Don nestled the tiny Yorkshire boar against his chest and the room fell silent, only to be followed by the relieved laughter of the students in the freshman Animal Science class at Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center in Newport. Agricultural Literacy Built by Hands-On
By Sabrina Matteson
SKOO-WEEEEEEEEEEEE! A look of horror flashed across Cassy Wentzell’s face as soon as Don McCauslin picked the first piglet out of the crate and it began to squeal. The screeching didn’t last more than a few seconds as the two-day old piglet realized that pigs CAN fly when held gently in the hands of a care-giver.
Don nestled the tiny Yorkshire boar against his chest and the room fell silent, only to be followed by the relieved laughter of the students in the freshman Animal Science class at Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center in Newport.
Cassy is one of 70 students enrolled in agricultural classes at the high school that encourages hands-on experience with pigs, sheep, maple sugaring, forestry and horticulture. Her job for the day was to learn the proper care and maintenance of newborn piglets: clip their needle teeth so they don’t scratch one another or the teats of their mother, notch the ears for identification and give them a shot to thwart the iron deficiency with which every piglet is born.
“For these kids, the hardest part of working with the animals is the smell,” said David Clivio-Wentrup, animal science teacher and head of the Ag center. “Yes, animals are smelly and at times bloody and need our care, but everybody should be able to understand where our food comes from.”
David feels that our country has failed miserably in agricultural literacy. “Everybody took it for granted that their kids would understand agriculture because there was a time when everybody had some sort of link to a farm. Family celebrations or summer vacation at the farm were the norm for all children, but that is no longer the case,” lamented David. “Nothing has replaced visiting relatives on the farm.”
David considers a year of teaching successful if he manages to instill a passion to work in agriculture in just one or two students. Of course, many others gain knowledge in animal husbandry and understanding of their food sources along the way. Through working with animals he also hopes to inspire in his students a better work ethic and greater responsibility.
By caring for a living creature, it is easy for the kids to understand that animals need to be fed, watered and cleaned regularly. Along with assuring that the animals remain healthy, the students must keep records of type and amount of feed, track the rate of gain and calculate the feed efficiency each piglet and the amount that converts to weight of gain. They learn to take visual health appraisals, perform injections for health maintenance and castrate the male piglets. They learn about reproduction, cloning, embryology, bio-security, pathogens and basic veterinary care.
“These kids learn that farmers can’t afford to go calling the vet unless there is a severe injury or some major crisis that cannot be handled,” said David. “There are so few vets around these days that if the farmer can’t handle it himself, the creature may die before the vet can even make it to the farm.”
David works in close cooperation with the area farmers that are willing to help teach the students the hands-on part of farming. This year, Don McCauslin brought two sows to the Tech Center so that the students can learn about what it takes to put pork and bacon on the table. 
The 50 sows on McCauslin Swine Farm on Craney Hill Road in Weare are free-range sows until right before they give birth to their litter of piglets. Once they are due, 114 days after breeding (or three months, three weeks, three days of gestation), Don puts each sow in her own gestation crate to prevent injury to both the mother and the piglets. If the sow has difficulty birthing, Don can help her without having to stress her by chasing her around a large pen.
The piglets are safer in the crate because the sow cannot flatten them when she flops to lie down, as all pigs do, because they have space on either side of her. A heated mat and a heat lamp allow the piglets to choose the temperature they wish. For their first few days, Don must assure that they can be maintained at the 85 degrees they desire. The sow has all the food and water she wants and her manure is confined to a small area at the back of the crate, which keeps the piglets clean, dry and healthy. The sows and piglets are kept together in this housing for the 3-4 weeks that the piglets nurse from their mother.
David Clivio-Wentrup has brought stability to the Ag program at Sugar River. When he arrived in 1996, the four-year-old program had already had four different teachers. David taught all the Ag courses back then but in the past five years the program has been enriched by James Beaulieu’s forestry classes and Deb Stevens’s horticulture program.
“Politics, financing and accountability become distracting to my job,” explained David. With the retirement of Rick Barker two years ago, the Department of Education never rehired a liaison to the NH high school vocational programs and each of the 13 schools struggles with staying informed. “Maria Vanderwoude heads up the whole FFA program for the state but there is only so much one person can do,” said David.
“I always have to be looking over my shoulder and defending my programs,” said David with regret and dismay. “Three weeks ago we had a flock of 25 ewe lambs here to teach the students about sheep management. Our administrator and I decided to send the animals back to Bill Foucers’ farm when she found that PETA had arranged a protest rally with the ten members of the high school chapter, PETA-2. These students were solicited over the internet to create trouble for High School and College livestock programs.” Nobody asked the opinion of the students who were denied their opportunity to learn firsthand to care for replacement ewe lambs.
The community needs to support high school agriculture programs if it wants to see NH remain a rural and farm-friendly state, feels David. “I know there is support for what we are doing but it is hard to get the message across when none of these students has actually ever been hungry,” said David. “These kids have never really suffered any want.”
McCauslin Swine Farm will be selling 100 feeder piglets at the Milford Blue Seal store on Saturday, May 12. For more information or for Yorkshire breeding stock, Don can be reached at 529-6058. 25% of his piglets go to 4-H kids in 5 states.