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| Can someone on the forum explain to me their role (being the adult) as the "Helper" to your child/4H(er)? Besides being the bank to help purchase the animal, feed and housing. How involved are you in the project? Is there different requirements for different projects?
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| From what I've seen, it's more of a personal choice. Some parents do seem to understand the point, and provide only the basic initial financial assistance, travel to meetings, etc, stepping back and allowing the child to learn and do most everything on his own. Others meddle to an unhelpful degree, IMO, often becoming the doer instead of the helper. That's one of my main crticisms of the program. You'll have to decide for yourself what your role will be, but I've already seen your admission here that your child tends to tire easily of new animals once the novelty has worn off. 4H and the responsibility it intends to teach, is not for everyone.
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| Well Gallus...you may be right about 4H not being for everyone. My husband has a distaste to it due to his own reasons being in it and showing cattle. I was smart I did show chickens. That's why I'm am releaved that Gilbert and Spot will be to old to show in the October Parish Fair and the Animal Broker that we are going through to get his two gilts (Hereford Hogs) will not make weight for the January 2011 show. But he still can make the project if he wants to, but won't make weight/show. But the best part is that he will be able to grow them out and then (best part coming) breed them to have piglets of his very own. Sometimes I guestion the whole show system when the families that have the money go out of state and purchase an animal that has been trained already and then bring them back for their 4H(er). Seen that already.
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4-h is strong around here. I admire the committment so many have with mentoring future farmers yet I have strong feelings about the negative aspects of "competition". Don't get me started and I know I must be one of the few humans on earth who believes competition is a bad thing. My point being, wouldn't it be great to just nurture every human to his/her fullest potential and forget about "beating" others.
Yea, I know...a voice in the wilderness.
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| No offense, but I hope you continue to remain a voice in the wilderness. There is nothing wrong with healthy competition. This idea that every kid gets a ribbon just for showing up is what's wrong with the whole program, our schools and our society. It breeds a generation who expects things to be handed to them, rather than having to work for it. Have you read what some of the core values of 4h are? I don't see how creating the next round of mediocre students (at best) or employees is going to help anyone, unless it's just to make sure that there is always someone at the window to ask if I'd like fries with my order.
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I see both points of view on this, the anti-competition and the competition sides, but if I was to hazard a guess I would say I am more pro 4H then against.
Part of that reason comes because kids and adults alike, tend to keep score anyway no matter if it is a baseball game, showing sheep or who debating who has more land. That is just life and it happens...everyone keeps score. In that sense, even if everyone comes home with a ribbon, rest assured the kids know how well they did with their animals!
The other part is that 4H tends to follow the ideals of the species and breeds. It does not matter if they are pure-bred per se, but since a long back is say the ideal market sized lamb (for plenty of chops to sell on America's store shelves), 4H'ers tend to go with pure breeds and to keep the ideals of that breed up. As a commercial farmer sometimes it is nice to go back to a pure bred animal and start over again genetically with a great sire or great dam. There is only so far cross-bred vigor can go before things get mucked up genetically you know! 4H'er's tend to have the animals we need, when we need it so they fill a role in putting meat on America's table even if it is indirectly. In short they are a tool that I can use to get the lambs I want and in a timely manner.
Finally they tend to go to fairs. As a commercial producer I can not do that. The risk of infection to my closed flock would be too much, but the 4H'ers who show their animals do not have such a concern. They are at the fairs, and while they might be doing so just to suck up the fair livestock subsidies, they at least are getting sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, etc out there for the public to see. That is more then I can say for commercial farmers who stand behind their fences and gates and keep the general public out due to bio-security reasons. Ultimately I think letting the public see livestock of every sort is a very vital role that cannot be appreciated on a monetary or a public awareness sort of value. It just needs to be done, and the 4H'ers tend to do that and do it well.
For these three reasons and more, I am proud of the 4H'ers and what they do for the livestock industry overall. That is also why I sell my lambs to 4H'ers at cost. It's the least I can do for them considering all they do for me.
(Not slamming anyone, just my opinion on 4H'ers.)
