Move ‘Em Out : Urbanization, Zoning Put Squeeze on 4-H’ers Raising Livestock

After owning goats when she lived in Piru, Barbara Hiskett, 13, decided after she moved to Casitas Springs that she wanted to raise the animals for a 4-H project.

“I love raising goats,” she said. “They’re really interesting animals and they’re really cute when they’re little.”

But Barbara soon learned that the mobile-home park where she and her mother live doesn’t allow barnyard animals.

She still managed to begin raising goats three years ago by keeping them at the home of her 4-H leader in a rural area. And she will enter four of the animals in the county fair this year.

But the zoning laws that Barbara ran up against are as common in Ventura County housing tracts as in mobile-home parks.

In a sign of increasing urbanization, many local 4-H members who want to raise livestock have run into problems with land-use rules, say county fair organizers and 4-H officials.

While some young people learn they cannot raise any farm animals, others find that their back yards are too small to care for steers or other livestock that were once 4-H mainstays.

“I’m seeing more of a trend for the kids who want an animal project to go toward the cavies (guinea pigs), the rabbits and the poultry just because of space availability,” said Debbie Poucher, the county’s 4-H representative to this year’s fair, which starts Wednesday.

“The whole thing has changed,” agreed Craig Fosdick, the fair’s assistant superintendent for large livestock.

In the past 20 years, the number of steers entered by young people in the fair has dropped from roughly 120 to 20 while sheep have declined from about 200 to 50, Fosdick said.

As fewer large animals are entered, smaller beasts are becoming more popular.

The number of calves in the fair has shot up from none 20 years ago to 45 this year, while over the same period goat entries have doubled from roughly 25 to 50, Fosdick said.

Children are raising the same number of hogs as in the past: About 200 are entered this year.

“They don’t need as much space to raise a pig,” Fosdick said.

But the changing pattern of livestock entries reflects broader changes in the county, he said.

“When our auction first started over 40 years ago, we had a great many cattle ranches,” he said. “Now those places have been sold and they’re recreational land or they’re housing tracts or they’re industrial parks.”

And Ventura County residents who live in rural areas have smaller spreads than the ranchers of the past, he said. “We are down to the small ranchette or the little two- or three-acre parcel.”

Such changes may be particularly pronounced in the faster-growing and more suburban east county, said Beverly Switzer, a leader of the Mt. Boney 4-H Club in Newbury Park.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago, the majority of market animals at the fair used to come from the Conejo Valley,” she said.

But 4-H organizers across the county point out that many children have another reason to steer away from raising large animals: the cost.

Laurie Vanoni, a leader of the Mesa 4-H Club in the Camarillo area, said many 4-H families just do not have the extra money for raising a steer or other large beast.

“Everyone is experiencing some sort of economic hardship,” she said. “Many of the kids, especially in the steer projects, are going in the hole.”

After spending $500 to $1,000 to buy a male calf, young people then have to fork out another $200 to $300 to feed the animal until fair time, Fosdick said.

Although 4-H members usually expect to make at least a small profit when they sell animals at the fair’s annual livestock auction, they have been lucky to break even on steers in recent years, Fosdick said.

Other animals, such as pigs, are a better investment.

Young people spend about $200 to buy a piglet and fatten the animal for the fair, Fosdick said. But they can expect to earn twice that much on each pig at auction, he said.

“There’s more money to be made in swine,” said Nancy Brenner, leader of the Timber 4-H Club in Lynn Ranch, an unincorporated area near Thousand Oaks. “That’s why the number of steer has gone down.”

In addition to the eight children in Brenner’s club who are entering pigs this year, five have raised lambs for the event.

But five more members who wanted to raise lambs decided against it, said project leader Joette Garlock.

“Some parents were turned off by the cost,” she said. “Some kids also realized that the lambs go to slaughter.” And others, she said, realized that zoning restrictions prevented them from raising the lambs in their back yards.

Garlock lives in an unincorporated area of the county where barnyard animals are allowed.

Still, she said, children who can’t keep animals in their yards but want the experience of raising livestock for the fair have the option of keeping animals on the property of a fellow 4-H member. “Anybody who really wanted to do it could find a way to do it,” she said.

In some instances, the county will make exceptions to zoning ordinances to allow 4-H members to keep barnyard animals for the months it takes to raise the critters for the fair, Fosdick said.

And some cities such as Camarillo offer special permission to 4-H members for raising livestock, although Camarillo city planners said no one has taken advantage of the program since it was established last year.

Despite 4-H members’ declining interest in larger livestock, the organization remains strong in Ventura County, said Rose Hayden-Smith, the county’s 4-H youth adviser.

Ventura County has about 40 4-H groups, not counting the clubs run through schools, with a total membership of about 1,200.

Although membership is down by a third from the peak of 1,800 two decades ago, membership has been climbing recently.

The Timber 4-H Club in Thousand Oaks, for example, has grown from 15 to 100 members over the past eight years, Brenner said.

Peggy Kroener, who helped organize 4-H projects for the fair, said more young people in the group are bypassing livestock in favor of photography, computers, sewing and other 4-H programs.

As Kroener said, 4-H “has always been more than what people thought it was. It’s always been more than large livestock.”

Garlock, who moved to Ventura County six years ago, said she is impressed by how strong the local 4-H program is and how many opportunities children have for raising animals despite increasing urbanization.

“We came from Orange County--concrete back yard, pool, the whole bit,” Garlock said. “There’s nothing out there like this.”