Farming Sheep and Goats

The title of “Rancher” is highly regarded. It envokes admiration from most and carries connotations of savvy business skills and knowledge of all things animal. It is also rightfully associated with a long list of prideful adjectives; such as hard working, honest, and humble.
Sheep-men and -women in the Southwest and Western parts of the US generally carry this title.

But this is not true in other parts of the US and around the globe. In contrast, sheep “farmer” is the title that they generally feel is more fitting. More ball cap and less silver-belly, but still just as prideful about their 5 am – 9 pm daily efforts.

What is the difference between farmers and ranchers? In my assessment, ranchers tend livestock on native range and are naturalists. Farmers raise sheep or goats on farmland, improved pastures, or small acreage. Ranches are low input operations and survive on modest levels of productivity per animal. Farmers strive to maximize farmland outputs and maximize flock/herd productivity, often by supplying more inputs per animal, namely feed resources.

For a chuckle, watch Baxter Black’s video on the difference between the two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDrFDnqde54

It is not my intent to try and convince ranchers to become farmers but it my assessment that farming sheep and goats has been overlooked for cash crops. Internationally, sheep tend to be managed under farming condition, which allows them to raise more animals on less land.

In New Zealand and much of Australia, there seemed to be a large focus on forage crops for sheep. Ryegrass and clover were the dominant pasture forage. While this is an annual crop, these improved pasture varieties persisted for half a dozen years. They were also working on developing warm season annual crops to fill in the summer forage gap.

For instance, a farm that I visited in South Australia raised ~10,000 sheep on ~3,000 dryland acres and their average annual rainfall is comparable to the Concho Valley. Here we would have a stocking rate of 1/10 of theirs.

In the US, we tend to only focus on warm season perennial grasses as improved pasture. This tends to work well for beef cattle but not as well for sheep and goats. These warm season grasses are less palatable to small ruminants and they harbor the most problematic internal parasites.

Yes, it is a common practice to plant winter cereals as a cash crop and graze them in the fall and winter. But, by design, the genetics of these crops tends to focus on grain or hay production. Moreover, limited research has looked at planting cool season annuals into pasture.

I believe farmers (and maybe a few ranchers) need to investigate cool and warm season forage crops suited for sheep and goats that work in either farmland or fertile. pasture. While this has not been a major focus area of research, there are some resources that are available. Specifically, I encourage you to look at the forage variety trials that Texas A&M AgriLife conducts. http://varietytesting.tamu.edu/forages/

This is definitely not an area of research that I am that familiar with and I encourage you to seek advice from a Texas A&M AgriLife forage agronomist in your area. However, I do know quite a few ranchers and farmers and know that most are opportunistic by nature. Sheep and goat prices are catching the eye of many outside of our industry, and even those that have small ruminants already are looking to expand. Acquiring traditional ranchland can be expensive and challenging to pencil out with livestock alone. But thinking outside of the traditional ways to run sheep and goats, farm ground or fortified pasture may make it possible to flip the discussion from “how many acres per sheep” to “how many sheep per acre”. Whether you call that farming or ranching is just a side note to a more important label; “profitable”.

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

A New Normal

It is hard to believe that just 4 months ago, our world was turned upside down due to the COVID-19 virus and efforts to stop the spread of the virus. I hope that none whom are reading this article have had serious health complications due to this virus. While, we may agree or disagree with how our local, state, and national government are handling the situation, I think we can all agree that there is no going back to the way things were.

So, this begs the question “What will our new normal look like?” It is a question that I ponder frequently, and I am curious to see how this all unfolds. I am an eternal optimist, maybe one of my faults. Regardless, I believe we are going to look back and wonder why we did not make some of these changes sooner. This new world if forcing us to do things that we thought were impossible before.

It easy to overlook positive trends when the news is crowded with angst and concern. According to data published online by Bill Thompson, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Economist in San Angelo, most all classes of sheep and goats are selling well above last year and 5-year averages. Wool and mohair have not fared as well. Likely because they are tied to international trade issues more than the local live animal trade.

Why has the local sheep and goat markets have remained strong while, other livestock commodities have drop significantly? Did the American consumer wake up to the high quality protein provided by sheep and goats? It will take time for the data on lamb and meat goat consumption to be generated, but I highly doubt much has changed. I tend to think that the secret to the sheep and goat market is diversity.

To be clear, there have been substantial drops in the traditional lamb market due to COVID 19 but most Texas sheep producers do not market to this trade. The non-traditional light weight lamb trade is holding strong and the meat goat trade has exploded.

Now, back to diversity. The non-traditional trade has a diverse consumer base and a diverse supply chain. Whereas, traditional meat industries have consolidated meat packing, processing, and distribution into a few major facilities that are large and highly efficient. When, a mega-packer has to shut down it can send shock waves throughout the industry.

