December/January 2002/2003

December/January 2002/03

As I write this article, it’s the day before Thanksgiving. As always, my dear old wife of almost 54 years is scurrying around, getting ready for the big meal with our large family. If this isn’t bad enough, she’s making plans for Christmas. Our grandchildren are wondering when we will have our annual sheep drive of two miles down busy streets, plus crossing a five lane highway, to be put in the barns at my home where we’ll start feeding them specially for the late January and February lambing. They are also bugging their grandmother about the big pancake, eggs, and sausage breakfast that we always have after the drive. This great old custom and culture will always be in the thoughts and minds of our dear children. The special memories of these wonderful days and the great bonding we all share will always leave them with a legacy about the hard yet wonderful life of breeding livestock and farming. At this time in my life, I always act as dumb as a fence post or very charming. The things I get out of doing this are amazing.

While on the subject of memories, I thought I would expand on a word that Tom Burke used while doing a good, fast job of judging the Suffolks at Louisville. The word was “scavenger,” meaning, I think, that a Suffolk sheep should get by on eating all kinds of plants and still function properly. This word and Tom’s thoughts had all the young breeders talking and doing some serious thinking. In short, I feel Tom was telling all Suffolk breeders that we need a sheep that can take a harsh environment if need be, and to do this, they need plenty of capacity. Could it be we need more, older men with years of experience in the livestock business like Tom Burke judging our sheep shows? Something to think about…

While I seem to be going down memory lane, I’m going to share a great conversation with outstanding Suffolk club lamb breeder, Tom Slack of Indiana. To explain my point, I need to tell you first where our own sheep are. I’m sure by now that many of you realize that our sheep are mostly kept on two of our farms that are almost in the city of Kalamazoo. The city people love to look at the sheep in the pasture and enjoy them even more at lambing time. The only drawbacks are the coyotes, maybe worse here than they are in the west. To our disbelief, we had an outstanding wether-type ram lamb that we had turned in with some older ewes get killed by coyotes. This ram was killed not a hundred feet from the road where ten thousand cars pass by each day. Needing a ram immediately and wanting one with papers, we contacted Tom Slack. Now Tom lives only ninety miles from us, but it takes forever getting there because of all the small towns in Indiana: many thriving, many dying.

While Tom had one of the most modern sheep farms I have ever been at, the thing that really impressed and amazed me was that talking with him was like going back in time when we had so many master breeders of sheep. Every sheep kid in America should talk with this enthusiastic fellow or, maybe better yet, just shut up and listen. At this time, he had well over two hundred wether-type ewes. He was hand breeding these ewes to five older rams and three ram lambs. Never in my life have I seen such a powerful set of stud rams. If there was ever a money-making sheep operation, this is it.

He told about going to the 1979 Suffolk shows at Louisville when he was twenty-five years old, having the Reserve Champion Suffolk ram plus the Champion and Reserve Champion wether lambs, all from the same breeding. The Suffolk business was going wild in an era that, sadly, we may never see again. He told about the historic purchase that Michigan State made when they paid an unbelievable price for the King and Queen at Des Moines, Iowa in the early 1970’s. This was the beginning of the huge change in our Suffolk sheep. I remember this special event more than Tom. The King brought $12,600. He was bred by the Olson Brothers of Utah. This was also the period of the western influence on our Suffolk industry. The King was the biggest sheep we had ever seen; he was almost 35 inches tall with a huge flat bone, his feet were like an Angus bull, and as I remember, he weighed 376 pounds. Today, most club rams are bigger and will probably continue this trend. This great ram was very important to my brother and I as well as many Suffolk breeders all over America. The Queen was a thing of pure beauty, almost as tall as the King, and they paid $1,800, which was unheard of for a ewe. My brother and I were dumbfounded that our college would pay such a huge amount.

Tom and I had a long, interesting talk about the ‘70s and ‘80s when any black-faced ewe would bring $300 and the good ones would go for $1000 and up. The money a Suffolk ewe could make back then was almost unreal. We both worry about the things that are happening today. At that time, there was no difference in types and ideas that today have driven a wedge in our great breed and that may cripple our future success. He made the remark that breeders today need to bury the hatchet, forget whether they are frame breeders or wether breeders, and join together to promote our Suffolk sheep. For those of you who enjoy and love our great breed, I urge you to have a conversation with this master breeder.

