Story Telling Time

August/September 2004

This year, I was able to attend the Mid-West Stud Ram Sale in Sedalia, Missouri, the greatest sheep event in the world. My large family made sure that I attended; they didn’t want me pouting for another year. My sons made sure that all of the grandchildren knew exactly what to do around the farm and assured me that there would be no mistakes and that things would run smoothly. The large consignment of all breeders was encouraging. If there was ever a time for more sheep, it is today. Not only were the large barns filled with sheep, they probably sold at record prices, especially the Suffolks. This was my vacation, and for three full days, I did nothing but sit my bony old body in a chair and watch the sheep being shown and sold. For all of you good sheep people that take the time to tell me that you still enjoy my articles, I’m deeply touched, even honored. I wonder how many of you realize what a great, pretty magazine we have in our Suffolk News. We actually have people that can put words on paper in an interesting fashion. I feel that adding “Ask the Experts” helps to make our magazine even more interesting and informing. Perhaps we should be selling subscriptions to our outstanding magazine.

I have probably done more thinking about this article than any that I have written in years. Perhaps one of the problems of getting older is that one thinks too much. I’m sure that you realize by now, my family and I are dirt farmers. Our only income is from livestock and the crops that we grow. We will breed 250 purebred ewes, have purchased another flock of 150 commercial ewes and their lambs, so we will have 1,000 or more commercial ewes. The commercial ewes change one’s view of the sheep business. Big and tall is not the object in this endeavor. These ewes must get by on a lot of grass, hay, and corn silage at lambing time. We don’t want these ewes over 175 pounds, maybe a little more at lambing time. They must be thick with lots of capacity. These ewes will be bred to our best, fast-growing Suffolk and Shropshire rams who don’t weigh over 375 pounds. These rams must be filled with sex drive, be very agile, and move around quickly. They must mature quickly; rams that take three years to grow are not for the commercial business.

The commercial business is a very profitable one. We sold the tail end of our spring lambs today. They weighed 140 pounds and brought $1.05, a lot of money for average lambs. With that being said, I’m going to say some things that will not make a lot of you good Suffolk breeders happy. It seems that I’ve been writing in the Suffolk News for years. When I started, I was told to give my opinions and hopefully get breeders to at least think. Until I’m told differently by the powers in the Suffolk business, I’ll continue.

Not being to the Mid-West Sale the past two years, I was amazed at how tall the three old white-faced wool breeds had gotten. The Dorsets were so tall that I was shocked. I’ve always thought of these breeds as mother breeds that the commercial man wants so that they can be bred to good, fast-growing Suffolk rams. Just maybe, the show-ring has demanded these breeds to get taller, and now the commercial breeders no longer count. What may be worse, the commercial breeders might not care what purebred breeders are doing and are breeding their own type of rams. The second thing that really blew my old mind was the cell phones. Everyone was talking on these tiny phones! I’m sure that the genius who invented this little gadget must be rolling in money. My wife was so impressed that she bought one for me and one for herself. The grandkids get them fixed up, taking an hour to explain to us how to work these little miracles. I’ve mastered mine, I think, but I’m not sure that my wife ever will as they’re almost as complicated as the computer she purchased a few months ago. The ending of this no-account story is that the batteries are dead on both of them, but then the grandkids will control this problem.

If I remember in my last article, I stated that I would get back to our great breed of Suffolk sheep and stop rambling about other subjects. I feel that we are all interested in a little history, so I’ll go back to 1972 or ‘73 when our great university, Michigan State, purchased the King and the Queen from Olson Brothers of Utah. They paid $12,000 for the King and $10,000 for the Queen. You can be sure that we were flabbergasted by these prices. This was a boom for the Western breeders, and you can be sure that they enjoyed taking money from the Mid-Western and Eastern breeders. We thought that the King was the biggest, most massive sheep we had ever seen. He was 34 and 1/3 inches tall and weighed 375; the Queen was a thing of pure beauty and almost as big. Today, of course, they wouldn’t be as big as a lot of the wether sheep. The King was a great ram and improved many of our Michigan flocks. The good people at MSU shocked us again this year, going to Bob Kimms’ sale in Iowa and buying the top-selling ram. All of the Suffolk sales were great this year, but maybe Mr. Kimms was the greatest as he sold 73 rams for over$1,000 each. His sale grossed $116,085. There were 21 states represented with 131 buyers. All of Bob’s sheep are middle of the road sheep with every kind of data that a sheep could have, just like the bulls that the beef breeds sell.

