Story Telling Time

February/March 2005

As I start the New Year, I always look back, reflecting on the intelligent things we did and of course, a few things that were not too brilliant. The one thing that never changes is my thoughts on being a farmer and raising livestock. Not the most lucrative way of making a living. We are rich in land, great farm equipment, and animals, but for some reason, our pockets are never filled with money. With that being said, it’s still the greatest occupation in America, a lifestyle like no other. The greatest place to raise our children and grandchildren, throw in a good flock of Suffolk sheep, and life is a joy.

I got my hands on a 2004 USSA Suffolk survey comments that many of you good Suffolk breeders filled out and sent back with your ballot. I’m told that this survey was only for the directors to read, but being a part of our magazine, I felt it important to read it. The survey was twenty pages long, printed in small type, filled with great thoughts and ideas. I hope that the Board of Directors will read them carefully. I was overwhelmed by the many times my name or Story Telling was mentioned as your favorite part of the Suffolk News; I was deeply touched. One reader remarked that George and Annette were their favorite part of the magazine, and being mentioned with our outstanding secretary was a reward in itself. Another remark that amused me was that George Buckham is wonderful and his stories are the best things that lighten your evening when you set down for the night after a busy day. Nice, you bet.

After all the good stuff, it’s only fair that I mention the five remarks that maybe question my knowledge or my thoughts. My grandson, Tom, at fifteen years of age, was shocked by two comments; he thought that everyone loved his old Granddad. You can be sure that this fellow didn’t. On two of the survey questions his remarks were “less of George” and another was “more information but not by George B.” Now one thing is for sure: either this fellow does not like me or he would give his soul to have my job.

I thought that the next three remarks were sincere and had a point, so I’ll respond to them. The first being: “I love George Buckham’s articles except he should not preach the type of Suffolks he thinks everyone should raise. Let him take out an ad if he wants to promote his type.” My response to this thought is being raised in the 1930s where we almost scratched the very earth to survive. I feel that the showing of livestock should have some bearing on what the commercial man is doing. As for taking out an ad, I do not get a penny for writing these articles, in fact, I give my special granddaughters twenty dollars for getting them corrected and typed and e-mailed to Mrs. Benson; I probably ought to give them forty for reading my messy writing and editing my dumb mistakes. One thing is for sure, when we get all our sheep to be RR, I’ll have a lot of ads.

The next one was: “I love reading articles written by George Buckham. He complains about breeders getting Suffolks too tall. However, I would like to put the blame on the judges that tend to encourage height if you want to be in the winning circle. Bigger does not necessarily mean better.” This is a great statement today; recently, we took 80 commercial lambs to market, the first out of close to 400 lambs. We picked every poor lamb that was getting fat or not doing well. The first group weighed 89 pounds and brought $1.49 per pound. We sorted another poor group at 111 pounds that were also fat and brought $1.28 per pound. Then, to fill the trailer, we took good lambs at 140 pounds that sold for $1.03 per pound. The morale of this story is that runts sold for almost or as much as the good lambs. Just maybe, this person was right about big not necessarily being best. It’s a fact that we do get a lot of money for poor or light lambs, because Detroit has the largest ethnic group of people in America. Hopefully these aren’t the only people eating lamb.

The last comment was: “I was sad to see George Buckham slamming once again the wether type sheep. I enjoy his history but not his feeling towards the wether shows in his writing. He needs to look at those younger breeders and ask why did they go to this type?” This writer tells of his son being shunned by some of the frame type breeders at sales, not all, but a few. These are the breeders that are giving the Suffolk name a bad reputation. He ends his statement with: “Not all wether breeders give drugs and hold water out.” It’s true, I have been hard on some of the wether type sheep, but maybe more so on the frame sheep. This fellow is sure right about helping the younger breeders. If anyone should be able to relate to the kids, it’s me. I have raised four children and have my two sons running our farms with their nine children, all being a part of our sheep business. I’ll try even harder to help the young breeders in the future.

While I don’t get paid money for writing in the Suffolk News, I get rewarded in many different ways. I get to meet people I would never know if it weren’t for my articles. I still get cards and letters, not as many as I used to, but I find it special that people take the time to put some words on paper. While my articles are like no others, I still think it gives the small breeder and hobby breeder a look at farming and what it’s like to have a very large number of sheep and a lot of land that help to support our farms and large family. With that being said, I feel that, if anything, over the last two years, my writing has probably hurt our family’s purebred business. My remarks about going back to the 1970s and 80s with a middle of the road sheep does not exactly bring buyers rushing to our farms, beating our barn doors down. It seems that one group of people buying Suffolk sheep today want the frame type or show sheep, while the other group of buyers wants wether type sheep. I do feel that in the future, the wether type sheep will be bigger and be in the middle. There is money in the sheep business, my friends. I feel that too many purebred breeders forget that there is big profit in selling lambs for meat; the sale of purebred sheep is not our only option.

Of all the letters that I got this Christmas, I’ll share the one that I got from Al Kjeldgaard. Al is a long time breeder of big powerful Suffolk sheep. Mr. Kjeldgaard lives in Tekamah, Nebraska; he sent me a great Christmas story, a lot like the story that I’ve told about my father pulling out the gas truck at Christmas time with his great team of horses. I almost sent this letter to Mrs. Benson to put in the “Letters to the Editor” column but thought maybe it was only meant for me. Al gave me an update on what has happened to the Suffolk business in his area. He tells about selling 100 to 150 ram lambs 20 years ago for commercial breeders today; now he tells me that he sells zero. He goes on to say that it has nothing to do with the type of sheep he raises but because no one is left in the business. In fact, they are down to one commercial flock in his county. Al goes on to say that the Wyoming and South Dakota ranches have all sold out. The reason that he raises Suffolk sheep is because he loves the big frame type. He tells basically that they are show sheep only. The challenge of breeding and showing them are his passion.

