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Sheep Project
What is it All About?
The sheep project introduces you to a wide variety of fun and challenging activities including identifying parts of a sheep, selecting a project lamb, preparing for lambing season, identification of lamb meat products and feeding and showing sheep.
Grow in Your Project
Beginner
- Identify different breeds
- Locate and name parts of sheep
- Learn about sheep health and proper care
- Learn what you need to show your animals
- Develop a management plan
Intermediate
- Learn about lamb yield grades
- Judge and present your sheep
- Understand the digestive process
- Read a feed tag to recognize nutrients needed for sheep
- Learn breeding and reproduction best practices
Advanced
- Develop your own breeding program
- Learn about lamb docking and castration
- Balance a feed ration
- Keep production and expense records
- Identify and research sheep industry issues
Click Here for Sheep Project Member Resources
Click Here for Sheep Project Leader Resources
Take Your Project Further!
- Tour a sheep farm
- Attend a sheep show and observe the judges and their techniques
- Design a business plan to market lamb meat directly to retailers, restaurants or private customers
- Write an educational article about some aspect of sheep production for your local newspaper
- Plan or participate in a sheep skill-a-thon
- Organize a sheep showmanship contest
- Attend a national conference
- Job shadow a local veterinarian to learn about animal health
- Learn about the different uses for sheep
- Research sheep by-product
- Be part of your county Livestock Judging team and participate in the State 4-H Livestock Judging Contest
- Participate in the Livestock skill-a-thon
- Participate in the State 4-H Wool Judging Contest
- Participate in the State 4-H Meat Judging Contest
Applying Project Skills to Life
Enhance Your Communication Skills
- Design a poster on parts of the sheep and present this topic to others
- Participate in a judging contest giving oral reasons
- Give a shearing demonstration
Get Involved in Citizenship and Service
- Volunteer your lamb for a community petting zoo
- Develop a recipe book of lamb recipes too share at local grocery stores
- Do a food taste testing at a local grocery store
Learn about Leadership
- Lead a demonstration with your lamb at a local elementary class
- Teach others how to safely handle sheep
- Recruit younger members to join the sheep project
Showing What You’ve Learned
- Show your lamb at the fair
- Poster on the nutritive value of lamb
- Display of meat cuts and proper preparation
- Poster on feeding rations
- Poste on preventative vaccinations
- Notebook of photos of different breeds
- Presentation on developing a breeding herd
- Best care techniques for newborns
- Medical show kit
- Poster on understanding carcass grading in lamb carcasses
- Video on how to train your lamb to lead
- Display of proper exercising techniques
- Poster of feed additives
- Make a blanket or tube for your sheep
- Make a sheep fitting stand
Adapted with permission from Wyoming State 4-H, Project Information Sheet, Sheep. Retrieved from: https://www.uwyo.edu/4-h/projects/animal-science/sheep.html.
*Resources available at your local Extension office or shop4-H.org.
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