New Agricultural Program and New Arrivals Keep Sabino High School Students Hopping

TUCSON - April 10, 2009 - Sarah Appleby careened into the nearly empty Sabino High School parking lot, taking up three spaces, before jumping from her car and racing to a classroom across campus. Even though she did her best to get there in time, the pair of pygmy goats arrived before she did. Wiping their still wet bodies with a towel, she marveled at how tiny they were.

Appleby's classmates in her Agricultural Science I class, Kyle Ronsick, a junior, and Andrea Ortlinghaus, a senior, saw the goats later, but they were just as excited. Their teacher, Samantha Biffar, had slept in the classroom area where the goats are housed for two nights before the babies arrived.

Students in the first-period Ag Science I class, from the left, Sarah Appleby, Andrea Ortlinghaus assembled the goats' house behind them. With them are the mother goat and her babies.

Biffar and her students, the first ones in Sabino High School's new agricultural program, were anxiously looking forward to the births ever since they acquired the mother goat on Jan. 26.

Appleby, a junior, was worried at first when Oliver, the baby black male, didn't immediately start nursing from his mother, Isabella. And he had trouble standing on his wobbly legs when he tried to take his first steps. His brother Sprocket, a gray, black and white kid, had no such troubles, walking within minutes of birth.

The goats have meant extra duties for Biffar's students, who feed them, clean the cages and socialize with them.

Samantha Biffar, the Sabino Ag teacher, brings equine experience to her job.

"Having the goats has brought a lot of attention to the program," Ronsick said. "A lot of stuff we do, you can't learn from a book. It's a lot of work but it's worth it."

The goats live in an area designed and built by the students, who researched online the best kind of house and fence for the animals, and then built the structures after they were shipped. They covered the cage area's cement floor, bounded on two sides by classroom walls, with mats and wood shavings and set up an area for food and water.

Oliver, left, and his brother, Sprocket, cavort on the playground students built for them.

Work began even before the babies arrived, though. At first, the class welcomed two does, the pregnant mother and another goat, Penelope. Both goats were wild.

"The kids had to work hard and work quickly to tame them," Biffar said. "Within three days, they were out of the cage and sitting with students by their desks."

To help pay the costs of raising the goats, students have held "Promote the Goat," fundraisers such as a rummage sale. For now, they plan to train the goats for showing. Biffar said one of the does and one of the babies may be adopted.

Sabino Principal Valerie Payne kids around with Oliver, one of the pygmy baby goats.

"They're pretty special and near and dear to our hearts," she said.

Besides the birth of the goats, the class plans more expansions. They will start incubating chicken eggs with the help of Janice Lacanette, a University of Arizona graduate student and a member of the Tucson Poultry Club. Lacanette also dropped off a male black rabbit, which will socialize with the goats.

Biffar hopes to offer Ag Science II next year. There are eight students in this year's introductory class.