Learn by Doing
Alaska 4-H prepares students for real life
...continued from page 3
A family affair
The screen saver on Matt Bray's computer features several domesticated goats clambering over rocks. Bray, who is finishing a doctorate in permafrost engineering at UAF, cannot remember life without goats -- or without 4-H.
His mother, Annette, is a longtime leader and his sister, Maria, has served as a leader for a 4-H club north of Fairbanks for seven years. The family's current herd of goats numbers about 30, and they have provided scores of the animals for 4-H youth and others who want to raise the Toggenburg and Saanen dairy breeds. Matt, 31, is the primary caregiver for the herd, but both Bray siblings provide showmanship clinics every year to 4-H'ers who want to learn about grooming goats and showing them at the fair. The family also serves as an unofficial source of goat-care information for goat owners.
Since Bray grew up around 4-H and raised animals, joining 4-H when he was 8 seemed like a natural progression. Every summer for about 10 years, he took care of pigs, calves and goat kids at the Tanana Valley State Fair. Keeping livestock at the fair meant that he practically lived there for the week to care for them.
"You take them to the auction and hope you get a good price," he said.
Most of what he learned about raising animals came from his family but 4-H provided an opportunity to get together with kids with similar interests.
Unlike a typical 4-H livestock project, which involved raising animals for the fair, the Brays tended a year-round goat herd and handled most of the animal care themselves.
Matt continues to enjoy raising goats and the satisfactions that come with it, he said, such as assisting with a trouble-free birth of twin goat kids and the ability to produce milk from a healthy, known source.
"I work with goats for the little things -- the small moments when they bring a smile to your face," he said. "The greetings of a bunch of goat kids in the morning when you bring them their bottles of milk and you know they think you are the best person in the world. When the goats feel frisky and run and play and jump … looking out and seeing a bunch of goats relaxing in the morning sun, chewing their cud with a look of complete contentment."