Selecting a Show Lamb
Picking a lamb is the most important part of having success throughout your show lamb process. There are many different philosophies on how to choose a show lamb. Whenever we sell, the one I think will do the best often are not picked first. One of the most common mistakes that first time showers make when picking a lamb is that they pick for frame size instead of other factors that are more important when choosing a show animal. If you aren’t sure of what to pick for, we suggest bringing along a more experienced show family or your ag teacher/extension agent. If you don’t have anyone you can ask, you can always ask the breeder and they will try to point you in the right direction to meet your goals..
The first thing that you should pick a lamb on is structure. You want to make sure that an animal is structurally correct because this is something that you can’t fix with feed or exercise in any way/shape/form. Many people overlook structure in favor of more exotic features, but if you start off with a poorly structured animal, it often goes downhill as they gain weight.
The next thing we personally look at is balance. This is often a hard thing for newer people to look at because they aren’t completely sure what it means. It is also an area where many people make mistakes when choosing. Oftentimes, people will look at animals for a specific feature, such as chest size or back end and overlook how it matches other parts of the body. If your lamb has one extreme feature, it often makes other parts of the lamb look bad and in turn creating a lamb with poor balance. Balanced means that the lamb’s pieces match or the lamb is proportional. This can refer to muscling or frame size. A lamb is considered balanced when their front and their hind end match. They are also considered balanced when their muscularity matches their frame size. A lamb that is heavy muscled with frail bone size could be considered not balanced. This is important because a lamb may be narrower than another based on measurements, but not when it comes in comparison to size (weight or frame). An important thing to remember in showing is that lambs show based on weight. The 90 pound lamb that looks better than the 40 pound lamb may not actually be better when lambs are compared to others in their respective weight categories.
Once we’ve looked at balance, we look at muscle shape. Muscle is extremely important in show lambs as it is arguably the most looked at trait in a show ring. Early indicators of muscle can be seen in the shoulder and loin.
Another thing we like to look at when choosing our lambs is attractiveness. We look at the flatness of the topline, leveness of hip and the head and neck position. We are looking to make sure that the topline is flat like a table, the hip comes all the way out at the back and does not drop off and that the neck is high in the shoulder.
There are so many more things you can look at and critique when picking a lamb, but if you keep these things in mind, you can set yourself up for success.
