Outside of class, you can find Oliver Przech in the University of Connecticut’s cow barns filming calves Maisie, Holly Berry and Noel, the “adopted” cows of three first grade classes in Hartford.
He documents their growth and milestones as the calves grow. He films lessons for students about nutrition and the other animals at the UConn Storrs campus. He also films a Q&A, answering questions the students send in. Przech said his lessons line up with the science curriculum of the three classes at the University of Hartford magnet school and the kids enjoy the experience of learning about “their” class cow.
Przech, a fourth-semester pathobiology major with a minor in dairy management, runs the “Adopt a Calf” program at UConn. The program was started last year by two students who graduated. Przech helped during his freshman year and eventually took over.
“I started participating in the program last year. Two students had started it because New England Dairy has a very similar program that they run on more of a larger scale. And these two students wanted to start it on a smaller scale here. Now I get to run it. I get an independent study credit for it, which is great. I spend maybe four hours a week working on everything,” Przech said.
When partnering with classrooms, each class adopts their own calf at the beginning of the program when the calves are three weeks old. Then each week, Przech sends updates so the students can see how their calves are doing. He also educates them on the other cows at UConn as well as the other animals such as sheep and horses.
“We have Noel and Holly Berry, who are brown, they’re the Jerseys (Jersey cows). And then we have Maisie, who’s the black and white Holstein. They get to see all of the cows between lessons each week; we have about 75 milking, and then about 100 cows that are too young to milk, or are dried off, so they’re not milking right now. So, they get to be up close and personal with all the different sizes. But they do love their class calves,” Przech said.
Przech said he always feels great working with the kids because many of them have never seen farm animals or know anything about farming. He said he finds first grade kids are a perfect age to do this program with.
“A lot of them who came here last year had never seen a farm animal before in person. I didn’t start working with livestock until I was at UConn. It’s one of the main reasons that I came here, and I think especially because so many of them have zero experience, they love it so much,” Przech said.
One reason the teachers enjoy the program is because it shows the students that they could get involved in agriculture and go to college in the future, according to Przech.
“The teachers have told me they also really just like seeing college students and that a lot of them maybe haven’t had parents that have went to college, or would be the first in their family to go to college. And so seeing college students makes them happy. Seeing college students encourages them to study more, and that there’s a bunch of different things you can study,” Przech said.
Przech’s favorite part about running the program is working with the cows.
“My favorite part has to be getting to see the cows all the time and getting to document their growth. It’s so much fun to see them grow up and they become so friendly. They really all do have personalities, and it’s so nice to see them become that and be able to spend so much time in the barn,” Przech said.
For him, it is also about adding to the agriculture program at UConn.
“UConn has a really great agricultural history, and I’m really happy to be a part of keeping that tradition going. We have a really strong community here. It’s awesome,” Przech said.