Gates Family Raise Prize-Winning Lifestock

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Published on Sunday, 22 February 2009 21:52

Kids in the Gates family of Emerson Park know what's involved in raising animals for market. The family has been raising sheep and lambs for more than 10 years, beginning when they lived in Michigan before moving to Ave Maria. At right, the entire family posed at the fair. In front are Jimmy, 7, and Dominic 4, who each showed a Pee Wee lamb that won Best in Show. Other members of the family, left to right: Krystalyn, father James, Mary Katherine, William (below right with a red-ribbon hog), mom Kimberly with baby Peter-Gabriel, Joseph, a Diocese of Venice seminarian and Rosie (below left with her reserve grand champion lamb). 

"We feel that it is important for children to understand how to raise animals for consumption and that they understand how they get to the supermarket," says Kimberley Gates, mother of eight children ranging in age from infant to adult. So in November, the kids got started on animal projects that culminated in showings at the fair.

"The kids have to do all the work themselves," she said. "They built pens, ran water lines, feed, sheer, dock, trim, show - everything.  We front the money and then they have to sell at auction." The animals are raised along with animals from some other families in the community at the DeLiso family home outside Ave Maria.

Mrs. Gates hopes that either the developers or the university will make land available at some point for a working farm where people in town can raise animals. It would be great experience, she said, and "it would also provide fertilizer for the community garden.