June/July 2003

June/July 2003

As I write this we have just about blown Baghdad off the face of the earth. I cannot imagine a war being brought into our very living rooms. The news media have made this war into a game. Sort of like the old cowboy and Indian movies of the past. To my dismay, they seem to be enjoying this violent struggle. I’m sure in the future they’ll enjoy the peace making process. Iraq has three or four different tribes all disliking each other and wanting power. This should keep our news vultures busy getting every little detail.

After reading Annette Benson’s remarks in our Suffolk News, I couldn’t help but feel how lucky we are to live in America. Her remark was that she loved her job and the contact with so many wonderful people. With most of the world in total disagreement, I thought the word “love” had become obsolete.

It’s no secret that we in the Suffolk business are in sort of a rut. Could it be we let the two “S” words get the best of us for the past four or five years? I’m sure here at Buckham Farms it did as we wanted to get our flocks RR as quickly as possible and used rams that were not up to par. Another large factor… breeders are no longer promoting their sheep, or have they defended our great breed? Think of the publicity the Dorper, St. Croix, Katahdin and other breeds are getting in our sheep magazines, to say nothing of the goats, while we Suffolk breeders stand around with our hands in our pockets doing nothing. All of these new breeds are small, while most of the top ten breeds continue to try to get their sheep taller, which for some reason the show ring demands. A perfect example of this is the Dorset breed, which has gained five or six inches in the past few years. I’ll be the first to admit these big tall sheep are a thing of beauty and look great in the show ring, but they are no longer practical for people like us who make our living from the land and the livestock that walk on it.

My grandson Jeff is a senior at Michigan State. He took a course in the promotion of purebred marketing. One of the things he did was make up an advertisement that could be used in livestock magazines. To make a long story short, he made an up an ad for the Feb-March issue of the Suffolk News. We couldn’t believe the inquiries we got. For those of you who have sheep to sell, I urge you to put an ad in our pretty magazine. You’ll be shocked by the correspondence you get.

I urge more breeders to write letters to the editor. How else can our directors help with your concerns or problems if they are not told? These letters are always interesting and make our magazine better. Now I know you fellows can write letters, because a year ago I made the statement that men 21 to 45 could not put words on paper if their lives depended on it. I could not believe the letters I got from this age group proving they could write letters!

One of the reasons I like “Letters to the Editor” is that it gives me something to comment on in future articles. I enjoyed the letter from Jack Blattner of Kuna, Idaho. Mr. Blattner was producing commercial rams, so of course he is special to me. One of our troubles is we have forgotten this very important profitable market, the commercial man. Jack tells how important Suffolk rams are to the western breeders with white-faced ewes. This has been a historical practice for years. He tells how these crossbred lambs can take valueless plant species on range land and produce some of the best meat product from it with a quick rate of gain. He makes another great point which I know is very true…telling about rams that are just too large and extreme. They are not effective breeders. In many cases these rams have little sex drive; too often they are laying in the shade with sore feet and legs and have a bad habit of dying at an early age.

The show ring can take the blame for this serious fault. Sheep are being judged today on what inexperienced men and women think looks good instead of what is best for the sheep. We have bred the pasterns off. They no longer have the heavy bone and larger feet that they once had. They are walking on their toes and no longer have the flex or the cushion they once had. If sheep were saddle horses, it would be a dang hard ride. When you good sheep people are at your county fair, go look at the horses, you’ll be shocked by the long strong pasterns.

I always find this fascinating when I hear young breeders, or most judges discuss how a sheep should walk. I wish someone would tell me where they got their knowledge on this important issue. Unless one has raised sheep for years, seen them walking in large fields, or better yet, been to the western states where sheep walk for miles to find something to fill their bellies, how would they know? At times I feel we have done to the big sheep what we have done to our pets. We get an idea of what we want them to look like and we breed them that way. Look at some of the cat and dog breeds. We have pushed their noses in so far back in their heads that they can’t smell properly, let alone breathe right. Many of the dog breeds have hip and eye problems.

No way can I write an article in April without mentioning the club lamb sales. When one talks about a three ring circus, these many sales are just that. In my lifetime of raising sheep never have I seen anything so competitive. Every one is trying to sell some kid show lambs. The commercial feeders are even trying this and can’t believe their cross bred lambs can’t compete with these great Suffolk lambs.

It seems that these lambs sell in three groups. We have lambs selling from $500 to $3,000. The next group range from $200 to $500. Then of course, there are the tail end lambs from $75 to $120. What few breeders don’t know is that these lambs would bring more at the stockyards for Easter lambs. The prices paid for these outstanding lambs are almost unthinkable to me. When Mom and Dad let Junior or Sis pay over $400 for a lamb, I hope that you’re a better judge than I am on picking young lambs. Today you not only have to be good, you have to be really lucky in order to win a lamb show. Somehow I would prefer to buy three or four in the $200 to $400 range, and hope that there is a winner in pure numbers. We have been having a club lamb sale for thirty years; our kids or now grandkids always get the younger ones, without keeping in mind that many of these lambs can change drastically within three or four months.

If one thinks that the lambs are bad, think about the pig sales. The pigs, like the cattle, have boars only for show pigs, as the cattle are now doing the same, we have bulls for steer calves, and bulls for heifers. If one thinks that the showing of market animals has not become competitive and complicated, think again.

The grandkids have purchased eight pigs for our county fair. These pigs are so muscle bound I can hardly look at them. They have a line down their backs and their hams are like two basketballs, plus you can count their ribs they are so lean. I wouldn’t eat one of these freaks if I were starving to death.

I’m beginning to think that all of these trends in the livestock world are making me old. In fact, if it gets any worse, it may be the death of me before my time. The one thing that upsets me the most is that we are not registering our livestock. I received a catalog from the Ohio Suffolk Sale and there were sixty-seven whether-type sheep that should be entered in the sale, sixty-six of them were not registered. The question of course is, are we going the way of the pigs and the poultry where the purebreds are a thing of the past?

Are these old cultures and customs of the past gone forever? I’m sure that I was brought up in a different world than most of you. My good old father wouldn’t think of having an animal that wasn’t purebred. I can remember back to the Great Depression, we were poor as church mice, yet my father would always have a purebred Collie dog. The dog had to be marked with the perfect orange and white Collie colors; the dog’s head had to be long and stylish. He didn’t care if the dog even looked at the livestock, all he was expected to do was to look pretty and be faithful, never letting salesmen out of their car. Could it be that those times are gone forever?

Hey- maybe we need some more of Mrs. Benson’s love.