First Place:  1

Entry number: 255

Exhibitor: Sheepherder#007

State: OK

Sheep name/number: Melissa's down

Breed: Southdown

Website: www.coleclublambs.com

The thick ended Southdown lamb is the best combination of trimness and muscle mass. Due to the glare, the class winner looks like he might could be a tad bit flatter out of his dock. Nevertheles, from the side he is extremely nice designed, being driven up in the floor of his chest, excellent in terms of rib design and very proportional through his forerib and flank. As a bonus 1 appears to be more expressive over his rack and through the center portion of his leg, and much deeper twisted than 2 and I would predict him to hang a higher cutablity more shapely carcass.

Second Place:  2

Entry number: 1077

Exhibitor: Westtxsheep

State: TX

Sheep name/number: Tag007

Breed: Hampshire X

Some may prefer the powerful Hampshire appearing lamb in our top pair of thicker made wethers, however he gets coarser through is front 1/3 of his body and appears softer in his finish than the down. (I'll be the first to admit that this is probably the difference in bracing and in a stand).

Still in comparison to 3, 2 is much wider constructed, spreading more width and mass throughout. More specifically he is wider topped, flatter loined and more pulled apart in his pins, allowing him to carry more width and thickness throughout all aspects of his leg and will simply allow him to rail more lbs. of product.

Third Place:  3

Entry number: 1086
Exhibitor: Randy Leete
Sheep name/number: 192
Breed: Dorset

Now there is no doubt that 3 is extremely well designed and nice patterned for a Dorset wether, unfortunately he is just too narrow from front to rear for me to get into the top pair.

However with these faults aside, his added rib design and correctness of finish allow him to dominate our bottom pair. 3 appears to be much further along in his feeding phase and consequently shows more smoothness down his top and over his ribs than 4. In addition he is smoother shouldered and neater in his forerib giving him a more balanced look on the profile. This combined with the fact that he is fresher topped and more expressive in his muscle leads me to believe that he is closer to his terminal endpoint and would better maximize his worth if harvested today.

Fourth Place:  4

Entry number: 1104

Sure the wide-based huge fore-armed Hampshire is potentially the stoutest made and could very well trump the class with more time and condition, however in these photos, he is the rawest in his fat cover, rough and uneven down his top, needs to fill in at his hip-loin and appears to be too far away from a terminal endpoint to be competitive as a 141-150 lb. fat lamb.