Al tells me that we are lucky that the Suffolk sheep is so versatile; we can have the best in wether type, commercial, and frame sheep. Mr. Kjeldgaard goes on to say that when he buys a car, General Motor doesn’t care if he buys a compact, mid-size, or a big luxury car, they just want to sell him a car that makes him happy, so shouldn’t we Suffolk breeders take the same approach? He goes on to say that we need to find ways to get more new breeders in the Suffolk business no matter what type they like. Good advice from a veteran breeder.

This is Story Telling Time. I’ve been getting pretty serious this past year, and I thought that you might enjoy this story. I’ve been telling about one of our pastures being a stone’s throw away from a very large Wal-Mart. Late this fall, 200 or 300 commercial ewes got out and, of course, headed for this Wal-Mart. We were 12 miles from this pasture shelling corn on one of our Schoolcraft farms. By the time that they finally contacted us, there were policemen and animal control workers, and other people trying to drive the sheep back as they were frolicking about the parking lot. This is not the first time that this has happened, so a young policeman gave my son Jeff a ticket for all of the excitement that the sheep created. When this happens, you go before a judge in the 8th district court in Kalamazoo. For some reason, the policemen did not turn in the complaint, and Jeff got off free and clear.

This happened to me six years ago where I live. 60 Suffolk ewes got into a beautiful, expensive housing development not far from our house. These houses are on lots of 1 to 2 acres, and the cheapest home would be about $500,000. These people love our sheep and could care less if they got out. In fact, it gives them a “country atmosphere.” To make a long story short, the policeman gave me a ticket, and I had to go appear in court before a judge. I decided that I had better clean up well to make a good impression. I must admit that I looked good; I had on my best sport coat, shirt and tie that all match to perfection. I took my good wife to impress the judge as well. My boots were polished up so well that you could see yourself in them. When we came in to the courthouse, all of the policemen couldn’t believe that people looking like us would appear in the 8th district court. They sure treated us specially; one even escorted us to the big room. We got there early so that we would be on time. As the room started filling up, I could see that we didn’t fit in with the rest of the people there. I was still cool and calm and had my speech to the judge well-rehearsed.

The first person called up was a drunk, the next was a young woman caught driving while drunk, and the next was a fellow who had sold drugs. By this time, I was feeling very nervous. The next was a fellow caught with a gun in his car, plus drugs. Then, low in behold, the next was a prostitute. By this time, I was numb. What I know about “ladies of the night” and what they do would add up to zero. All that I wanted to do was get out of there. The next person, of course, was me. They called “sheep out” but my speech might as well have been in my feet for all of the good that it did me. The gal taking notes gave me a wink, which helped, but the poor judge didn’t know what to say or do. After thinking about it, he almost apologized but said that the lowest fine that he could charge me was $50. We immediately got out of the room, and my wife paid my fine. All of the officials were so nice and felt badly, but I didn’t mind the $50. All that I wanted to do was get back to the sanity of our farms. The moral of this story is to forget about those silly electric fences: build real ones. Being around drunks, drug dealers, and prostitutes is no place for an old farmer. It was actually mind-boggling.

I’ll close this rambling article with the importance of having RR sheep. The end of last August, we had a chance to export sheep to Israel. We didn’t want to sell any ewes but told them that we had ram lambs that we could sell. We picked out ten that we would sell. They took eight of them. The only thing that seemed to count was that the rams be QR, be correct, and have large testicles. Then a day before, they were going to pick them out, they said that they would take only RR rams. Of the eight, only two were RR. They did pay for collecting the blood, so we were not upset about having them take the lambs. I feel that this is a good lesson to everyone: all purebred sheep must be RR or it is a lot harder to sell them, maybe impossible.

I’ll take back what I said in my last article, that being that sheep people could no longer put words on paper. I couldn’t believe all of the great information on “Ask the Experts,” the best part of our magazine. I sure enjoyed their remarks but was amazed at so much tube feeding to baby lambs at birth. If I can’t make a lamb nurse, which is very seldom, I get out my bottle, milk the ewe, and let it nurse the bottle instead. Sticking a tube in my belly, or a lamb, gives me the willies.

As someone who does a little writing, you can be sure that no breed magazine can come close to ours. I was pleased to see Bill MacCauley elected president, an outstanding fellow with young kids. Bill makes the fifth president since I have been writing in the Suffolk News. All great sheep associations have outstanding presidents, and, of course, the very important breed secretaries. Who loves us and the Suffolk breed any more than Annette Benson, our secretary?

I must be going on ten years writing for the Suffolk News. Anyone who knows anything about writing will tell you that ten years is a long time as people get tired of your remarks and thoughts. I hope that this is not happening to me.

Once again, I thank everyone for their kind remarks in the Suffolk Survey. My New Year’s resolution is to get to more of our big shows and sales to see more of you good breeders. One thing is for sure, I’ll be at Sedalia, my very favorite sheep event.

Hey-- the greatest occupation that a person can have is being a farmer and raising livestock. We are rich in land, great farm equipment, and animals, but for some reason, our pockets are never filled with money.