Family: Wife, Ashley Mayfield
Hometown: Wyandotte, Okla.
In Town: Mike Mayfield has taught agriculture for 15 years with 10 years at Quapaw, Okla., and the last five years in Wyandotte.
“Because mine is a one-man department, I teach everything and have a 12-month contract so I can work with students on projects over the summer,” Mike said. “What I like best is my relationship with students which naturally develops over the extended times we spent together including the classroom, advising, FFA and extensive traveling. My wife, Ashley, also teaches in Wyandotte, but as a middle school English teacher with this being her seventh year.”
In the Country: “Right now, we have 40 family acres on which we have a diversified livestock operation. This includes a 15-head herd of mostly black commercial cows in a cow/calf enterprise. I own one commercial Angus bull, which I matched to my cow herd with the intention of increasing weaning weight. I have a spring calving season and usually sell at weaning. We also raise show pigs for 4-H and FFA projects and showing. The biggest challenge is having piglets.
“Our commercial Boer goats are also for raising show animals. We play close attention to worms and deworming schedules so the issue has had little or no impact. Because cows graze and goats browse, they share pasture.
“This multi-species farm is the result of me having had show pigs as a kid and the fact that the land was good for cattle. Then, as a teacher, I saw that some of my students wanted to show goats so I decided to raise some to learn more about them so I could be a good mentor for those students though I occasionally sell a kid or two if a student needs one.”
Future: “I plan to have the livestock as a retirement project. To that end I am currently building a multipurpose barn to house pigs after weaning and for cattle that need temporary isolation as well as using a certain section for equipment storage. As far as animals go, we are pretty close to land capacity and I don’t plan on expanding acreage anytime soon. Retirement is a ways away and we will figure out more of what we want to do later.”