I am not advocating for one or the other. If possible, it would be ideal to have some of both. We need small packers to support the local meat trade. We also need major packers to efficiently supply product from coast-to-coast to complete with imports. But the reality is we need lamb and goat demand to continue to grow so that both small and major packers can get the volume to keep the doors open.

It is estimated that there are a quarter million sheep and goat farms/ranchers in the US. If every person that raised sheep and goats promoted consumption of lamb and goat meat to their friends, family, and local community it would be one of the largest sales forces of any product. In my opinion, we would have a hard time raising enough product to meet the US demand if we took this charge seriously.

If you think I am wrong, I challenge you to one question “Beef: It’s What’s for ____.” Most every farmer and ranchers knows this marketing campaign and they wear it with pride. But American farmers and rancher rarely show the same kind of pride when they promote lamb or goat meat. Why not?

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

A World of Experts

I cannot think of a more influential technology for delivering a message than social media. The cascade of events over the last 50 years that resulted in a computer entering every home, then the worldwide adoption of the internet, and ultimately the redefining of human-to-human interaction driven by the likes of Facebook and Twitter has created a world where communication is almost unrecognizable as compared to a decade ago.

It is my job to spread ideas and technology to ranchers in the small ruminant industries, and as we speak a simple video, I created for our extension Facebook page showing a piece of equipment to handle goats has been viewed by 8 million people! That type of response is something that should incite a backslapping and high-fiving frenzy amongst our office. So why is it that we still approach posting on social media with a tingling sense of both positivity and trepidation? Like most unfathomably beneficial tools, there is a darker side to social media that must be understood and properly navigated, because a single mouse click has the power to turn good intentions into serious hot water.

In agriculture, not just sheep and goat production, we have an ever-increasing disconnection with the end consumer. I know we all have read something or heard a quote from a city-dwelling critic of how animals are raised and shaken our head in disgust. How could they think that way? The truth is, most people are not as foolish as we would like to think they are, but as a species we tend create a reality in our own minds about everything, even the stuff we know nothing about. For those not connected to agriculture in any way, how farming and ranching really works is a complete unknown, so their perceptions are easily shaped by the talking points of others.

Social media fuels this snowball effect as we tend to surround ourselves in the digital community with like-minded individuals. But that’s not even the point I am trying to make. With the disconnect between farmer and the public quite apparent, we have encouraged our fellow agriculturalists to “tell their story.” Quite simply, pictures and posts on social media about your daily interactions with the animals you raise has the power to shed positive light about the industry and agrarian way of life.

At nearly every conference and or leadership event I have attended where the discussion has turned to creating visibility to the end-consumer, the mantra has been “Post!”, “Post!”, “Post!”. Before you do though, I want to provide our own experiences with building a social media campaign, because even though we have not had any major incidents, just because you post with the best of intentions, it is important to know not everybody will see it through the same lens… and often the harshest critics are our neighbors.

I’ll call this next part, “Lessons from the Facebook Frontier.” Our page has around 10,000 followers, which in all reality is not that many, but it is enough that we expect each of our posts to be seen by several thousand folks. There is potential for us to put something on Facebook and by the next day it has been seen by the same amount of people that attend an Aggie football game. Wait a week and that might equal all the people who watched the football game. For those of you who wish to use social media platforms to promote agriculture (or any business, really), we have a little advice. Here is what we have learned what to do and not to do –

1) DO allow, and encourage, comments on your posts. This creates interaction and promotes sharing and discussion of the information, and all around is beneficial. DO NOT get caught up by negative comments. Inevitably, someone will say something a bit “snarky”, or even worse, and it is very easy to dwell on. We typically brush off comments that are obviously foolish. Best case scenario is when a fellow ag producer defends you with honesty and integrity.

2) DO include photos in your posts. Pictures connect with people significantly more than just words. We (humans) believe what our eyes see but are more likely to question or ignore what we read or hear. Pictures are worth more than a thousand words online and often a simple, or no caption, are even required. Bonus points for pictures of animals. Double bonus points for baby animals. If you are working livestock, definitely describe what and why you are doing.

3) DO post about the drawbacks and negatives of farm and ranch lives. Seeing the “other side” of the story is usually appreciated by viewers as everybody is faced with positives and negatives within their careers and by you showing (and describing) your adversity it helps to create a sense of relatability. DO NOT Describe your problems and how it is somebody else’s fault. Describing a situation, showing both sides of the story, and letting others draw their own conclusions is infinitely more powerful.

4) DO share, comment on, and promote posts by fellow agriculturalists who have similar messages as you. Regularly posting on your page to maintain a steady stream of interest can be exhausting if you are trying to develop new content daily. Often by sharing posts or interactions with others you are able to publish new posts that are equally as impactful without the need to create something new by yourself. DO NOT post or share articles or content from others without vetting their source. The saying “not everything you read on the internet is true” needs to be amended to “almost nothing you read on the internet is true.”

