Market Lamb Show

Well, Miss Abigail actually does more than sew a fine seam and craft beautiful things. She also loves, loves, LOVES animals - of all kinds. We live on a small homestead where we have a number of different animals, including sheep and dairy goats. We have a small flock of sheep which we raise for meat. We also have another small flock of fine wool Shetland sheep, with a couple of gorgeous Finn sheep. We raise these animals for their wool fleece. Abigail really enjoys working with all these animals.

This year Abigail entered a market lamb in the Southdown class at the county fair. The Market Lamb project helps the kids learn how to take a small lamb and feed, exercise, groom, and show their lamb in the livestock show at the fair. The lamb is then sold, hopefully for a profit. Abigail started with one of the lambs born in February on our farm. She named her Willow. Willow was a cross between one of our Suffolk ewes and a Southdown ram. Abigail also purchased a second Southdown lamb from a nearby ranch.

Abigail did very well showing her lamb and was so excited to win fourth place. Of course, she would rather have won first place, but the competition is pretty stiff. There is just one class for this breed, so Abigail was showing against senior 4-H kids who have shown market lambs for a number of years. Happily, fourth place still gave her a chance to sell the lamb in the livestock auction.  Here are a few more pictures.