While some people on central campus may walk by the hog and horse barns plugging their noses, two students involved in the barn residence program sense a different value in the facilities. Mandy Hamilton, who takes care of 250 hogs, and Carolyn Jones, who tends to 50 horses, say they consider living with the smells and noises of the barn animals an educational experience in agricultural science. And they're having a great time doing it. The barn residence program, in existence for at least the past 40 years, is designed by the animal science department to further develop students' experiences in the care and management of animals. Students, who have included chemistry and music majors, usually bring some degree of animal experience with them or are enrolled in academic programs concerning animals. Student animal caretakers fill 17 jobs in the dairy, swine, horse, sheep and beef barns, the feedlot and Hopkins Avian Facility. According to Dan Sehnert, animal facilities manager and head of the barn residence program, in exchange for 32 hours per month of feeding, cleaning and providing security, students get a free room. "This year was really competitive; we received 27 applications for 11 open spots," Sehnert says. The job also gives students interested in veterinary school a chance to meet and talk with the school's faculty members. "It's one way students can get their foot in the door," Sehnert says. Despite these benefits, most people might still think it's rough to live with pigs--but not Hamilton. The fifth-year senior and animal science and management major has been a live-in resident of the hog barn since September. She says when she tells people she lives at the hog barn, "they usually wrinkle their nose--because of the smell." But Hamilton insists hogs are her favorite dorm mates. She likes working with them, and in the process she learns about the production of food animals. "There's a knack about doing it--you get hands-on experience. Until you're involved with the production, you really have no clue," she says. Hog crisis manager Besides typical daily duties like feeding, collecting semen from boars, breeding sows by artificial insemination, taking pigs to the slaughterhouse, conducting tours and teaching animal-science interns, Hamilton is also responsible for handling crises that occur on the weekends when the herd manager is away. One time, Hamilton says, while construction was going on at Engineering Unit III nearby, one of the workers approached Hamilton to report that a dozen pigs had gotten out of their pens, pushed open the gate and were running free in all directions. "It's hilarious trying to herd the little ones, because they're very fast at that age," she says. Her favorite job occurs during farrowing time, when she provides comfort for the sows and helps them give birth to baby pigs. "They're really cute when they're small and tiny like that," she says of the 2-pound babies. In four months they can grow to be 250 pounds. A call for mealtime Once they've given birth, sows signal it's time to eat by grunting to their offspring. This can be a problem for Hamilton who lives just slightly to the right and above the farrow barn. That's because when one pig starts it triggers a barn full of mothers calling for mealtime. "I've been woken up many times at 4 a.m.," she reports. Hamilton believes her barn job has given her more self-confidence in handling situations. Swine facility manager Kent Parker adds that she has been a great help. "Without students, our job of raising pigs would be much harder," he says. Ken Taylor, herd manager at the horse barn for 20 years, feels the same way about student animal caretakers. "The students' presence is paramount," he says. Just as Parker and Hamilton must protect the hogs from curious visitors, at the horse barn the students are expected to keep a sharp lookout for people who tend to venture too close to a stallion's pen. "They [the student s] need to be able to kick people out," Taylor says. Acclimatized fast to horses Junior Carolyn Jones, a biological and agricultural engineering major, grew up around horses and felt comfortable moving into her room at the horse barn two years ago. She says she decorated her room like mad. Over time, the relationships she developed with stallions, mares, foals, mules and donkeys made her feel even more at home. Knowing the animals allowed her to spend all night in mid-May helping delivering twin foals. "Twins have a very low survival rate; I'm so happy one of them made it," she says. Like Hamilton, birthing time is her favorite. She likes bathing and drying the newborns, making sure the mother is giving milk, and administering vaccinations. Jones also spends her time feeding, assisting with artificial insemination, doing general maintenance and taking care of the animals. Above all else, she learns from the student foal and stud managers. "I keep asking questions and making a fool out of myself--oh, well, I'm here to learn and so are they." The bull barn and mare motel One way Jones learns is by feeding the horses. She hauls the wheelbarrow full of alfalfa food pellets through the spider-webbed barn built in the '20s out to the "bull barn" where the stallions are kept and the "mare motel" where the mares brought in to be bred are stabled. On the way, she encounters the horse community: Ranger, Curly Sue, Taz, Sly, Pistol, PeeWee and Caper. She says she notices things about every animal, including the way Caper scrapes his teeth on the grating of his enclosure when he is feeling good. Once, she noticed Caper wasn't scraping and called in a veterinarian, who determined Caper was, indeed, sick. The horse barn is primarily a breeding facility for eight to 12 campus mares per year. About 10 outside mares are also brought in to be bred. The campus animals are donated either by parents whose son or daughter has gone off to college, or by riders who have advanced in ability to a more challenging horse. All of the animals must be physically and reproductively sound. The Equestrian Center also donates horses no longer used for riding or teaching. The breeding does not occur naturally, according to Jones. Instead, the horse barn has what's called the "Phantom," a mare mannequin. The barn crew tricks the stallion into thinking that the fake horse is a mare in heat. The mares are artificially inseminated on a schedule so that their foals are born in time for the annual auction held in June. The auction shows 15 horses that are the products of the barn, stallion and foal management internship programs, animal science's Sehnert says. Acting as resident advisers to the pigs and horses has been fun for Hamilton and Jones, who agree that the experience has taught them many valuable hands-on techniques about raising animals. Both say the real-life learning experience complements their classroom education. "You see what you're learning in school is true," Hamilton says. "And it's so much better than textbooks," Jones adds.