5) DO go live and share videos. Social media is crowded with people who have found the success of posting photos. But most people are terrified of being behind a live camera. Viewers recognize this and are more attracted to videos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, live video is worth a million words. Once we stepped into the world of Facebook live, our audience grew tenfold. Do invest in equipment to stabilize the camera and drown out the wind noise.

This is far from an exhaustive list of how to be successful through social media promotion, mostly because we have not figured out the perfect formula ourselves. New technology generates excitement amongst its users and provides everybody a voice to share their views and stories. You have a great story; so tell it to the general public or someone else will tell it for you. “If you want something done right; do it yourself!”

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Adding to the Menu

Nearly 10 years ago, I made the commitment to eat lamb on a regular basis. It was a slow process but now lamb is the most common protein eaten at our household, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Growing up we did not eat lamb or mutton. These products were not a staple of our diet and we lacked the knowledge to prepare an array of lamb or mutton entrees.

My hometown community had a negative opinion of lamb, which most people accepted as true without direct experiences. Cabrito, young goat, was a delicacy and only a few pit masters in the area dared to cook it. Yet, most of the goat meat never made it to the serving line, as the cooks (and loiterers) ate it straight off the pit.

We were typical “Beef Loving Texans.” Although, we raised more sheep and goats than cattle, it rarely crossed my mind why we did not support these industries similarly to our support for the beef industry.

Lamb, mutton, and goat meat have unique flavors and aromas, which my children truly enjoy as they have grown up eating these on a regular basis. However, my wife and I had to learn to appreciate that they are different from other red meats.

As you are likely aware, flavor comes from the fat. To me, lamb flavor has a sweetness to it that other red meats do not. I’ve come to hold it in high regard. Mutton has a bolder flavor that can be too much for those who don’t eat sheep meat regularly.

Diet of the animal when the fat is deposited can change the flavor. Grains tend to result in milder flavor; whereas, grass tends to result in bolder flavor. The older and fatter the animal the more intense this can be.
Odor is released from the fat during the cooking process. In some cases, the smell from this can resemble how the animals smell alive, which obviously turns people away. This is compounded when cooked inside a home and/or a sealed cooking method. If the raw product has mild animal odor, it will likely be more prominent during the cooking process. As such, I suggest cooking it outside!

For me, the smell of sheep or goat does not come through in the flavor of cooked product. Mutton or goat meat, particularly mature billies, can have this effect. For many international cultures, these more intense flavors are actually preferred, and they have honed their cooking techniques to make them more pleasing to the palate. I would suggest trying a recipe outside of what is considered traditional American fare if you want to experiment with mutton, and I bet you will be pleasantly surprised.

Lamb fat has a lower melting point than beef, which can result in flare ups on the BBQ pit. Keep a close eye on lamb over an open flame! The fat also tends to congeal at a lower temperature, so to me it is important to eat lamb while it is hot or the fat will become tacky. This tackiness will stick to the roof of your mouth and provide an undesirable eating experience. If the majority of the fat is cooked away, then temperature is not as important.

Some people have a difficult time overcoming prior perceptions and they may never be able appreciate these products. Others can overcome these barriers quicker and will likely be a “fan of lamb” in shorter order. Fortunately, the poor perceptions of sheep and goat meats are fading away and the general public are less antagonistic to these products from the beginning.

Often I hear stories of people who have tried lamb in a restaurant and the dish was prepared with an over-abundance of spices and sauces to mask the flavor. My advice is to start simple, grill some chops at home with your favorite steak spices, and don’t bother with a sauce. You can always add more next time, but simplicity almost never fails in this case.

Lamb and goat meat are expensive to purchase at the grocery store, particularly compared chicken or pork. Generally, grocery stores only carry the more expensive cuts that sell for $5 -15 per lb. They tend to have higher margins built in because their sales volumes are low. But they regularly discount lamb or goat meat products to market them before it expires. This is where we started sourcing it.

Cheaper imported products can be purchased but I prefer to support American farmers and ranchers. Plus, I like domestic product better than imports, and I am always perplexed when I see lamb on a menu and it is marketed as being from New Zealand or Australia. While I believe imports have their place, I also believe we have the best product in the world here in the US.

A less expensive way to source lamb or goat meat is to take live animals to a local butcher and purchase half or whole animals. This keeps the overall costs down. It also keeps a supply of product in the freezer to be used without planning too far ahead. Processing costs generally add $2-4 per pound, plus you have transportation costs both ways.

