Steers, goats more than just a hobby for Vincent

By CAROL KINSLEY
Staff Writer

HARRINGTON, Del. — At age 20, Emily Vincent is a veteran showman at the Delaware State Fair.
She started showing goats at 8.
Since starting college, she has added lambs and a steer to her efforts in the show ring.
Vincent, daughter of Rick and Kim Vincent of Harrington, will be returning in August to Virginia Tech where she is a junior studying to be a veterinarian.
“I love it. It’s not a choice I regret at all,” she said.
She is a graduate of Lake Forest High School, where she was treasurer and vice president of the FFA.
After two years of showing market wethers, Vincent got her first Boer doe at age 10.
From there, the herd “kept getting bigger,” she said.
“We have 60 or more now. We raise them for meat.”
Most sales are to Asians and Jamaicans, who buy the goats live.
The Vincents also offer goats already processed, thanks to the help of Dwayne Nickerson of Sudlersville Meat Locker in Maryland.
The family has 200 acres of farmland, but most of the acreage not used for the animals is rented out to a farmer for grain production.
“My dad’s in construction; Mom works for the state,” Vincent said. Her father grows hay on some of the land, and some pasture is rented to horse owners.
“Mom has been generous,” Vincent said, explaining how she has been able to show and win ribbons with high quality goats. “Now I’m winning with our own products,” she said, with obvious pride in the efforts of their breeding program. As a member of the livestock judging team at Virginia Tech, she has been able to pick out good quality crossbred market lambs and steers also.
This year’s steer, a crossbreed named Cooper, was purchased in Rockbridge Baths, Va., and the lambs came from Blacksburg.
“I call Dad and say, ‘when you come visit, bring the trailer,’” she said. The animals are “not just my hobby; my parents like them too.”
When she’s away, her brother Collin takes care of the animals — actually, the whole family does. Collin just turned 16, but got out of showing at the fair after six years.
Home for the summer, Vincent is working at Horizon Dairy in Kennedyville, Md., but that doesn’t mean she escapes feeding chores before work, except on the weekend, when early work hours would mean too long between feedings for the animals.
She has also done some traveling with a local veterinarian, which has been an eye-opener. “All the animals we see are sick,” she lamented. “I like healthy animals.”
She said may consider another career choice, she continued.
Factored into the equation is four additional years of college and more than $100,000 in costs.
Vincent has won plenty of ribbons, including grand champion showman for goats, which made her eligible to compete in the Round Robin, where showmanship winners of each species compete for an overall championship.
Her goal is to win the Round Robin before she is too old at age 21.
Technically, in fair books, she has two more fairs in which to compete.
Vincent is the only family member competing at the fair this year.
She entered 4-H crafts when she was younger, as well as vegetables from the garden.
As she grew older, she has narrowed her interests to animals. She only enters one steer.
“Keeping up with all the animals, you have to cut somewhere,” she explains. “I have all my marbles in this one steer.”
Her chances in the market lamb class are good. She showed “Smoke,” a Suffolk/Hampshire crossbred to the grand championship at the Kent County (Del.) fair in May.
Vincent’s father converted an old dairy barn on the farm into a goat barn where does are put into individual pens called “jugs” 15 days before kidding.
A handling system near the pasture includes a scale and a turntable for worming and foot care.
In early July half the herd, does and their kids, were “on loan” to a friend who wanted a pasture cleared.
The family also raises chocolate labs, the taller American kind.
Vincent has an English-style chocolate lab that she takes with her to college. She has to keep the dog’s weight under the school’s 60-pound limit for pets.