Agriculture teacher Joanna Farmer recently brought two new cats, Biscuit and Gravy, to her classroom.
“The cats came to us about three weeks ago, from Ms. Ayres our counselor here,” Farmer said. “We use the animals in our animal health class for different learning techniques as well as we use them outside to help them catch mice because we have a lot of mice come up around our feed and our different animals.”
As friendly as they are now, there was a rocky start.
“At first, Jolene wasn’t sure about the kittens and the kittens were definitely not sure about her but now the kittens meet her at the door every morning and are ready to get some Jolene love. So, they all get along really well,” Farmer said.
A lot of people are over the moon about them, and for good reason.
“The pros are definitely for rodent control, plus there’s a lot of students who really enjoy being around the cats and, uhm, being able to handle them. They’re great for learning, and we have a lot of different things we can do with them in our animal health class,” Farmer said.
“They’re there to like, help us in a way. We learn more, like, when we’re learning about animals, actually having pets there, helps us learn more about them,” said Jennifer Fuentes-Gonzalez (12), one of Farmer’s students who volunteer to help manage the cats.
The Agriculture class will continue to grow, as there are many more guests to come.
“We would like to bring in some more outdoor animals, maybe a miniature donkey or miniature cow, outdoors,” Farmer said. “It just depends on what’s available and what we have room for.”
