MURASHIMA: And once they're grown, the males will often be sold for meat, and the females sold to other farms for breeding.īALCOM: At some point, we have to kind of start distancing ourselves from them because we are going to sell them. MURASHIMA: The lambs are born in pens, but when they're a few weeks old, they're moved to a big enclosure where they can socialize and be part of the flock.īALCOM: They will have lamb races. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: You got all the babies. JENNINGS: I like the empowerment feeling I get after the hands-on lessons where I'm like, I could totally go and do this by myself now. MURASHIMA: But managing a flock of sheep, it's super hands-on, which is how she learns best. I actually feel like - I kind of feel dumber going out than coming in. And at the end of the class, I don't feel like I've learned anything. JENNINGS: I'd have to take really intensive, ridiculously intricate notes and do, like, a lot of highlighting. MURASHIMA: She says regular classroom settings, they've never really worked for her. And on top of that, I have, like, anxiety and depression. MURASHIMA: Claire Jennings took Sheep Management in 2022. MERCADO: You were not allowed to wash them with your normal clothes, mainly so that if you did get something like afterbirth or poop or pee - which is very common - you weren't contaminating your other clothes. MURASHIMA: The syllabus calls for a specific uniform - boots that can withstand an acid wash and coveralls that students keep at the farmhouse. It's also used by humans to treat blisters and dry skin.īALCOM: Going to cut it off with my sponge. MURASHIMA: That grease - lanolin, a wax they produce naturally. And I was not expecting my hand to come back, like, brown from the, like, grease. But they're really, like, oily and, like, greasy. MERCADO: I was expecting them to be really soft. And something else she learned - lambs aren't white and fluffy. Caitlyn Mercado remembers cleaning stalls, trimming hooves, taking temperatures. Once the lambs are born, students run through a list of health checks. If all is going well, they don't intervene. MURASHIMA: Their first job is just to stand by. MURASHIMA: Students try their best to make it to the farm in time.īALCOM: They have told me stories of waking up in the middle of the night and driving 45 minutes and trying hard not to speed because you're never quite sure if the cop's going to believe you that you're going to the birth of your lamb. They isolate themselves, and their bodies get ready for delivery. MURASHIMA: Before sheep go into labor, they stop eating their grain. You have your phone with you at all hours of the night. ![]() Sarah Balcom, who taught the class for 12 years, says that sheep usually give birth at night. MURASHIMA: That's teaching assistant Caitlyn Mercado. When the spring-only course starts, students pair up to care for one of 20 pregnant sheep.ĬAITLYN MERCADO: Lamb watch was the reason I came to this university. She found one on a campus farm at the University of Maryland.ĬLAIRE MURASHIMA, BYLINE: Sheep Management is a popular course at UMD, and there's usually a waitlist. NPR's Claire Murashima looked into some of higher education's quirkier offerings. ![]() Many high school seniors are figuring out their college plans.
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