Lamb husbandry pathway to professional doctorate program

There are several different students that are involved in facilitating and learning out at the Copenhagen Sheep Center. We have a team of a lot of animal science undergrads. A lot of those students are on the pre-vet track going into veterinary medicine. Sheep are very handleable, they're a good size, and we do a lot of hands-on work with them. So for a lot of our students who are intimidated by larger livestock, sheep are a little bit more comfortable for them to handle and they get to do a lot of fun things with sheep. So here at the Sheep Center, we have a few different breeds that we lamb out. We have a pulled dorset flock, a suffolk flock, St. Croix sheep and some Suffolk-Dorset crosses. We have a small fall lambing group so those guys lamb out from October through early December and then we also have a very large spring lambing group so they lamb out January through April. So we have morning and afternoon shifts at the barn. In the morning shifts our main priority is to feed all of the sheep, count them, check their waters, do general health checks to make sure everyone's okay. Then we just do anything that needs to be done regarding research or different chores around the barn. I'm an animal and poultry science major and I'm interested in going to vet school, so this has really helped me gain a lot of hands-on experience and I think part of being a really good vet is being well-rounded in all aspects, not just the small animals like your dogs and cats, but also sheep and other livestock species. Growing up I didn't have much experience with production animals, so getting to work at the Sheep Center provided me with the opportunity to really understand the foundation of production management, what it takes to care for these animals, to understand why vets are important in herd health. One thing that a lot of people might not know about lambs is that whenever they're born they have a very weak immune system, so we have to practice very specific and safe handling to make sure that they are well cared for. My favorite part about being involved at the Sheep Center is getting to watch the lambs grow up and develop but also watching the students grow and develop as well and growing in their comfort and their lamb handling skills.