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Change to student aid formula would hit Iowa farm families

Darcy and Eric Wemark and their family milk nearly 600 cows at their dairy operation in Ridgeway, near Decorah in northeast Iowa.

The family also has 450 heifers, a 2,500-head swine facility and farms about 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans on land it mostly rents.

The couple’s eldest son, Carson, is finishing his first year at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, where he’s studying agronomy. The 19-year-old plans to carry on in the family business, as does their eldest daughter, Addison. The high school senior plans to head to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to study dairy science next fall.

Carson currently receives federal financial aid through a Pell Grant to help the family pay for the roughly $16,000 annual expense to send him to college, including tuition, fees, room and board, and other expenses.

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Delivering A Lamb From Start To Finish

Video: Delivering A Lamb From Start To Finish

Delivering a lamb from start to finish at Ewetopia Farms today. We will show you a Suffolk ewe as we tube feed her first lamb, dip it's naval with iodine, all while the mom licks off her lamb and works on delivering her second lamb. We demonstrate how to gently lie a sheep down to make assisting her give birth easier. We show how to deliver the lamb without hurting either the lamb or ewe. We end off with the birth of a big beautiful Suffolk lamb to join it's twin