Pets or dinner? Kids take annual Ag Awareness Tour

McCook Junior High eighth graders Hannah Goltl, front, and Lydia Reisenhoover pet "Dunlap," the Hampshire-Suffolk lamb that Greg Gaston, of rural McCook, will show this year. The eighth graders participated Wednesday in their annual "Ag Awareness Tour," stopping at the Tri-State Livestock sale barn, Plains Equipment Group, Red Willow Animal Clinic, American Ag Lab, Ramshorn Dairy, Timmerman Feeding Corp. of rural Indianola and Heritage Hills Golf Course (to discuss turf management). The Ag Tour is coordinated by the McCook Chamber of Commerce's Ag Task Force. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Gazette)

McCOOK, Neb. -- Greg Gaston doesn't eat lamb.

"By the time I finish showing my lambs, they're big pets for me," the Red Willow County 4-H'er says with a lopsided grin. "I can't eat 'em," he says sheepishly, shaking his head.

Greg and two of his 2016 show lambs -- "Palisade" and "Dunlap" -- participated Wednesday in McCook Junior High's annual "Ag Awareness Tour" coordinated by the Ag Task Force of the McCook Chamber of Commerce.

In two pens at Tri-State Livestock, Greg showed his lambs and Kathlyn Hauxwell showed her steers.

Greg is the youngest of the four sons of Pam and Rod Gaston, and has been around livestock and livestock showing all his life. He started showing at age 7 in Kansas, and at age 8 in Nebraska. He is a member of the Red Willow County Driftwood Feeders 4-H Club, and will be a senior at Wauneta-Palisade High School in the fall.

Greg's "Dunlap" lamb is an Ak-Sar-Ben lamb challenge lamb, one for which he will have to keep extensive records of feed, training and health care and then show at the Ak-Sar-Ben show in September. Greg told eighth graders during the Ag Tour that judges will look for a big rack of lamb, a long, thick loin, deep thick muscle and little fat.

"They're looking for a moderate size, about 140-150 pounds," Greg said, although some show lambs are creeping up toward 170-180 pounds. "That's a lot of weight on a lamb," he said.

"Palisade," another lamb that Greg is raising for this show season, now weighs about 110 pounds. "He'll be at market weight in time for State Fair," Greg said. Dunlap, who weighs about 70 pounds now, will be at market weight in time for the Ak-Sar-Ben show in September.

Greg sells his lambs at the end of show season.

Greg doesn't eat lamb, but he knows it's a very popular meat on the west coast and in south-central America. "It's one of the most expensive meats," he said. Most large-scale lamb production is in those same areas, he said; it's not common in Nebraska.

Some producers raise lambs and sheep for their wool, Greg said, providing a producer with a sellable product at shearing time.

Greg and Dunlap will be at the Red Willow County fairgrounds in McCook on Sunday, May 15, between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Stop by and ask Greg how he names his animals.