The Experiment

So, as I said I might, I'm going to inform you of exactly what my research is going to entail. First off, I guess I'm going to be working with sheep. Particularly young males of the species. For the next month I will be learning how to do different procedures under a girl named Suzie as I wait for the lambing that will be occurring in March. Once the lambs are born I will start the actual research. For the first 40 days of life I will be bottle feeding eight lambs. Four of these will be the controls for the experiment and four will be getting a special formula that will inhibit the thyroid gland. This has been shown, in rodents, to affect the size and function of the testes, being twice as large and producing twice as much sperm. This experiment will verify if the same type of process could be used in livestock. Rams have a shorter amount of time before they mature than cattle, so this will provide results faster and may lead to using this technique in cattle. The lambs will also be weighed once a week and measurements of testes will be taken along with blood samples. The weight measurements will help to determine if the lambs' growth is stunted by the experiment. The blood samples and testes measurements will help to determine whether the experiment is working properly and the hormone levels are changing. This work will continue on through the summer, even though I won't be here, and then when I get back next fall the rams should be about to maturity and we will castrate them and look at what's going on inside the testes. I am really excited to start work on this project and I may be informing you what's going on along the way. I guess it depends on how busy I get.