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The World's favorite cyber-based sheep judging activity with a predominately purple logo!

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You Be the Judge is a fun way to learn about judging and evaluating sheep. It's a great activity for 4Hers', FFA sheep junkies, sheep judges, and aspiring judges to learn and tune their skills.

Here's how it works: First you rate a lamb in 3 different categories. Then you give reasons for good and bad points.

Once you've finnished that lamb, then you can see what the Experts have to say and how they rate the lamb. See if you agree, or ask questions, or discuss each lamb. Once you are comfortable with how you placed that one, then move on to the next lamb.

Please note that your ratings are hidden from the rest of the world unless you've marked yourself as an expert in your profile.

The 3 categories are:

Confirmation - is the lamb structurally sound. This is almost impossible to tell from a single still picture but do your best.

Muscling - does the animal have enough muscle in all the right places. This too is hard to tell without touching the animal.

Style - eye appeal.

This page has the details on how to use the judging catagories.

This is really a community teaching tool: there are multiple students and multiple teachers. The experts are here to help novices and experienced people learn the finer points of evaluating sheep. Experts can also challenge each other and fine tune their skills.

This activity can be a great basis for a 4-H meeting. Have the kids gather around the computer and then work as a team to judge these sheep. Then compare their answers.

Here's the guidelines:

1. These are pictures - pictures cannot substitute for actually handling a lamb. So, don't get too picky or opinionated, since we can't accurately judge these things off the WEB.
2. If you want to debate with someone else's evaluation, that's fine and very helpful. If they are a novice, then ask them why they thought that and help them learn what they should be looking at.
3. Abusive language, flames, or attacks are not tolerated. We're judging the sheep not the people playing the game. The whole point of this is to have novices try and make a point before they see what the expert has to say. So hopefully, people will actually change their minds after discussing the lamb.
4. Remember there is no right answer. Everyone sees sheep differently and there is no clear mathematical way to rate sheep.
5. Don't be afraid to try. This is a fun and friendly web site.

(If you don't play nice, I'll send a virus to your computer and the mouse will start leaving little brown things all over your desk!)