FCTS Veterinary and Animal Science Program

It’s been a busy spring! Freshmen completed their cattle unit a few weeks ago, and studied the differences between the beef industry, earning their Beef Quality Assurance certifications, and the dairy industry, visiting Bree-Z-Knoll Farm, home of Our Family Farms. A big thank you to the Facey’s and our own FCTS VAS grad Becca ‘26 for the amazing tour!

Last week ninth graders had an opportunity to hear from Lillian Poirier, an FCTS Animal Science ‘24 grad who is studying equine assisted services at SUNY Cobleskill. Today we visited Courageous Strides Therapeutic Riding Program, an equine therapy center in Greenfield, where Lillian is interning! Our students received an up close look at how working with horses can be a form of therapy, and we got some hands on grooming/leading practice!

Sophomores continue exploring the various digestive systems, focusing on ruminants. We created our own mini-fermentation vat today to illustrate how bacteria in the rumen break down roughages to create gases 🐑🐐🐄

We beat the rain yesterday and visited .ma to learn about integrated, sustainable farming and some cute lambs that were *just* born!! 🐑🍇

Sophomores started their Digestive System unit this week, starting with the Pseudoruminant (hind gut fermenters). This group of animals includes horses, rabbits, and guinea pigs! A big thank you to rep Sarah for discussing equine nutrition and hay testing with our students!

Ninth graders started their large animal unit this week, and having been learning about production animal management. We’ve bolused goats, trimmed hooves, and today learned about forms of identification like ear notching and tagging! 🐐🐷🐮

visited yesterday and we couldn’t be more appreciative of the amazing lesson they put together for our ninth and eleventh graders! They brought the most beautiful animal ambassadors to explain their program’s mission and taught us common behavior and body language signs of snakes, and taught students their process for animal intake at their facility in New Hampshire. Thank you so much! 🙏🐍

Day Two of State Convention is underway! Our members have worked hard to get here and are doing a great job representing our chapter!

Always a pleasure to hear what has been doing to support agriculture across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. how many members can you spot behind her? 💙💛