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Dayanara Bautista

K, Mua

Public Health English Honors

4/9/2019

What I have pride In

I have done many things throughout my high school years, but noting as big as racing and

exhibiting my FFA swine project at the 2018 Merced County Fair. I am in FFA at Merced High

so that requires an SAE project. An SAE project consist of doing something whether it be in the

community or just within oneself to prove responsibility and dedication of at least 40 hours. I

didn't know what to do my junior year but i did know I wanted to step out of my comfort zone

and do something that would prove i was a responsible individual. I was brought to the idea of

raising an animal for a period of time and then autumn the animal at the fair.Because of this I

earned a senate award that is awarded to us members that take responsibility and do this kind of

sae project. I started off March 20th, 2018 by choosing my pig and starting off the journey. I

would start by feeding Mason, that's the name I gave him, twice day. I kept him at the merced

junior college because that's where our advisor Mr.Mua let us keep them if we didn't have

anywhere else to keep them.

There was many different responsibilities that would come with raising a pig. One would

be waking up early in the morning to drive all the way across town to feed and try to walk him. It

would take quite a while to feed him because the other pigs would want to eat from his food

bowl in the pin. I did this everyday for 2 ½ months , even when we got to the fair. Throughout

these months I would have to make sure he was on track with gaining weight and not losing it,
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making sure i would deworm him, and try to stay on top of his everyday routine because it is

easy for pigs to get sick. Along with this came buying his feed every month and extra “snacks”

to make sure we were on track for the minimum weight at fair that was 210 lbs.

Over the course of the two months i put in about 105 hours including fair time and

showmanship practices. To me personally this was a big responsibility because I had to pay for

all the feed and equipment on my own without any help. There was times when it was really

stressful because mason got sick about 4 times. When I received my showman show ribbon at

the fair and the senate award shortly after I felt accomplished. These awards were awarded to me

because I was responsible and took care of somebody else besides myself.
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