The most cost-effective way to put lamb or goat meat in your freezer is to harvest and process the animals yourself. Currently, this is my preferred strategy. For $4 to 6 per pound, I have several diverse cuts that I can prepare in a number of ways and maybe more importantly my children learn first-hand where our meat comes from. The time spent harvesting, processing, and packaging go by quick and are completely worthwhile.

Making the transition to eating lamb and goat meat on a more regular basis takes time and effort. But I have valued the process immensely. Prior to this, I was jaded with perception and unfamiliarity. Not only do we now get to enjoy some of the finest proteins around, but I can promote my industry with experience and conviction. Eating homegrown meat is enjoyable not only to the palate, but the sheep producer in me realizes the opportunity I have capitalized on to raise, harvest, and eat my own food.

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Looking Beyond Dewormers

This edition of Reid’s Ram-blings was composed by Jake Thorne, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Associate. Jake has been a contributing editor to this column over the past year and is a valued asset to the sheep and goat Extension team at the San Angelo center. Enjoy!

The destructive power of microscopic bio-agents may not have been on your mind two months ago. We can now throw that blissful lack of worry right out the window. COVID-19 has brought the world to a screeching halt, but you are undoubtedly seeking a new topic for your daily dose of reading, so here’s something that may, or may not, put your mind at ease. Your sheep and goats have parasites, specifically haemonchus contortus, and these worms are killing your animals. See, don’t you feel better already?

In all seriousness, internal parasites are not a new theme or topic if you’re a long-time reader of this column. However, they are perhaps the single greatest issue we face in the sheep and goat industry here in Texas and are worth discussing every chance we get. If you are looking for drenching protocols or how to perform fecal egg counts, we have some great videos on these topics on our Facebook page and a sister YouTube channel. I suggest you check it out if you haven’t already done so. With that said, I want to dive a little deeper into a different aspect of parasite management; identifying animals that are resistant, and what that word really means.

Some sheep and goats are able to withstand parasitic infections from the barber pole worm (H. Contortus) much better than others. The barber pole worm resides in the abomasum of ruminant livestock and uses a spear-like tail to puncture the lining of the stomach and feed on the blood of the animal. In the meantime, female worms shed around 5,000 eggs per day. Barbaric and prolific…an effective combination for survival! While mechanisms for host resistance to barber pole worms are complex and still being discovered, research has consistently linked more resistant sheep with higher levels of Th2 helper cell activity, aka a stronger immune response. Immune cells that defend the host against parasites (eosinophils), quicker tissue repair, mucosa secretion in the gastrointestinal tract, and IgA antibody production are all results of increased Th2 activity.

Considering worm resistance to drenches is rampant and that approval of new anthelmintics is not on the horizon, selecting for animals that are genetically capable of combating parasites is crucial. I may be going out on a limb, but in my opinion this may actually be the single most important selection criteria you should have. With that said, one of the greatest mistakes producers make is believing certain animals who are not showing outward signs of parasites are more resistant when in reality they have just not experienced the same “stress” as others in the flock. For example, let’s say we have two sheep, Shrek and Dolly. We have performed a fecal egg count (FEC) on both (a FEC is a way of quantifying the eggs that are shed from the animal in the fecal matter thus allowing us to estimate the worm load in the animal). Shrek has a FEC of 500 eggs per gram (epg) and Dolly has a FEC of 3,000 epg. Seems like a no brainer as to which is more resistant, right? However, what if Shrek did not raise a lamb this year and Dolly currently has a set of twins? These two animals are not able to be accurately compared because the environmental effect (everything that affects an animal other than its genetics) is skewed. We know something called the periparturient rise exists, which is a situation where at the time of parturition the immune system of the dam becomes suppressed and parasites typically flourish, potentially confounding the comparison described here.
Therefore, to identify animals that are more resistant to parasites, we need to level the environmental playing field. The preferred way to do this is to identify a contemporary group of lambs or kids, manage them similarly, and then before they enter into production (lambing or kidding) collect fecal samples and have these analyzed. Common times to collect are at weaning, 60-90 days post weaning or when the animals are a year of age. Instead of having preset dates however, the correct time to collect is when the animals have had some exposure to parasites (they aren’t naïve) and are carrying a moderate load.

