A Really Pig Show : Pierce Event Introduces Visitors to Clean Swine, Other Farm Wonders

Max Wasser had never seen a pig before, which is not surprising for a 16-month-old.

“He’s read about them in books,” said his mother, Bonnie Wasser, as her son leaned against a fence Sunday to get a better look at the piglets gathered in front of him. If not for Pierce College, “he wouldn’t have been able to see the real thing.”

Bonnie and Jerry Wasser and their son were among the estimated 1,500 people who came to the college Sunday to take part in the Farm Walk, held three times a year to promote Pierce’s agricultural program.

“It’s tourism that’s going to save this farm,” acting Pierce President Mary Lee said of the college’s 240-acre expanse of animals and open space. “Not ag production.”

Lee decided a year and a half ago to organize the walks to raise money for the school’s agricultural program. Participants are asked to donate $2, but Lee said she also hopes to raise community awareness of the farm in the mostly urban San Fernando Valley.

Many who took the tour Sunday were young parents like the Wassers who wanted to give their children their first good look at farm animals. “It’s one of the last places in the Valley like this that I know of,” said Bonnie Wasser.

The route took visitors past the swine pens, up a path to where they could feed alfalfa to sheep and over a hill to a horse corral. Cattle could be seen on a distant hill and occasionally flocks of migratory geese flew overhead.

At some points along the walk, visitors could get an unadulterated view of farmland, with nary a glimpse of the commercial development that has spread over the Valley in the past half-century. “It’s a great view up here,” said Woodland Hills resident Cherry Eaton, pausing on top of a hill.

“We’ve had a lot of people,” said Carol Abts, a pre-veterinary student at Pierce College who spent the day answering such visitor questions as: “Why do some sheep wear covers?” and “Why are llamas kept in the sheep pens?” and “Why is a ram in there?”

The sheep wear the covers to protect their fleece from dirt and sun, Abts said. The llamas protect the sheep from predators, and it isn’t a ram, she said, but a Scottish black-faced sheep that happens to have horns.

At the swine pens, Bill Lander, an agricultural assistant at the college, also fielded many questions from city slickers.

“Some are surprised to see the pigs are as big as they are when they are only 17 days old,” Lander said.

“They’re also amazed at how little we feed them,” he added. The image of pigs eating just about everything in sight is not so at Pierce College. Their diet is controlled to maximize the quality of the meat.

Kids sometimes ask what would happen if they threw candy bars into the pens.

“We’ll tell them the pigs will eat it, but it’s not good for them,” Lander said.

Some also think of the pig as a dirty animal, since it is thought to wallow in mud all day, Lander said. That is only because pigs lack sweat glands to help them keep cool. “If provided the right conditions, the pig is the cleanest animal,” Lander said.

Many first-time visitors told Lander on Sunday how surprised they were to find a farm in the Valley. “It’s like an oasis in the middle of a metropolis,” Lander recalled visitors saying. “It’s like New York’s Central Park.”