George Good, the outstanding shepherd and mentor to every student who comes his way at MSU, felt like we did last year, that he had to make a change and go back in time to the 1970’s. I had a long conversation with Rob Zellinksy, director from Iowa and Bob’s sheep partner, and discussed that maybe these two good breeders owe me a few bucks for telling the college people how great these middle of the road rams worked on frame ewes. The morale of this story is that many of the frame sheep are now six, maybe eight, inches taller in only 30 years. What will the next 30 bring? I thought that my son, George, had a good thoughtful article in “Ask the Experts” in our June-July magazine. The subject was selecting a ram that would have a functional, positive economic impact on one’s flock. He ended the article telling about my twin brother, Fred, who was sort of a second father to my sons, plus a director for many years on the Suffolk breed. He tells about Fred always saying, “Why? Why? Why?” when they would do something dumb. George ended this article when you think that you have finally decided on your next ram, be sure and ask yourself “Why?” Just maybe we should be asking ourselves “Why are our sheep getting so big?”

I couldn’t help thinking what it would be like having them on their rear ends and shearing them. Their heads would be a foot above your own, probably looking down on you and nibbling (or biting off!) your ears. What someone my age thinks about the size of these huge, beautiful, stylish sheep doesn’t mean spit. Purebred sheep breeders are in a world of their own. These sheep are selling great, breeders are enthused and having fun, the shows and sales make for a wonderful way of meeting people and making life-long friendships.

For years, we had a good herd of 50 purebred Angus cattle. In the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s, cattle people got the idea that they should be taller, so we followed along. To make a long story short, we couldn’t win a steer show with these tall, narrow cattle. We immediately got a crossbred steer-type bull and could once again win steer shows, but we never got back into the Angus business, something that I always regret. Today the Angus cattle are by far the most popular breed of beef cattle, and they look like they did in the 1970’s. In fact, many of the beef breeds are black now, trying to compete with the Angus. Even the old breed of Hereford cattle are starting to breed black cattle with white faces.

Today, we are not going to make the same mistake that we made with our purebred herd of Angus cattle. We always want to have a large flock of Suffolk sheep, but we’ll stay in the middle of the road, meaning that we’ll use rams 36 to 38 inches tall. As I’ve written in other articles, we used two great rams that we purchased from Tom Slack of Indiana last year, and never has lambing been so easy. We have kept careful records on these lambs, and at 150 pounds, they were still a few pounds ahead of the frame lambs.

At this time in my life, I find sheep people as interesting as the sheep that they raise. As I sat and watched the Suffolk shows, there were of course two types of sheep: the frame sheep on one day and the wether or market sheep on the next day. The frame breeders were mostly 40 to 60 years old while the market lamb breeders were anywhere from 15 to 35 years. The pride that the older people took in their sheep was special; it was fun to watch them show with Ron Young judging them. Bob Wagner, our president, had champion ram. It was rewarding to see how elated he was. I think that he said this was his first time that he brought sheep to Sedalia. I couldn’t help thinking how fortunate we were to have so many outstanding presidents to lead our association since I’ve been writing in the Suffolk News starting with David Bogue of South Dakota, then John Eagle from Oregon whom I think has now moved to Idaho. These men stuck their necks out to get both associations to merge, plus they helped keep the peace. Next was Farrell Wankier of Utah who got us out of the red, made our association once again profitable, and now, of course, we have Bob Wagner. While talking about these four outstanding presidents, our breed secretary, Mrs. Benson, and her hardworking staff must get a lot of the credit. At Sedalia, Mrs. Benson was getting our big lunch ready, and I felt that this showed how dedicated she really is.

The wether breeders had so many colors that it was difficult to follow. The blacks, blues, and grays seemed to make the show almost a blur. The white rams seemed to stand out. There was a huge group of young breeders watching this show, and when the sheep were judged, the crowed immediately swarmed on the sheep like bees on honey, handling almost all of them. I get a chuckle out of this and wondered if 50% of them knew what they were really feeling. The stories that I heard about fitting some of these market lambs are like a horror story to an old livestock man like myself. Giving them eight ounces of water per day for two weeks before a show, drugs to make them have that hard feeling, plus too many things that I find hard to believe, makes me almost sick. Think of all of the trouble that many of the star athletes are getting into over drugs. We sure don’t need this in the sheep business. I will never figure out why we don’t have a rule that water and straw are required in all pens. Another good rule would be to make most of these market lambs show terminal. I feel that this is really hurting the reputation of the great market lamb breeders who are doing things the right way. I wonder how some of these young people and their mothers and fathers will feel when they get to be my age. Somehow I doubt that the memories of champion lambs will have a true feeling or meaning.

For those of you who enjoy all types and breeds of sheep and need an enjoyable vacation, I recommend going to Sedalia, a great, friendly town where sheep people take over and are treated specially. The fairgrounds are old and rustic, and you’ll meet sheep people from all over America making it a special vacation indeed.

Hey -- maybe we should be asking ourselves WHY we are getting these beautiful, stylish sheep so big.