Where have all you shepherds gone?

[Smithy]

I guess everyone is really busy. It can't be that no one has had anything to say for this long
I am in the middle of my second lambing crop this year. These mamas are Texel cross yearlings that I bought already bred to a Dorper ram. I am really impressed with these lambs. Wow. They are tough, smart and extremely cute. They make lambing out first timers a breeze.
cakadu: The maremmas are maturing nicely and I really like them. They are great with the sheep but they do pounce on the odd chicken. I am cursed to have dogs that are hard on chickens. The maremmas don't bite or TRY to kill them but we have had a few accidental fatalities. They always look contrite. Maybe it is something about my chickens?

[cakadu]

Glad to hear that things are going so well Smithy. How old are the Maremmas? It could just be that the dogs are young enough that they are "playing" with the chickens and may grow out of it. Ours went after the chickens for a bit, but after a particularly harsh reprimand, he tended to leave them alone and we often saw him sleeping with a chicken either on or very close to him.

We're into our 2nd lamb crop this year and are quite pleased with the results. Lots of twins and even about 3 sets of triplets out of first timers. We tend to just like them having one their first time out, but so far these moms are looking after them pretty well.

I am wondering if most shepherds are not just waiting to see what happens with the border opening up. I must say that I am a little disappointed that there was no mention of compensation for the other ruminant species who are caught up in this border closure. While no where near as significant as the cattle industry, the lamb industry still sends a great number of lambs across the border and there isn't anything that can be done about the closure.

Maybe we need to take a few lessons from the cattle crisis and look for new markets for our lamb as well, so that things don't get so severely affected by this sort of crisis.

Your thoughts?

[Smithy]

Hello cakadu,
My maremmas were born Dec. 26th so they are teenagers. They are just playing with the chickens, problems is a couple of them have been played to death. I think I may have solved two problems at once as I wanted the dogs to stay off the deck and to not hurt chickens so I set the last one they killed on the deck and looked mad and called them chicken killers every time they went to walk past it. They are staying off the deck now and haven't even looked crosswise at a chicken for the last week. Dogs with a conscience, I love it!!!
I am glad you are getting twins and trips out of your first timers. I have had 9 singles in a row. Whine whine...
The B.C. government Agriculture web site says that B.C. farmers only produce between 15 to 20% of our lamb supply so it seems to me that it is a case of getting more organized about supplying that market more so than developing a market. I know one of the problems is that we don't produce a consistent carcass. Too many different breeds or maybe different styles of feeding and finishing? Maybe shepherds need more info on how to produce a finished lamb.

[cakadu]

The maremma (as most livestock guardians) tends to be very intelligent and while they are not there to please humans will tend to obey what they feel is the "alpha" dog.

The biggest problem that shepherds face is the fact that most lamb that is consumed here is grown and shipped here for far cheaper than what we can produce it for i.e. New Zealand and Australia. What we need to do is differentiate the product somehow, which is what some in the beef, pork and chicken industries are doing. Knowing your market is very important and providing them with a consistent product every time is critical - as you have pointed out.

Lamb is also a meat that many people don't know how to properly prepare and of course, everyone has a "grandad" who ate mutton in the war and those stories have tended to stick with people, whether they themselves have actually eaten lamb or not. Like most of the meats over the years, flavor, texture, leanness etc. have all been improved.

Our lambs are in the small to medium carcass range so we don't compete at all with the commercial end of things. Having said that though, their rib eye is comparable to that of the commercial breeds. We market directly to our customers, which in the long run is more work, but we see the majority of the money end up in our pockets versus someone elses.

It would be nice to be able to supply more of our own market, but until we can stop the flow of "cheap" lamb coming into the country we don't stand too much of a chance. Many of our lambs also go to the US and that also doesn't help our situation.

Sheep numbers have also been reduced because of the drought - at least in Alberta they were. Given the current situation, I'm not sure that sheep numbers will be coming up to any degree any time soon.

Long and short of it is, figure out who you want to target and what they want in lamb and then provide it to them. Do they want naturally raised lamb - no growth promotants, hormones or antibiotics (antimicrobials) in the feed. Do they want lean carcasses, small, medium or regular sized? What are they willing to pay for your product?

Don't go head to head with the bigger players, make yourself stand out!

Those pesky "teenage" years do go away and hopefully before long you will have all your chickens remain intact.

[nakodo]

how does the export of lambs to the US "not help our situation" ?

Lets see we sell grain fed delicious lamb to the US, they pay us more money than they do for the skinny NZ chops we see in the stores in Canada......why try to sell our superior product for less just to "keep the NZ product out" ?

[cakadu]

Right now nothing is moving to the U.S. We seem to be the forgotten in all of this banning. More was moving to the U.S. when our dollar was lower, but I don't know that they were paying us any premiums for what we could deliver; perhaps someone else can shed more light on this.

If my understanding of this is correct, we have had less compensation for lamb over the past couple of years because the U.S. lamb market was producing heavier lambs, hence it created less demand for our lamb. Lamb prices haven't been that great over the past while and had only begun to climb again when the border snapped shut.

For me, I don't see our lamb going to the U.S. as "helping us" because we are not increasing Canadian consumption of that great product that we produce. If we could increase domestic consumption and have consumers realize what a superior product we have, then we might be able to offset some of that off shore meat that keeps finding it's way in here.

We are somewhat held hostage by the amount of offshore meat that does come in. Traditionally, if the "ship came in" then there was less demand for our product - if the ship was late, didn't make it or had less on it, then the demand for domestic lamb increased. To my way of thinking - you are too much at the mercy of whatever lands on the shore.

Just like the beef industry, I'm wondering where the leadership is in the lamb industry. Why is it that we are just hearing about compensation for beef? What would it take to have something done for sheep farmers who have been dealt this blow through no fault of their own and for no apparent logical reason? Why are there no lamb barbeques being held in conjunction with all the support beef barbeques?

Just like so many other aspects of the agriculture industry, sheep farming has changed - what can we do/are we going to do to embrace these changes and have them work for us?