Getting back to our modern days and great conversations, I’ll share an interesting one that Al Culham and I had at our annual Suffolk picnic which is always held in September. Al is sort of similar to Tom Slack in being a great promoter of the Suffolk sheep that he has been raising since he was a small kid. The difference between these fellows is that Al loves a good argument and will not back down from his thinking or convictions. In fact, he had two terms as a National Director and started two or three worthwhile projects that did not come easily.

Our conversation was we should show all Suffolk sheep shorn at our Michigan State Fair. He felt, as I do, that we need to take a drastic step, go in a different direction, cause some excitement and get people talking about our breed, and last but not least, help our Suffolk sheep. So at the very end of our meeting, Al made the shocking notion to show all Suffolk sheep shorn at the State Fair. Our good president, Terry Renn, who is never lost for words, was speechless. He finally asked for a second to the motion which I promptly made. Every breeder but two voted for the motion. The two breeders against the motion were and are doing a great job with their sheep and are very successful today. They felt it would destroy the great beauty and style of the sheep and the show in general. I used to think this way. In fact, I thought it would be almost criminal, but one only has to look at the club lambs, Southdowns, and now Shropshires who are making the greatest recovery of all breeds and had one of the greatest National Shows at the Indiana State Fair I have ever attended with close to 400 sheep. Breeders were excited, and the sheep had made a great improvement in only three or four years of doing this. They actually looked pretty and stylish once again.

We must forget about slick-shearing our breeding sheep like the club lambs do. The flies drive them crazy in the summer, and in the fall or winter, they are just plain cold. All you need is a regular shearing comb so they don’t have that terrible, naked look. My story has a sad ending. These two outstanding breeders who opposed the idea got the State Fair officials to defeat our motion. I want all of you good Suffolk breeders to know that I’ll keep you informed on how this story ends next August at our State Fair. Will all of us who are in favor of this motion keep our convictions and show sheep shorn while the other two or any out of state breeders show them trimmed? The other interesting factor will be whether or not the average man or woman will be able to judge them. I have a feeling that the poor judge will be shell-shocked unless they have been breeding sheep for years. You can be sure this would be no place for a green-horned judge. Al Culham told me at our annual Bred-Ewe Sale that Michigan is now number two in the registering of Suffolk sheep in America. California, I think, was number one. I find this very interesting and exciting. Will we good Michigan breeders set a historic trend for the future?

Now that we are on the subject of showing sheep, what about the club lamb situation? Could it be that it’s almost out of control? I have been told and have read that the champion and reserve champion lambs at the Iowa State Fair were pulled from the Sale of Champions. Ultimately this great show of over 900 lambs had neither a champion nor reserve champion lamb. If this wasn’t bad enough, the champion steer sold for $16,000 before they kicked him out. The owners got an emergency ruling from a judge to get the steer reinstated. The controversy is awaiting a final outcome in the courts. Could it be that we are turning our great shows into a ghetto-like atmosphere because of a few bad apples?

If this isn’t bad enough, Ohio State University researchers with the Department of Animal Science and College of Veterinary Medicine have joined forces to implement a tail-docking educational program designed to give Ohio producers and exhibitors the opportunity to observe the recommended industry practices of docking the tails of lambs.

In my wildest dreams, I cannot imagine this great university trying to teach sheep breeders how to cut tails. While American agriculture is fighting for its very life and the family farm is almost a thing of the past; is this all that Ohio State has to offer in the great farming state of Ohio? Any fool knows the surgical cutting of tails into a lamb’s back is a cruel and wrong act. Yet is this any worse than drenching them, giving them hardly any water so we can brag about how hard they handle in the show ring? Or how about putting muzzles on them so they can’t eat a thing, always grabbing them by their ears and jacking them around or picking their front ends up, plus a bunch of other things that I won’t mention? Let’s face it; there is a lot of talk but very little action on this subject in most states. In short, who is going to enforce the rules? Are we going to put this problem on the judge or the show superintendent? Are they expected to kick these kids out of the show? I’ve finally come up with a way to take care of the problem. It’s simple, maybe even amazing. At the county fair, we’ll get the town cop! If he can’t see or feel the tail, the kid is out! At the State Fairs and big shows, we’ll get the biggest, toughest State policeman with a big old gun and billy club hanging from his belt, and he’ll do the same thing. Maybe I’ll even have him go further and check each pen before the show for any pen that doesn’t have straw and a pail of water. We’ll throw their parents in jail for a night and maybe give them a bone to chew on but no water. Crazy, wild, ridiculous, unheard of… you bet! But is this any dumber than a great university wasting the tax payer’s money on something we have been doing for a hundred years?

Hey—I hope you young breeders get the thrill of walking down memory lane like I did. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!