Lamb Watch 2012: Keeping an Eye on Ewes

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Bumpers College animal science students took night and weekend shifts caring for ewes about to give birth. The team included, from left, instructor Danny Belcher, Casse Curtis, Omega Sanders, Tom Devine, Sheree Morgan, Cade Lynch, Rachael Guidry, Claire Crews, Melanie Kessler, Carrie Sisco of Bentonville, and instructor Bryan Kutz.

Students in the animal science department’s Lamb Watch internship in Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences assisted with lambing this spring at a University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture livestock research facility.

The Lamb Watch volunteer/special problems internship program gives students hands-on experience with livestock in a production environment. Students attend a weekly meeting and take shifts to observe pregnant ewes at nights and on weekends throughout the lambing season. They are taught to observe and detect the early signs of delivery in sheep, to assist a ewe giving birth and to assist new born lambs as needed.

Students also learn and assist with general husbandry practices related to sheep care and maintenance such as feeding, watering and detecting signs of sickness.

Students participating were Mary Ann Carroll of Little Rock; Claire Crews of Jacksonville; Casse Curtis of Alpena; Tom Devine of Newton, N.C.; Rachael Guidry of Ashdown; Jeff Jordan of Fayetteville; Melanie Kessler of Reeds Spring, Mo.; Cade Lynch of Jonesboro; Dylan Moody of Cave City; Sheree Morgan of Harrison; Omega Sanders of Hot Springs; Kasey Whitworth of Sheridan; Carrie Sisco of Bentonville; and student employee Conn Hilton of Mena.

Instructors were Bryan Kutz, Danny Belcher and Robert Rhein, all of the department of animal science.