After posting a comment about the lamb gyros at Brittain on another section's blog I decided to do some research on lamb meat. It's very saddening, at least for me. I am in no way a vegetarian, I love my steak! But I feel like killing baby animals is rather mean. There are three classifications of sheep meat: lamb, hogget, and mutton. And then with lamb there are more classifications:

Lamb — a young sheep that is less than one year old

Baby lamb — a milk-fed lamb between six and eight weeks old

Spring lamb — a milk-fed lamb, usually three to five months old, born in late winter or early spring and sold usually before July 1

Yearling lamb — a young sheep between 12 and 24 months old.

as well as:

• Milk-fed lamb

• Sucker lambs
• Old-season lambs
• Salt marsh lamb

I just find it rather saddening. I guess I should try it before I knock it, but I'm an animal lover and eating baby animals just doesn't appeal to me much. Raising lambs for meat is at least more humane than raising calves for meat. Lambs get to stat with their mother, calves are usually confined to small pens with barely any room to turn around. However there have been actions to make it illegal to raise calves for veal this way and move them to group penning. Still, it's sad....

Info obtained from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_and_mutton