A moderate load can be defined when the average of the contemporary group is between 500 and 1,000 epg. One thing to keep in mind is that the correlation between levels of genetic resistance and actual fecal egg counts are not linear, i.e. you likely won’t find a steady rise in the egg counts of this group. More likely, most animals will be at or below the average and a few will be as much as five to 10 times the average! For example, in 2019 at the TAMU Research Station in San Angelo we analyzed FECs on 32 six-month-old Rambouillet sheep. The egg counts ranged from 0 to 4,350 epg, and results are depicted in the bar graph below:

From the analysis we learn that 27 of the 32 animals in the group are at or below the contemporary group average (500 eggs per gram). With that said, the top 5 head (~15%) with the highest egg counts are shedding 72% of the eggs for the entire group. Let’s say each of these animals is producing 1 kilogram of feces a day, we can multiply their egg count by 1,000 to get the number of potential parasites they are shedding on pasture each day. The five sheep with the highest egg counts in this group were dropping a combined 10.6 million eggs per day! The take-away here isn’t that 500 epg is a magical threshold, more-so that you will find the majority of your flock’s parasites come from a small percentage of your animals. These reservoir animals are the ones we want to identify and select against. It’s important to keep in mind that though they may not have visible signs of parasites (a “resilient” animal wouldn’t), they are still a major contributor to the amount of parasites out in the pasture and being consumed by the rest of the flock.

Raw fecal egg counts are clearly useful for identifying some animals with lower resistance, but the best way currently available to sheep and goat producers to determine genetic resistance to parasites is through using estimated breeding values (EBVs) from the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP). New this year, NSIP will be offering fecal egg count EBVS for all breeds of sheep, which can be a powerful tool for Texas producers who consistently have major issues with the barber pole worm. EBVs are calculated not only on an individual animal’s performance, but also on the performance of all of its relatives (offspring included). Ultimately, combating parasites is a complex problem and requires a multifaceted approach to solve it. Identifying resistant animals and keeping those as replacements is only one piece of the puzzle.

Reflecting on the year 2020 so far, we have experienced a situation unlike any my generation has experienced. While the time working from home has its inconveniences, I am certainly thankful for the added family-time it has provided, as well as extra opportunities to contemplate my own sheep operation’s management plan. There is nothing like spending time with your kids, out in the barn, gathered around sheep, collecting poop samples. Welcome to your anatomy and physiology lesson kids!

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Profit Potential in Ranching

In preparation for tax season, I have been sorting through piles of receipts and arranging the necessary information. Although, we only raise a small flock of sheep, it gets complicated to determine true profits generated by the farm. However, it is not difficult to identify enough costs to avoid paying too much in taxes.

Not surprising to this audience, the return on labor, land, and resources needed to properly raise sheep or goats is not going to attract people looking to get rich. Fortunately for those that consume our products, most people that raise livestock value the lifestyle more than profits. However, for an operation to be sustainable, it must generate a profit most years.

This begs the question “What amount of profit should a productive female generate annually?” While the answer is quite complicated and different for every farm or ranch, there is value in regional benchmarks and striving to meet or exceed these industry standards. The American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) provide an economic report that summarizes average profit per ewe by regions within the U.S. Below is a chart that shows the economic report for Texas and Southwestern sheep producers. The full report can be found at: https://c8e3i7k7.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2018-ASI-Budget-Project.pdf

Now you may be scratching your head and questioning how applicable this chart is to your operation. I too was shocked when I first looked at this report. After re-reading it line for line, hoping to fulfill my own bias that this must be wrong. I can say that this is actually very indicative of most commercial sheep operation in Texas. There are some assumptions made that have a significant impact of the budget, to which I encourage you to take a closer look at. For this article, I won’t dig into what all these assumptions are, but let’s just say that this report backs up a point I have tried to emphasize loud and clear; LAMB/KID CROP WEANED IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT! A 25% increase in weaned can drastically improve gross sales.

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension has a standardized performance analysis program for beef cattle producers. In this analysis, beef producers are broken into quartiles based on profit per cow from data collected from the ranchers themselves. The chart below shows the profit spread between the different quartiles. Interestingly, half of the Texas cattle raisers lose money and the bottom quartile lost twice as much money as the top quartile made. Details about this program can be found at: https://agecoext.tamu.edu/programs/management-programs/beef-cattle-standard-performance-analysis-spa/

Hopefully, this stimulated a bit of thought about two different subjects.
First, where do I fit? At present, we don’t have a centralized program for sheep and goat producers similar to the Beef Cattle SPA. I’d suggest you refer to the sheep economic budgets presented below and generate a report on flock returns per ewe for your operation. Are you above or below average?

Second, what profit potential exists for across the different livestock species? To address this, Bill Thompson, AgriLife Extension economist in San Angelo, has 2020 projected budgets for the different livestock common to West Central Texas. The chart below looks at return above fixed and variable costs. Details about these budgets can be found at: https://agecoext.tamu.edu/resources/crop-livestock-budgets/budgets-by-extension-district/district-7-west-central/2020-district-7-texas-crop-and-livestock-budgets/

If you raise meat goats, you are already planning to take this article to the local coffee shop to brag to your friends. If you don’t raise meat goats, you are either thinking about getting them or you are convinced that these economic reports are inaccurate. How can it be true that my operation isn’t profitable when I make a living on these animals? Before you disregard this information, I encourage you to look at these budgets closely; specifically review the implied weaning percentages, labor costs, and supplemental feed. Furthermore, when ranchers apply a value to fixed costs to pasture, livestock, and equipment, often they realize that these budgets are more accurate than they’d like to believe. Keep in mind that not all ranchers are businessmen (or women) and not all businessmen are ranchers, but those that have a boot in each world are the ones that thrive.

