Pre-Vet Club visits Evermore Farm
Left: Pre-Vet Club President Melissa Rich grabs one of the roosters at Evermore Farm, a livestock and produce farm in Westminster, MD. Right: Some of the other animals Rich and her fellow club members encountered. (Photos Courtesy of Renee Stephens)
By Brendan Raleigh, Web Editor
Members of Gettysburg’s Pre-Vet Club were able to visit Evermore Farm, a community-supported agriculture, on Friday, Sept. 20 to learn about the workings and effects that CSA’s have on their surrounding areas.
Pre-Vet Club President Melissa Rich, who has worked at Evermore since last March, organized the trip for this past Friday as a way of showing the club the many benefits of a CSA.
“The idea of a CSA is that customers pay ahead of time for a share of the year’s harvest,” says Rich. “Thus supporting the farm by providing the means for keeping the animals. It sort of breaks the system of farmer’s survival depending on the whim of customers at markets. The farm also sells its meats at two farmer’s markets.”
While there, the eight visiting club members were given a tour of the facilities and educated on the farm’s many sustainable practices. Ginger Myers, who co-runs the farm with her husband John, the students around the premises and let them do some work around the farm.
“We also all got a chance to learn how to wrangle and medicate rams and use stethoscopes on them,” says club member Renee Stephens. “My favorite part of the trip was seeing the piglets and chicks and getting to hold them. Baby animals were awesome! It was also nice to be in such a beautiful area.”
Myers also taught them about medicating animals and how learning to work with larger animals can still help to inform those who want to work with small animals.
Though this is the club’s first trip of this year, the Pre-Vet Club’s officers have a number of future events in store for their members.
“We will also be heading to the Keystone International Livestock Show in Harrisburg on Sunday, Sept. 29,” states Rich.
Future events include the East Coast Exotic Animal Rescue in Fairfield on Sunday, Oct. 6, the National Rabbit Convention in Harrisburg on Sunday, Oct. 20 and an Alpaca Show in Westminster on Nov. 6.
“All of our trips are open to anyone in the student body who is interested in going,” continued the club’s president.
The College will also be offering funds for five of the club members to visit the APVMA (American Pre-Veterinary Medical Association) Symposium in the spring at the University Of Florida College Of Veterinary Medicine.
