Hi! My name is Andrea and I'm 13. I live on a farm in Kentucky and I'm going into 8th grade. This is my fourth year in 4-H and my second year raising market lambs. I started this page in March when I got Biscuit and Domino, and I've been adding to it ever since. My dad says the computer is for homework. This IS homework. Kind of.

On my page:
Biscuit and Domino
Weigh-ins
Feeding schedule
Walking and bracing
Suffolk vs. Hampshire
Last year at the fair
Sheep in the News: Dolly!

Biscuit and Domino

They're both Suffolk crosses. We got them in March from a farm in the next county where Mrs. Murphree, our 4-H leader, buys hers. They were born in January.

Weigh-ins

We weigh them once a month on the scale at Mrs. Murphree's barn. The judge likes market lambs to be finished, which means grown out and muscled with a little bit of fat cover but not too much. They have to make weight at the fair weigh-in or they can't show, so I watch these numbers like a hawk.

Average daily gain is how much they put on each day. You take what they gained and divide by the number of days. Mrs. Murphree makes us figure it on our record sheets, and I'm the only one in our club who does it on a calculator AND puts it on the Internet.

Feeding schedule

Every change in feed has to be slow, a little at a time, or they can get sick. They both had their shots in the spring, including the one for overeating disease. That's a real thing, it's not a joke. Ask Biscuit.

Walking and bracing

In the show ring you don't lead a market lamb with a halter at our fair. You hold them with one hand under the jaw and the other behind the head, and you have to walk them where the judge wants, then stop and "set them up," which means getting all four feet square under them.

Bracing is the hardest part. When the judge comes to handle your lamb, you put your knee against the lamb's chest and the lamb pushes back against you. When they push, they tighten up all their muscles, and the judge can feel how much muscle they have down the back and in the leg. A lamb that braces good looks better. A lamb that doesn't brace just stands there like a sack of feed.

Every evening I walk them both up the lane to the mailbox and back, twice, and then we practice setting up and bracing for about fifteen minutes each in the barn lot. Domino got it in about a week. Biscuit still thinks bracing is a pushing contest and tries to win.

My little sister Jamie helps by being the judge. She's 8 and she takes it VERY seriously. She wants to show next year.

Fair week checklist: trim hooves (done), wash (Friday, Domino will yell), slick shear (Saturday, Dad helps), blankets on so they stay clean and don't sunburn, pack the show box (brush, towels, halters for the barn, feed pan, water bucket, extension cord, fan, my white shirt).

Suffolk vs. Hampshire

These are both meat breeds that came from England, and you see a lot of both at the fair. My best friend Tia raises Hampshires and we argue about it constantly.

Tia says she'll write the Hampshire side for my page. She has been saying that since April.

Last year at the fair

Last year was my first year with a market lamb. Her name was Clover. She placed 3rd out of 9 in her weight class (white ribbon) and I got 4th in junior showmanship. I was so nervous I set her up backwards the first time. This year I know what I'm doing. Mostly.

My Ribbon Count
Blue	3
Red	2
White	2
Showmanship (4th place)	1
TOTAL	8

(The others are from posters, my sewing project and the record book contest.)

Sheep in the News: Dolly!

In February scientists in Scotland told the whole world about Dolly, the first mammal ever cloned from a grown-up animal's cell. She's a sheep! Everybody at school wanted to know what I thought, so I asked Mr. Garner, my science teacher, to explain it, and here's how he did. (He drew it on the board.)

1. Every cell in your body has a nucleus in the middle with all the instructions (DNA) to make the whole animal. Even a cell from your toe has the instructions for your eyes.
2. The scientists took a cell from the udder of a six-year-old Finn Dorset ewe. Finn Dorsets have white faces.
3. They took an egg cell from a Scottish Blackface ewe and took its nucleus OUT, so it was empty.
4. They put the udder cell next to the empty egg and gave it a tiny jolt of electricity so they joined into one cell. That cell started dividing like a regular embryo.
5. They put the embryo into another Blackface ewe, and she carried it and had the lamb.

Dolly was born July 5, 1996 at a place called the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh. She has a white face, just like the Finn Dorset, and nothing like the black-faced ewe who gave birth to her. That's how you can tell she's a copy of the first sheep. It took them 277 tries to get one lamb.

She's named after Dolly Parton, because the cell came from an udder. Mr. Garner turned kind of red explaining that part. All the boys laughed.

Some people are worried scientists will try it on people now. Mr. Garner says that's a real question and it's for grown-ups to argue about, and our job is to understand what they did first. I think he's right. I think Dolly is just a sheep, and she doesn't know she's famous. She turned one year old on July 5. Happy birthday Dolly!