.
“I wanted to get into cattle, and pretty much they let me come and see how I like it. I’ve shown with them ever since,” Trevor said. “It was a responsibility thing, learning the work ethic.”
Jasper and Natalie Carter are going through the project currently. They worked with their parents, Jesse and Amy Carter, to venture out into raising cattle a few years ago, but having never done it before, they had a lot of questions. A mutual friend suggested they contact Williams and Hart, who they knew from 4-H.
The two families worked together on issues such as what supplies to bring to shows, what to do when one of their cattle was sick or had a medical issue, and how to transport the animals.
They’ve been showing animals with Williams and Hart for the past three years. Jasper, 15, and Natalie, 12, work together caring for the animals, sharing responsibilities such as feeding, washing, cleaning stalls and showing the animals.
“Cows are work,” Natalie said. “At first, I thought showing cows would be boring. But it’s really fun.”
But while participants in the program learn important lessons about hard work, responsibility and perseverance, they also develop a bond with the cattle that they otherwise would never realize.
Cows have their own personalities, and those unique traits shine through the more you get to know the animals.
“The kids, when they’re first or second or third year 4-H members, they don’t really notice it. But when they get older, the kids really start to realize how they are,” Williams said.
Often times, caring for the animals goes well beyond feeding, cleaning or administering medicine. When the animals get seriously ill, Williams and Hart take them to the Purdue University Large Animal Hospital.
For example, they thought that one cow named Elliot was suffering from bloat. A local veterinarian examined him, thought it was also bloat or acidosis, and treated him.
Two days later, Elliot was in even worse shape. At that point, they loaded him up and took him to Purdue.
“Not many people would have loaded a steer up and taken it to Purdue. The moment we put him on the trailer, we were losing money, but we were going to lose money anyway,” Williams said. “We kind of turned it around to be a lesson in compassion.”
Veterinarians at the hospital were able to treat Elliot, and he survived.
“When we got home, he had to get his feed rationed and his water measured and his hay intake watched closely,” Hart said. “But he loved us. I didn’t even need to put a halter on him; he’d follow me around everywhere.”
Another time, one of Ella’s cows had an umbilical hernia, a condition where fatty tissue or part of the intestine bulges through the umbilical ring. They were able to take the animal to Purdue get surgery to correct the issue.
“That was a learning experience for her, to see that you have to invest into these animals to get them to finish out for you,” said Thomas Burgett, Ella’s father.
The cattle they raise gets to be almost like family. That can lead to emotional goodbyes at the end of the 18 months with their animal, when the cows are sold in the annual livestock auction at the county fair.
“You’re able to see them grow up, and you’re babying them. It can be pretty sad to get rid of them,” Sichting said.
Those moments are difficult. But for Williams, it reveals something important about the kids’ time with their animals.
“That’s one thing about the project — there is an endgame. That’s the reality of it. Sale night at the fair, there’s a lot of crying,” he said. “It’s hard, but it also tells you they did the project right. If you look at sale night, the kids who came out and have no emotion, they didn’t really take care of their calves. There wasn’t that connection.”
Though the project only lasts as long as the kids are in 4-H, the bonds that have formed often last even longer. Ella refers to Williams as “grandpa,” and considers him and Hart as family.
Adam Jordan often comes back to the farm to help with caring for the animals throughout the year, and takes time before and during the fair to help with transportation, grooming and other chores.
“To me, that is our biggest accomplishment. He’s gone through the project, we’ve helped him, and now in turn, he’s coming back to help these kids. That made it all come around, which is what we wanted to do,” Williams said.
Source: Daily Journal
