A24-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 5,2002
4-H To Farm Show, Brandt Sisters
Show Ring, Showmanship Success
From
Have
(Continued from Page A 1)
the Elizabethtown Fair and the
4-H Roundup.
During the regular show
season the sisters also exhibit
dairy beef and are planning to
add beef animals to their show
string in the upcoming year.
They are the daughters of Dale
and Lynette Brandt, leaders of
the Lower Dauphin’s 4-H live
stock club.
The girls were a part of 4-H
before their parents, both raised
on dairy farms, decided to lead
the club. Both of them have
learned as they led, thanks to
help from other parents, family
friends, and extension agents.
According to Dale, when
Lynn first started raising sheep
they had the lamb up to market
weight by its first weighing
way too early for the show
season. The family has come a
long way in knowing about ex
Lynn, left, and
Dale and Lynette
H Livestock Club.
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hibiting animals since then.
Besides leading 4-H, Lynette
is one of the directors of the Eliz
abethtown Fair board. The
family, which owns the farm in
partnership with Lynette’s
father, Richard Alwine, milks 90
cows and owns 200 acres.
Lynn began her show career
by purchasing three sheep “just
because I like them,” she said.
“The next thing we knew we
had 30 head and we were show
ing them,” said Lynette. The
Brandts picked Suffolk sheep
after noting the success the
breed experienced in the show
ring.
The lambs are walked every
other day or more frequently
starting in November, and each
sister will take one market lamb
to compete at the Farm Show.
While Lynn started the family
showing sheep, Amy introduced
hogs to the family four years
ago. “That was the year we ex-
Amy Brandt are joined by their parents
Brandt, leaders of the Lower Dauphin 4-
Visit Us at
perimented Lynn got a steer
and I got a pig,” said Amy. The
family now has three sows, one
boar, and a few gilts.
Lynn has now had the cham
pion hog at the Elizabethtown
Fair for the past two years, and
Amy had the champion hog the
year before that. The sisters ex
hibit crossbred hogs.
The animals are less labor
intensive than sheep, said Amy.
However she does take them
outside on the farm lane’s stones
“to keep their feet healthy,” she
said. She also “laps them” in the
alleyways of a former milking
barn to improve their muscle
tone.
“We also watch the feed,”
said Lynette. “We check their
weight periodically on the
scales.”
Although their father showed
hogs when he as younger, the
family has also used advice from
friends who helped them pick
hogs at the club sale.
The last few years Windy Hill
Farm has been on the Scrapie
program, which restricts where
the Brandts buy stock, so they
buy mostly breeding stock and
show homebred animals. “We
try to breed, raise, and show our
own animals,” said Lynette.
At each Farm Show the sisters
hope to have their animals
“make sale,” since the top one
third of the hogs and one-half of
the sheep are auctioned off
while the rest go to the packer.
The Farm Show isn’t only
about show rings for the sisters,
however. Last year Amy won a
first place in her division in the
relatively new young shepherd’s
contest. Scoring is a tally of a
combination of Skill-a-thon,
showmanship, and meat class
points. She took home a first
place in the youth sheep Skill-a
thon that helped to move her to
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The Brandt sisters plan to compete not only in the Farm
Show’s sheep classes but also hog and showmanship con
tests.
the top of her division. One hun
dred participants compete each
year in several divisions.
Both girls have participated
in the contest the past three
years.
In addition to exhibiting ani
mals and participating in show
manship and Skill-a-thon
activities, the Brandt sisters sell
Farm Show programs and help
maintain the Farm Show’s flo
wers for their 4-H club. Each
year the Dauphin County 4-H
Club, which conducts its
roundup at the Farm Show
Complex, raises money by
taking care of the flowers during
the event.
Although they live nearby and
will come home to sleep, they
plan to spend much of the week
in Harrisburg, as they bring in
the hogs on Sunday and stay
through Thursday’s auction.
Besides competition and
working for their 4-H club, how
ever, the sisters are drawn to the
Farm Show because they enjoy
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ing friends they may not see
often, besides participating in
shows, Skill-a-thons and 4-H ac
tivities.
“The Farm Show is the whole
package,” said Lynette. “They
not only do shows but in be
tween they fill in with whatever
comes up.”
“They water plants, watch
their friends show, or work on
fitting there’s always some
thing going on,” said Dale.
In addition, the notched-up
level of competition and greater
number of competitors provide a
challenge that the sisters enjoy.
The general public provides a
good opportunity for education
that is sometimes “good for a
laugh,” said Lynn.
“We are surprised with what
they don’t know,” said Lynette.
“We hear kids’ questions
coming out of adults’ mouths.
We take for granted that people
have seen pigs and cows, but
that’s not always the case.”
After two more years of exhib
iting animals, Lynn plans to go
to college and work toward an
education degree. Amy plans to
continue exhibiting until her 4-
H eligibility is over. She is plan
ning on moving toward a career
as a small-animal veterinarian.
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