******
"When its all said and done, and the coffin goes in the ground, it is the farmer that is the richest man of all."
Spoken by Alfred, a full time dairy farmer in 2008 while chopping grass silage. He was NOT talking about monetary value however...
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| Okay, so I opened up a can of worms here. I will support P2 in 4H as I can (the banker). To be honest here, I'm glad that Gilbert and Spot will be over the age limit to show in October, because they are schedule to leave The Homestead in July (sold). So P2 can put that money towards the Hereford Hogs that he wanted at the start of this whole "pig project." The good news is that we can use both set of animals for his project book (got that okay yesterday). He just won't be able to check off the section that he showed at the local fair until 2012 and at this point I don't care if he shows at all. I want him to come away with the knowledge of the life cycle of pigs. If he needs an award for that, then okay, I can make it myself.
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| It seems to me that you're doing all of the research, legwork and money management here, and your P2 is sitting back and letting you. Drawbar, I agree, yet you do eliminate an entire class of adult exhibitor, hobby breeders, who do more to show the real side of small farm livestock production than any 4h kid. When I go to shows and fairs, it's the open shows that I look toward, not the giggles and games of 4h.
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| Gallus....Have you not read any of the other post about the "pig project" from us? Not on the soap box just yet.....then again I might be For safety reasons!!!!!!!!! P2 researches with an adult next to him on the internet. Yes, an adult did the calling on finding the pigs (for he's 8 years old). Gilbert and Spot would of not happened if he did not collect his $500 for his pen (as the agrement between him and his parents). Sure, I did purchased the pigs for him (kept MY word). The food cost % is still in the works. So call me the mule pulling his cart, then so be it. We don't pay him to do his chores and the only money he gets is from his B-day and other Holidays. Got to start somewhere...and okay...on the soap box and getting off. With no hard feeling until you step on my foot again....
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| Well, Cweick - here's the helpers' perspective from my end (a 5th year 4H mom): For the young guys like your P2, you will end up doing a lot of the 'work' that he can't do, and why shouldn't you? When the lambs are first being halter broken - a 9 year old is not the man for the job . . . Mom is! When the 100 lb feed sacks need to be dumped into the bins, a 9 yr old can't . . but Mom can! Aren't we great? It's the closest we'll ever be to superheros :) As far as the actual 4H Helper part, I take the same approach. I'll help when needed. But I won't do for them. I'll save the feed store receipts all year, but the kids enter the figures and do the adding to get yearly costs. I'll shear or hire a shearer to come for the rough shearing (big dangerous blades involved), but the kids do the slick shearing (small blades that can nip you, but not sever a tendon). I paid for the breeding stock, but they plan the breedings. I do the middle-of-the-night and middle-of-the-day lamb checks, the kids check before and after school. I walk along to supervise the 1-mile daily conditioning walks/runs - but the kids handle the lambs. I do not pay a lot for breeding stock, and I do not teach winning at all costs. 4H is not a 4-month project for us - we don't buy "club lambs" in the spring, instead we breed our own purebred Shropshires. We'll never win, but that only matters if that's the only thing you've taught your kids to value. As long as we improve our stock and our shepherd/showmanship skills each year - the kids know they've done well. Last year, the Reserve Champion Market Goat at the fair sold for $300. The girl's family had paid $500 for it as a kid, then fed it for 5 months. They lost money all right. But I think that approach steals something from the child as well. We bred our own, lambed our own, conditioned our own, sheared our own - and tripled our money on each one. With P2, you'll find you also need to partner with him to do some of the book activities. This year, I made each kid do the one activity they dreaded most - interviewing 5 sheep breeders at a show. They were terrified. I pushed, and at the end of the day, they had each interviewed 6. All of the breeders were incredible and took time to really give nice responses to the kids. The kids ended up really enjoying it. They learned a heck of a lot more than sheep facts that day. Gallus is right that some 4H families are nasty - and I've seen them here too. But y'know, it's not the organization, it's the parents who think it's about THEM instead of the kids. I know where you and P2 stand, and I hope you have a wonderful 4H year.
Muddy Run Farm -- clean floors are highly overrated
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