The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/12/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Luke Wenker Megan O'Leary, a freshman in animal studies, encourages day-old twin lambs to nurse at the OSU Sheep Research Center on Wednesday. Newborn lambs are placed with their mothers in small pens for 48 hours to encourage bonding. Students like O'Leary help to run the OSU Sheep Research Center to care for both the sheep and their offspring.

The Oregon State University's Sheep Center has opened their doors to the public to view the new lambs set to arrive this month.

The center has around 200 to 250 ewes with several hundred lambs expected to be added to the population in the coming weeks.

This is an annual event when the center receives several thousand visitors each year. The doors will be opened from Feb. 9 to March 13. People can visit anytime between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. seven days a week.

One of the visitors, Megan Larsen, has been going to the center for years, but was excited about this year because she was able to bring her 17-month-old daughter to enjoy the lambs for the first time.

"This is our third day visiting," Larsen said. "It's good for my daughter to be able to see the little guys."

School children are some of the largest crowds drawn to the center. Many schools have already called to arrange their visits to the center to enjoy an educational experience.

Guests are free to roam the area that is open to the public, seeing all the sheep and the small lambs, but they ask that no one touch the animals and that visitors wash their hands before leaving.

The center uses OSU students to help run the center and take care of the sheep and their offspring. One of those students is Megan O'Leary, a freshman in animal sciences. She spoke about the center while attempting to get a set of twin lambs that had arrived the night before to nurse from their mother.

"One of them got cold last night," O'Leary said. "We got him warmed up, now we're just trying to get him to nurse."

She explained that when the lambs are first born they are put in separate pens to make sure they bond with the mother and to have blood and milk samples taken as part of ongoing research.

After 48 hours the mother and her baby are moved back into one of the larger pens to be able to be seen by the public.

The center is used for research by the OSU Agricultural Experiment Station, but is also used by the OSU animal sciences department and the College of Veterinary Medicine for teaching purposes.

To visit is free and open to everyone during visiting hours, but the center prefers groups of 12 or more to arrange appointments by contacting the center through email.



Rebecca Johnson, staff writer

news@dailybarometer.com, 737-2231

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