That is enough data for this month’s column. Even me, a self-certified data junky, needs to take time to reflect on this information. I plan to make time to review the information that I take to the tax office, quantify my true flock profitability, and make plans to improve this going into the future.

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Missed Opportunities

A professor of mine once said that successful ranchers should spend at least 75% of their time working on improving the ranch business, as opposed to working on day-to-day operations for the ranch. At the time, I thought he was dead wrong and he had his percentages backwards.

Based on my ranching background and the love of ranch work, it seemed impossible for a small- or medium-sized rancher to spend 75% of his time behind a desk. I continued to view business-focused ranchers as only being applicable to the large operations. It just seemed impractical to hire employees to conduct all the daily chores and manage periodic work events.

After 15 years of working with some of the most progressive ranches that have continue to be successful in a landscape of tight margins and high cost of production, I am convinced he was right.

The lack of skilled labor that can be hired to accomplish ranch work is generally viewed as a barrier. However, I have come to realize that the best employees are trained, not hired. Some of the best ranch hands that I have worked with haven’t grown up on a ranch. Or if they did grow up ranching, they generally state the they do things very different now from how they did in the past.

Moreover, many progressive ranches have employed new equipment and management strategies to reduce labor requirements, while maintaining optimal levels of productivity. But ranchers must take time to identify these opportunities or daily tasks will continue to consume their lives.

Another barrier to overcome is the perception that there isn’t enough profit in ranching for family-owned operations to support a boss working full-time on the ranch, not for the ranch. While this may be true based on current levels of production, strategic changes in ranch management can unlock profit potential unrealized by ranches that have been stuck in a rut.

Suboptimal lamb and kid crops are a great example. I have had the opportunity to work with producers that raise lamb or kid crops that are 50 to 100% above industry averages. For the most part, these advancements in reproductive efficiency were realized because the producers dedicated time to set goals for improved reproductive efficiency and took action to achieve these goals.

If you are unsure where to start to make improved management decisions, the next time you are performing an important ranching task , ask yourself “why am I doing it this way?” If the answer lacks certain buzzwords like “efficiency”, “economics”, “productivity” and is simply “because it has always been done this way”, then this is an excellent place to begin. Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” We must recognize our weaknesses and look for opportunities for improvement.

In general, I have found the key areas where a laptop, budget, expert advice, and management plan can lead to more productive sheep or goat operations than simply putting in more hours of boots on the ground are as follows:
• Source animals with genetic potential to rear multiple offspring
• Optimize nutrition to achieve genetic potential
• Strategic prevention and treatment of disease
• Develop strategies to eliminate predation
• Refine marketing strategies for all sources of livestock sales

Don’t get me wrong. I highly respect and value the work ethic of the ranching community. In my biased view, this community of people are the ones who made this country great. I also realize that working with your hands and caring for animal and the land directly give many of us purpose. I am not advocating that we all must put down our sorting sticks and trade in the old feed truck for a sedan to zip into the office in town all the time. But, there is a balance between doing what you love and doing what is needed to maintain the future of that lifestyle. You are the most important part of your ranching business so make sure your knowledge and talents are being used in the most beneficial way.

We must recognize for animal agriculture to continue for generations to come, we must take time to capitalize on opportunities. Don’t miss these opportunities because you are too busy doing chores!

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Attract Youth to Livestock Production

In Texas, we don’t even have time to break our New Year’s resolutions before stock show season gets into full swing. My 10-year-old son is in his second year of showing lambs and we just finished up our county show. Although, baseball is still his number one priority, he has grown to appreciate his livestock projects. And I am growing to appreciate what his livestock project are doing for him.

There are a few things that have changed quite a bit compared to 20 years ago when I was showing lambs. Lambs and goats are much bigger, and judges tend to like them a full body condition heavier than before. The quality and depth of competition is much stronger, which makes it more difficult to place very high at any of the major stock shows. The costs of purchasing and feeding competitive lambs and goats has also gone up. I never thought I’d see the day where I referred to a lamb as “only costing $500.”

Thankfully, the real benefits of these projects have remained the same. My son is learning important life lessons such as responsibility, general livestock care, and the value of hard work. During this process, I have had flashbacks of the time that I spent with my father and lessons that he taught me through showing lambs. I wouldn’t trade those moments for any monetary value.

My experiences in showing lambs created a passion for raising sheep and allowed me to build a bond with those who shared my interest, which forged a path that created who I am today. This is true of many youth who are involved in these livestock projects. I’d be willing to bet that a large percent of adults who have a career in agriculture, also showed animals in grade school.

