4-H Students Groom Livestock for Show

All year long, students in the agricultural sciences magnet at Canoga Park High School have fed, cleaned up after and even coddled their goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits and cows.

Now, it’s time to go to market.

On Friday, these Future Farmers of America will perform a kind of dress rehearsal at the school in preparation for showing their livestock at this summer’s San Fernando Valley Fair, where they’ll attempt to sell off animals they raised. Students have invited members of the public to the school to serve as an audience.

“It’s our kids’ last chance to practice showing” the animals, said Steve Pietrolungo, coordinator of Canoga Park High’s 2-year-old environmental and agricultural sciences magnet, which has an enrollment of about 170 students.

Although other high schools offer courses in agricultural sciences, Canoga Park High has the only agriculture-oriented magnet in the San Fernando Valley. Many of the school’s students will participate in the annual San Fernando Valley Fair, which runs from July 25 to 28 at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank.

“It’s like a final tune-up before the fair,” Pietrolungo said. “They’ll practice the techniques of setting up their animals and showing them.”

For many of the students, the fair is a way to recover money they’ve invested in raising the animals; many students actually make a profit, Pietrolungo said.

The “Best Sheep” award, for example, could bring as much as $10 to $20 per pound, Pietrolungo said. “That’s quite an incentive for a kid who has a 100-pound animal.”

In addition to watching students prepare their animals, the public is invited to tour the school’s acre-and-a-half farm, complete with grape vines, citrus grove and nursery.

The animals will be on display from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the school, located at 6850 Topanga Canyon Blvd.