Program Information

We’re here today to talk about the letter L which stands for Lamb. These beautiful creatures can be found here at the Virginia State University Small Ruminant farm.

Lamb is used to define meat from a sheep that is less than a year old, while “mutton” is used to define meat from sheep older than a year. In 2003, the United States produced approximately 200 million pounds of lamb and mutton.

ABCs of Agriculture informs about Virginia's farming community and how it affects you. ABCs of Agriculture are produced by the Virginia Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) - an educational program which encourages and enhances agricultural literacy in Grades K-5 and 6-8.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the ABC’s of Agriculture!

We’re here today to talk about the letter L which stands for Lamb. These beautiful creatures can be found here at the Virginia State University Small Ruminant farm.

Lamb is used to define meat from a sheep that is less than a year old, while “mutton” is used to define meat from sheep older than a year. In 2003, the United States produced approximately 200 million pounds of lamb and mutton.

Most of the lamb consumption in the U.S. is concentrated on the East and West coasts and in larger metropolitan areas.

These sheep on the farm at VSU are hair sheep, which are raised for their meat. There are four breeds: Barbados, Blackbelly, St. Croix (also known as Virgin Island White) and Katahdin.

Sheep is no longer a major livestock industry in Virginia, but it does have plenty of potential to grow. In 2004, Virginia ranked 26th in the nation for sheep production. Fifty-five thousand head of sheep and lambs were raised on Virginia farms.

Nationwide there were just over 6 million head of sheep and lambs in 2004… The number of lambs born in 2003 was more than 4 million head!

((Addresses the lambs))
That’s a lot of you little guys…. For the ABC’s of Agriculture, I’m Professor Brad… see you next time!

Virginia Standards