But this does not mean that youth have to be involved in 4H or FFA livestock projects to develop a passion for animal agriculture. These projects require an enormous amount of time and energy that could be channeled into other efforts related to ranching.

As time has passed and the level of competition has increased, breeding of livestock show projects has taken some traits to an extreme. For the commercial producer, show lambs and goats (and most all show animals) have been bred too much for a specific look on a particular day, and not enough about performance under limited management indicative of larger scale production.

For instance, show herds may not be able to maintain adequate body condition common to Texas without a high level of supplementation. They may not rear an adequate number of lambs/kids compared to commercial genetics. These animals have not been bred for a high level of parasite resistance or resilience. Show sheep tend to not produce the best fleeces. To be honest, there is no perfect animal that can do it all. Animals bred to be superior for different traits are equally good in their own right.

Nonetheless, I feel that we now have two different industries. Show animals are bred to result in a particular appearance that the majority of judges will find pleasing to the eye. Granted these animals can have exceptionally good carcass value, but they may not be the most profitable genetics for commercial operations.

I bring this up because I personally struggled with this for years. When animals are evaluated in the showring, they are commented on their genetic superiority with terminology that is centered around livestock production. I took this to heart and for years, I could not see the value in commercial breeding animals that were good for their purpose but did not look like a show animal.

If we want to help our youth make the transition from success in the show ring to success in commercial ranching, we need to make sure that they understand that the best animals for different purposes are likely to not look the same. We also need to make sure that we are respectful to others that have animals that don’t look like ours.

Ultimately, we are all raising food and fiber (and children). We are fortunate to have a customer for most all the products that we produce and a platform for teaching our kids about livestock and life. There is no need to talk negatively about another livestock producer because they don’t raise the type of animals you do.

There is a bright future for sheep and goat production in Texas, regardless of the type of animals each of us raise. Let’s keep developing young people that will continue the tradition of ranching to feed the world, protect rural communities, and care for the land.

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Customers Want to Know More

Undoubtedly, throughout your involvement in agriculture, you have heard buzz words such as “sustainability”, “animal welfare”, and “predator friendly.” In fact, in today’s jump-to-conclusions world it is probably more than likely you haven’t been able to escape these themes in nearly everything you read or watch on TV.

To me, this is largely the result of a public who is uninformed about animal agriculture and has developed an opinion based on theoretical concepts and is limited in real-world application. Beneath the surface of these “this-is-how-you-should-do-it” declarations, we need to realize that folks want to know where their food and fiber is coming from and how it is produced. Unless we deliver that information first-hand, consumers will continue to seek information from a wide variety of outside sources. This is where Quality Assurance Program come in.

What are quality assurance programs? These programs are essentially a set of production and processing guidelines. When followed, a product can receive the program’s stamp of approval. This information can then be displayed at the retail level and folks can feel good knowing that they are buying something that was raised a certain way.

In the next year, I challenge you all to do some research into quality assurance programs and then to act on that information learned. Make a decision about whether to participate in a quality assurance program. If you choose not to participate, discuss your lack of participation with others in the industry to bring awareness of the need for small ruminant quality assurance program that fits your style of ranching.

These are touchy issues because most programs have a strict policy, which infers that there are right and wrong ways to do things. But most all long-time ranchers know that the real world isn’t “black and white” but rather “shades of gray.” So, how do we develop programs that allow good stewards the freedom to manage for the betterment of the people, animal, and natural resources?

To answer this, I think we must focus on why we need quality assurance programs. Ultimately, quality assurance programs exist to ensure consumer confidence in your product and how it is produced. I have had the great pleasure of meeting people from a wide variety of places and backgrounds. In my assessment, most consumers in the US would admire what you do at the ranch and they’d agree with 95% of what you do after you explain to them why it is necessary. However, if you watch the news, you don’t see the silent majority. You only hear from the highly vocal minority.

In my assessment, many quality assurance programs that are being promoted to American sheep producers are designed to please the minority, not the majority. Some ranchers may be able to accommodate the requirements of these strict assurance programs and benefit from the premiums (if they exist) associated with these programs. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a need for more programs that are better aligned with the majority of ranchers and consumers.

It appears that many of the companies who market your products are looking for quality assurance programs to partner with because they don’t want to manage it themselves. If the only program that exist are quite restrictive, they are then forced to work with them. This puts our industry at risk if producers have to comply with a strict quality assurance program because the company marketing our product is our only outlet and their only assurance program is a strict one. Unfortunately, for mohair producers, this might become a reality.

Procrastination has served the sheep and goat industry well on a number of things. For instance, scientific research funded by other livestock species or sheep industries overseas has provided us answers to questions without the cost of doing it. But procrastinating on developing common sense quality assurance programs that are recognized by consumers may end up biting us in the rear.

