The Nevada County Fair returns August 12–16, and Mutton Bustin’ is back on the schedule. This is just one of several ways animals are used at fairs. We want to talk about what this event asks of the sheep that are forced to participate.
What Mutton Busting Actually Is
Here’s how it works. A sheep is separated from her flock and loaded into a bucking chute. A young child, often between the ages of 4 and 7, is placed on her back. When the gate swings open, the sheep bolts into an arena filled with crowd noise and loudspeakers while the child grips fistfuls of her wool. The child falls, the audience laughs, and the next sheep is loaded in.
What the Sheep Experiences
At our sanctuary, only a few miles from the fairgrounds, we care for rescued sheep every day. We know them as curious, affectionate individuals. And we know what fear looks like in them.
Sheep are prey animals. Their entire experience of the world is organized around detecting danger and escaping it. Every element of Mutton Bustin’ triggers that alarm system: isolation from the flock, confinement in a chute, loud crowds, and weight clamped onto her back. The sheep sprinting across the arena is not playing along. She is trying to outrun something she cannot shake off.
Some sheep don’t run. They freeze instead. Spectators often think that is a sign of calmness, but immobility is a classic fear response in prey animals.
The harm isn’t only psychological. Wool is attached to skin, and pulling it hurts. In many cases, she’s carrying a child who weighs half as much as she does, at a sprint, across an unfamiliar arena.
The Waiver Says It All
Sheep aren’t the only ones at risk. Mutton Bustin’ has a documented record of injuries to its young riders, serious enough that parents must sign a release of liability before their child can participate.
What does it say about a family tradition that it needs a signed waiver and a frightened animal to work?
Our Community Is Better Than This
This community teaches its children well. We tell them to be gentle with the family dog, to treat animals the way they’d want to be treated, to be kind to people who can’t do anything for them in return. Then we walk them into an arena and hand them a sheep to hold onto while she runs in terror. Children notice that contradiction more than we give them credit for.
They don’t need a frightened animal to have a good time at the fair. They need us to mean what we teach them.
Take Action: Email the Fair Board Today
The Nevada County Fair Board can retire Mutton Bustin’ before the fair opens August 12. The decision is theirs, and they make it based on what they hear from the community. A respectful email takes five minutes and genuinely matters.
Email the Board of Directors at [email protected] and ask them to remove Mutton Bustin’ from the Nevada County Fair for good.
