Breeding Tests at Broadbent Ranch

Hey all,

This is what my Saturday looked like:

How was yours? 

Students in my Animal Science Class, and the entire Sheep Production Class (about 120 kids overall) went to the Broadbent Ranch in Granger, Wyoming to do breeding soundness tests on their 500+ rams.  It was a ton of fun!

It was so nice to be around sheep again, to learn new things, and to make new friends.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me tell you about the trip from the beginning.

I woke up at 5 am so that I could get to the Wool Lab to meet everyone and we could leave by 5:30.  Of course, some people were not so timely, so we didn't get on the road until a little after 6.

I slept on the ride down, until we got to a McDonalds somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming.  I wish I had taken a picture.  They had seats in the play center that were saddles.

We finally got to Broadbent Ranch at around 9:45 and started working immediately.  The only problem, at the beginning, was that I didn't know what to do and how to do it.  And nobody told me.

So let me describe the first part of the day, because it was difficult and made the rest of the day that much better.  And it taught me something profound about leadership that I will discuss a little later.

While everyone scurried around and got into groups and began grabbing rams and performing the tests that they had learned in sheep production class, I stood there wondering where I could go and what I could do to not be in the way.

The supervisor of shots and drenching then rounded up all the students in the Intro to Animal Science Class.  She gave us jobs to spray the sheep with color (I'm sure it wasn't spray paint, though that's what it looked like) after they were vaccinated and de-wormed.  Unfortunately, the work was fast and the supervisor wasn't very clear in her directions to me and the other person working with her.  I took about, oh, five seconds for her to become frustrated with us.  Then she told us to follow her and on the way a student tried to recruit me to "Drench" sheep and even put a backpack of chemicals on me, before Doc (that's my teacher) explained that I was in the introductory class and didn't know how.  Then Doc stole me to help herd the rams into the corral, which made my supervisor really mad.  So I went to herd sheep, and in about three minutes later my partner Jacquelyn joined me with the other sheep herders, saying that the supervisor had become so frustrated that she had "fired" her.  

Sheep herding turned out to be standing around like sub-par fences for about an hour.  We felt so useless.  At one point, someone walked by and asked how we got lucky enough to be sheepherders, and I answered, "Because we don't know how to do anything else.  We're incompetent."  And that's how I felt.  It got worse when one (giant) ram slipped by me and I heard another supervisor yell, "Doc, I need another student there, this one can't do the job."    

Luckily, my experience got dramatically better when all the sheep were herded into the corral.  Then I went to Doc and asked him for a new job, and he assigned me to work with an exceptionally nice group of girls.  These girls included me in everything, taught me what I didn't know, and generally believed that I was capable of helping.  Pretty soon, I was able to perform almost every test and flip the rams with only one other person helping.  

I won't elaborate on the tests we were performing- they were kind of gross.  But it was so fun for me to be around animals again!  I didn't even mind getting manure ALL over me, because it's just helping season in my Carhartts. :)

When we finished, the sheep looked like this: pretty colorful!  The purple streaks signify the rams have been de-wormed, the orange that they have been vaccinated, and the red and green signify their performance in the breeding exams.

After we finished all the tests (in record time, I might add) we ate some Dutch oven food.  On top  is mutton stew.  I don't particularly like mutton, I've decided.  On bottom is the yummy peach cobbler we got for desert, plus a great view of my dirty legs and trashed boots.

Well I said I was going to make a point about leadership, and I am.  I had two totally different experiences at that ranch in one day.  The first part of the day I felt like I was in the way of everyone.  I was totally inconvenient and people treated me like it was easier to ignore me or to yell at me than to teach me.  The second part of the day, my group members believed in me and gave me every opportunity to learn.  Even when I made mistakes, they knew that it was just because I was still learning and gave me the benefit of the doubt instead of writing me off as worthless.

Having been treated both ways, I now know how I want to treat people.  From now on, I will help people to learn and believe the best about them.  I will not let my impatience govern the way I treat others.  

Phew, this is a huge post!  I have a really funny story to tell about this trip, but I'll save it for another post.

Have a great week!

Rachel