By Peggy L. Jenkins ’73, M.S. ’79

Marsha Turpin (from left), Peggy Jenkins, Judy Sprague, a family friend and Marie Talcott Beagle holding Stilts.

We were junior transfer students living in Struve Hall (part of the Struve-Titus dorm, now gone) when an only- at-Davis experience expanded our view of the world.

Judy Sprague, one of my new hall mates, was an animal science major taking a course about the reproduction of farm animals. I was a zoology major. Both of us were city kids from the Los Angeles suburbs.

One Saturday, after an early morning game of tennis, we visited “maternity row,” a barn area on the west side of campus where many of the pregnant cows, pigs, sheep and other animals stayed when they were nearing their expected delivery dates.

We admired the newborn calves with their big brown eyes, struggling to rise to their feet. But soon we noticed a large ewe in obvious discomfort. We watched in awe as we saw, for the first time in our city-oriented lives, a lamb being born. Then, while we were maternally oohing and aahing, out popped another lamb. Twins!

The mother started tending her two newborns, and we moved on down the row to check on the pigs and other animals. Later, we returned to see the new lambs again before leaving. To our surprise a third, much smaller lamb was struggling to stand up and nurse from the mother. The tiny one kept getting trampled and shoved aside by the two larger offspring, as they bleated and nuzzled at mom’s teats.

We were beginning to worry about the tiny lamb when Judy’s instructor showed up. He explained that the mother was part of a project to develop a line that would routinely give birth to multiple healthy offspring, rather than the usual single lamb or occasional twins. After examining the three lambs, he said he doubted that the third lamb would make it unless she were hand-raised and asked if we would like to try rearing the tiny lamb. Judy was ecstatic at the thought of raising a lamb . . . I wondered where we would raise it.

In the dorm, of course. At that time, Struve-Titus allowed pets. Pets, however, were defined as small household animals that came with the student from home, not farm animals acquired after arrival at Davis. We couldn’t abandon the lamb, however, so we asked our dorm mates at a hall meeting the next day whether they would mind if we raised a lamb on the second floor. Some students were enthusiastic, others didn’t care, and a third group decided we were not the sensible, intelligent people they thought we were. Approval was granted.

We named the lamb Stilts—because she had long, skinny legs. When she wasn’t sleeping on Judy’s bed, she curled up in a big box in Judy’s dorm room. Judy’s roommate, Marsha, from Dunsmuir, was a good sport.

The instructor had told us to feed the lamb a syrup mixture from a bottle with a nipple, but Stilts refused to drink it the first day. She seemed to get weaker. The next day, Marsha suggested we drive to the Farm Bureau in Woodland and purchase some powdered milk mix for orphaned lambs. Our concern growing, we headed for Woodland. When we returned, though, we were toting calf replacement mix—the Farm Bureau was out of lamb’s milk substitute. We mixed it well, warmed it slightly and offered Stilts her bottle. Within a few minutes, she sucked the bottle dry!

It seemed our success had come just in time. Stilts was still weak for another day or two before she picked up steam and began kicking around in her box. We had let her run up and down the hall before, but she had been sluggish. Now, she followed us at a trot when Judy baaaaed to her!

Stilts accompanied Judy to classes and went just about everywhere except the dining hall. We liked telling new admirers we washed her in Woolite—which we really did! We played with her on the grass outside the dorm, called her incessantly up and down the hall and generally mothered her around the clock. Stilts was probably the happiest lamb on campus.

June came, and the problem of what to do with Stilts over the summer was solved when Marsha volunteered to take her to Dunsmuir. (Judy and I were headed home to the Los Angeles suburbs for the summer.) Stilts became fast friends with Marsha’s pony and her German shepherd. It was later agreed to leave Stilts in Dunsmuir, where she seemed content with her newfound playmates and the grassy pasture they all shared.

Years later, I heard that Stilts had died. By then I had completed my master’s degree at Davis and was working out-of-state. I felt a tug at my heart and sadness, knowing how much Stilts had taught us. She had prompted us to learn much about farm animals, selective breeding and various agricultural practices, and made our time at Davis a truly unique experience.

Peggy L. Jenkins ’73, M.S. ’79, manages the Indoor Air Quality and Personal Exposure Assessment Program in the research division of the California Air Resources Board.