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Middle School Students Visit Cattle Ranch

Marc Valero/Highlands Today

Rafter T Ranch Manager Bob Mayworth shows Hill-Gustat Middle School agriculture students how to hustle a brangus heifer through a cow-pen chute.

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By MARC VALERO | Highlands Today

Published: December 21, 2007

SEBRING — Trotting through chutes in a cow pen, Hill-Gustat Middle School agriculture students got a close look Wednesday at the workings of a cattle ranch from the perspective of the cattle.

Ranch Manager Bob Mayworth corralled teacher Rebekah Wills' students in the pens and separated the boys and girls for a weigh-in on a large livestock scale. Sliding the counter weights, Mayworth determined the boys weighed a total of 4,250 pounds. The lower number of girls, including two adults, weighed 2,870 pounds.

Ranching has become a whole different business, he said.

"The business used to be – they just turned the cattle out, gather them once a year, sell the babies and just go about their business," Mayworth said. "These cattle are worked and their calves are processed.

"It's a business now, but still we get to go out to ride our horses and we get to have dogs. It's a way of life; it's a good way of life."

Seventh-grader Lexie Freeland said the workings of a ranch are new to her.

"I didn't know they put them in a chute to doctor them like that," she said. It looks like a tough job.

Mayworth said students typically ask about the age of the cows and how many are on the ranch and the size of the ranch.

They ask about snakes, he said. The reptiles are not really a problem as there are very few rattle snakes.

With seven miles of the ranch bordering on Arbuckle Creek, Mayworth told the students the ranch and other interests along the creek are mindful of what may affect the creek's water quality.

"Clean water is what is going to save Florida – eventually," he said.

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