Ventura County Fair : Fair Animals Tug at Kids’ Heartstrings

Jared Williams has a big, stubborn lamb.

Spud does not come when called, does not walk when placed in the halter and will not stand still unless ordered to move.

But 10-year-old Jared loves the fleecy white critter he has raised from wobbly infancy to full-blown, leash-tugging beast.

“I always thought he was so cute because he’s got these little gray hairs and he has the biggest nose,” he said, trying to stroke the lamb’s snout as Spud worked to free his head from the halter.

Jared knows he has to get a grip. At the end of this week, in all likelihood, Spud will go to the slaughterhouse, his cute white legs ending up just another chop wrapped in Styrofoam and cellophane in the meat case of some local supermarket.

Like his older sister and hundreds of other children across the county, Jared raised an animal for show this week at the Ventura County Fair. And like the other children, Jared will sell his lamb at the annual livestock auction on Friday.

The boy’s family worries that the sale will break his heart. But Jared thinks he can handle it. “It’ll be tough, but like I always say, it’s a way of life,” he said, mustering a weak smile. “It’s the way it has to be.”

Some youngsters participate in the fair’s large livestock competition as part of their local 4-H club, a youth organization with farming roots whose letters stand for Head, Heart, Hands and Health. Others enter along with their high school Future Farmers of America class.

Jared belongs to Timber 4-H, his neighborhood club in Thousand Oaks. He is too young to be a Future Farmer and anyway, they don’t offer that class in the Conejo Valley schools.

Spud came into this world on Feb. 16 and has belonged to Jared ever since. Jared walks him every day to build up his muscle, feeds him, grooms him, plays with him and talks to him. At the fair this week, Jared tugged Spud through a competition to determine how fit he is for market--Spud fell into the “B” class of lambs--and he will attempt later this week to coax the animal through a showmanship contest.

On Friday, Jared will put Spud on the auction block. If the little boy is lucky, a breeder will purchase Spud and the lamb will live to sire many progeny. But more likely, the lamb will be purchased for the flesh on his bones and killed Sunday evening just as the fair draws to a close.

In the meantime, when Jared needs to take a midday nap, he cuddles up next to Spud in his pen at the fair, puts his arms around the lamb’s woolly neck, and falls asleep.

Not all children grow as attached to their animals as Jared has. In addition to sheep, youngsters raise goats, calves, steers and hogs for the fair competition. Many of those responsible for the swine exhibit a noticeable lack of sentimentality for their squealing, smelly charges.

Like Brian Cook, 16, of Mupu 4-H, who named his pig Breakfast.

“I think he’s kind of a hassle,” Brian admitted as Breakfast snored away the afternoon. “He’s lazy. The only fun part is the fair.”

Brian especially likes the money. His pigs usually sell for around $600, and after he’s paid his parents back what they laid out on the animal’s food and board, he holds about $300 profit.

Last year, he spent the money on a wet suit and clothes. The cash is usually gone within a week, however he chooses to spend it.

Other children put their money into a savings account for college, or store some away toward the purchase of a car.

Katie Puente, for example, looks at her hulking black steer, Dallas, and sees a bright red truck.

Dallas weighs 1,280 pounds, and when he walks, his ponderous bulk shifts impressively between his meaty haunches. Sixteen-year-old Katie, of Somis 4-H, bought the steer back in October when he weighed only 600 pounds, and has nursed and exercised him to his considerable heft.

Besides the money he will inevitably bring, Katie said Dallas is her proof that she can accomplish anything if she works hard enough. “I think I took good care of him,” she said, glancing at her steer with a small smile.

As a sort of finishing touch to her fair preparations, Katie also mailed off 10 letters to prospective buyers. Some kids post as many as 50 letters.

“We tell them we have a steer and to come support it and the auction,” she said. She sighed and shrugged. “You know the whole time that that’s what’s going to happen.”

Few moments drive that reality home more clearly than the market competitions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week. That’s when the children strut their animals out onto a hay-carpeted auditorium floor, and officials imported from around the state judge the beasts on their value as a main course.

“There’s one pig in here that I think just excels in terms of carcass potential,” judge Jim Hyer of Porterville announced Wednesday morning as a jumble of pink swine jostled about the floor.

“She has tremendous leanness, tremendous length of body,” Hyer continued. “With her combination of lean muscle and design, she puts together an outstanding package.”

The crowd cheered as Hyer bestowed first place on Tim Ryan, 16, of Frazier Park and his prize porker, No. 562 (Tim never got around to giving the pig a name).

The audience agreed enthusiastically with the judge’s decision. The winning pig, said Wayne Lewis, a 4-H parent from Agoura, “is like an Arnold Schwarzenegger. She doesn’t have a lot of fat in her that hides the muscle.”

Like many other parents, Lewis can talk about the animals’ market values without a catch in his throat. To the parents and the leaders of 4-H and FFA, livestock competitions are about raising fine specimens of animals and instilling a solid sense of responsibility in their eager youth, many of whom are already polite and hard-working children.

The youngsters talk, too, about all the responsibility they are learning and spout readily a list of all the products made from the bone and muscle of their animals.

But their reasons for coming to the fair are different from the adults’.

Some kids just want to have fun and pocket the auction cash. Others fall in love, again and again, year after year.

Lacey Walker, 12, of Somis 4-H, still misses Peaches and Pig Newtons, her hogs from 1992 and 1993, respectively. She knows she’ll cry Sunday when they take Roastanne off to slaughter, even though the pig did try to attack her a couple of times, nipping her on the leg.

Stephanie Cummings of Timber 4-H also dreads the coming weekend. She’s been crazy about Charlie ever since the day the lamb hit his head on the sidewalk and ran up to her to rub his sore noggin against her leg.

“I’m really attached to Charlie,” the 14-year-old said. “They’re judging for what he’d buy in the store, but he’s so much more than that. He’s got his own personality.”

But as Stephanie and the other children in Timber 4-H know, no one’s going to hurt more on Sunday than Jared. Spud is the first lamb he ever owned and he has worked with it so long and so hard.

“We feel so bad for him, ‘cause (the judges) are going to think he didn’t work with it, but the lamb just wouldn’t give in,” said his sister Cara, 15.

Still, Jared tries, maybe caring for Spud more because he’s so obstinate, walking him up and down the aisles at the fair’s barn, trying to assert his mastery over the sheep.

“I’m the boss,” Jared said, struggling with the lamb as it tried to run away from him, “but my lamb’s pretty strong.”

Jared likes to tell about Spud’s good qualities--how he nuzzles Jared, plays around with him, even jumps up on him and tries to “hug” him. So what if Spud always steps on his master’s feet? They are pals.

“You get kinda mad when he doesn’t listen to you,” Jared said, wrestling with Spud to keep him in line for the fair’s official weigh-in Monday night. “But it’s been fun because he’s a real fun lamb.”