We all believe that what we are doing is “sustainable” and “ethical”, but we need to realize there is a portion of our customers that do not think that because we haven’t bothered to show or tell them. In contrast, many of them think this because we have allowed someone else to inform them of what “good animal husbandry” is. Common sense quality assurance programs are a great first step to help us share our story of sustainable sheep and goat production.

Here is a short list of assurance programs to help get your research started. We are not promoting these programs. This list is simply to make you aware of their existence, nor is this an exhaustive list:

Available in the U.S.:

SSQA

Home

Front Page 201903

Overseas Sheep Programs:
https://www.redtractor.org.uk/
https://www.rmpp.co.nz/page/nz-farm-assurance/
https://www.agriwebb.com/farmaccreditation

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.

Wool: Beyond the Stereotype

This edition of Reid’s Ram-blings was composed by Jake Thorne, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Associate. Jake has been a contributing editor to this column over the past year and is a valued asset to the sheep and goat Extension team at the San Angelo center. Enjoy!

Wool is the best kept secret in the world of natural fibers. It’s more expensive than cotton, not as prominent as leather, and not as trendy as hemp… but in my opinion, it is the premier fabric on the planet!

It may not even be fair to claim wool as a secret, as it can be argued that wool is the original fiber used for clothing. However, only recently has wool started to shed its stereotype as a winter-only sweater with a make-ya-squirm itch factor of 10.

Thanks to improved genetics and super-wash technology, developed in Australia and popularized in the last decade, that removes the “prickle” caused by wool scales and sharp fiber ends, wool is popping up as a next-to-skin apparel item for all four seasons. You’ll find it under heavy down jackets on Mt. Everest, in a camo pattern in the woods this fall, as a reflection protectant around a fisherman’s neck in Belize, and of course, on millions of feet as both socks and shoes.

It doesn’t stink. Its absorbent. It’s fire retardant. Its biodegradable in 6-months. And most importantly, it keeps your body temperature in a comfortable range… not too cool or warm. #woolcandoitall.

The point of my heavily biased promotional statement is to lead into the fact that Christmas is right around the corner and I hope you look for American wool products for your loved ones. Save the polyester for the white-elephant exchanges!

Admittedly, the majority of the wool we grow in America gets quickly snatched up by China (in the absence of trade wars), but here and there, a few apparel companies have turned their eyes to the homeland to find a domestically sourced product, and a few sheep outfits and off-the-farm-buyers have stepped up to the plate as providers. If you are interested in purchasing an item that will last forever, can be worn year round, and is 100% made in the USA, I encourage you check out the following website; https://www.americanwool.org/

With that said, wool doesn’t just happen. It takes tremendous efforts on the part of farmers, ranchers, shearers, buyers, and marketers to grow, harvest, and sell this unparalleled fiber. Truly, if it was easy, everybody would do it and wool would be cheap. However, it takes dedication to ensure the well-being of the sheep who grow it and to care of for the fiber itself, all the way from sheep to shelf.

The production of wool in the United States is truly an inspirational story that the public, who is increasingly curious about where their food and clothes come from, are falling in love with. There is history in the wool business, there is beauty in the areas it is grown, there is magic in the way it performs as a fiber, and it is the true definition of sustainability.

In Texas especially, we are fortunate to have mohair and angora goats as a major component of our fiber industry as well. Some would say that sheep turning grass into wool is a superpower, but I would argue that goats are more impressive, they grow hair living off cedar and rocks!

Here in the San Angelo office, we make it a point to promote wool and mohair in every way we can, and that mostly comes in the form of supporting those who produce it. Besides relaying the latest scientific research, we also annually hold a shearing course in early January. To steal the name from our sheep friends up north, we should really rename the event a “wool-harvesting” school.

Students will attend from across the state and country to learn the ropes of becoming a shearer. They come with a sense of curiosity about the practice and leave with sore muscles, a belly full of lamb, a new skill, and most of all, an appreciation for what it takes to play a part in producing the greatest fiber in the world. We need you to encourage young people to participate and learn this skill, which requires strength, endurance, and perseverance – traits that most all ranch kids already embody.

In closing, I want to circle back to wool as a Christmas gift. I continuously mentioned it as a clothing item, but did you know there are wool surfboards? How about wool band-aids? I bet not. So, when Santa is furiously looking for last minute ideas, let him in on the secret that is American wool. Actually, let’s face it, that red robe alone doesn’t keep him warm all night traveling through frigid conditions … I bet he already knows!

To provide feedback on this article or request topics for future articles, contact me at reid.redden@ag.tamu.edu or 325-657-7324. For general questions about sheep and goats, contact your local Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service county office. If they can’t answer your question, they have access to someone who can.