Youth learn life lessons raising animals for fun, profit
Honey Bunny had become too much of a family favorite and as 6-year-old Rileigh Inman displayed him during the live auction as part of the Flagler County Fair & Youth Show, her mother, Danielle Crouch, bid over and over to take the New Zealand rabbit home.
"I had to buy it back for my daughter because she was sad and didn’t want someone else to have it," Crouch said.
Coming in with the winning bid at $60, Crouch fulfilled her daughter's wish. Honey Bunny was coming home as part of the family.
After growing up on a farm and having participated in 4H as a child, Crouch said she knows the value of the program.
"This is Rileigh’s first year and she was nervous but she won second place on her rabbit and was really excited about that," she said. "We have a lot of critters and I grew up on a farm, so I like to carry that on if I can."
Honey Bunny was among more than 50 animals, ranging from rabbits to steer, shown during Friday night’s livestock auction and the stands were crowded as families and bidders appraised the contestants. Among the bidders were Mike Kelley and his wife, Casey, who took home the grand champion steer.
Coming in at a whopping 1,330 pounds, selling for close to $3,000 and shown by Future Farmers of America Bunnell Senior Chapter member Sarah Baugher, the Kelleys know the dollars they spend will help the agriculture-based organization and its students.
"We’re buying to help the kids," said Mike Kelley. "I always get a steer and also a hog to help them out. We’ve been coming for over 10 years. I think it’s a life lesson for these kids, working and raising these animals. And in order to help them and keep it going, they need to have help from the community."
Baugher, a high school junior who plans to become a veterinarian, knows the value of community support for the FFA program she is part of at Flagler Palm Coast High School.
"It’s really important because if nobody comes out, then we don’t get money for school, money to keep doing this," she said. "It started with my family wanting a farm and now we’re on our way to getting more land, building more barns and getting farm animals. I’m taking vet classes and I’ll either be a veterinarian for farm animals, since there aren’t many, or a regular veterinarian."
Ava Hatten, 9, a third-grader at Bunnell Elementary School, also won a grand-champion ribbon during the Flagler County Fair & Youth Show for her hog Rudy, which weighed in at 267 pounds. It was Ava's first year as a member of 4H and her first livestock show, according to her mother, Kristy Throne.
Throne said Ava received the hog on Dec. 3 and has taken care of it daily, working with it for the past four months.
"She has been managing her hog and taming it for show," Throne wrote in an email to The News-Tribune. "She has enjoyed it tremendously and her parents are very proud."
The annual livestock auction is part of the Flagler County Fair & Youth Show, which wrapped up its 28th year on Sunday. Fair manager Penny Buckles said she loves seeing the community support the students who participate. She said many of the kids use proceeds from their sales to augment their college fund.
"The 4H and FFA kids all sell their animal projects tonight that they worked all year long on," Buckles said Friday. "It is a business project for them. They start off with their own little fund to purchase the animal and at the end, they get all the money from the sale."