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January-February
2005 Newsletter of the ATTRA - National Sustainable Agricultural Information Service: A project of the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT). In this issue:
=============================================== Great Grazing with Sheep and Goats
Small ruminants can fit into farms in a variety of ways. Their grazing preferences make them ideal animals to feed on weeds, brush, and other plants that cattle often won't eat (multiflora rose and pigweed are two notorious examples). The small size of sheep and goats makes them less likely to damage wet soils. They are easier to work with than cattle, cheaper to buy and maintain, and require less equipment. They are prolific and do well on forages. The varied
products of small ruminants — milk, cheese, wool, meat, leather
or skins, manure, and specialty items like soaps and lotions — are easy
to
market, once a market is found. Current prices for meat goats and lambs are
very good. Because goats and sheep mature quickly and have a short gestation,
farmers can bring products to market very quickly, improving their cash flow.
This also means that herd and flock sizes can be rapidly increased.
Return on investment is usually better for small ruminant
enterprises than for cattle. What are Ruminants? Ruminants are grazing animals whose complex stomachs are capable of digesting large quantities of grasses and shrubs. Sheep and goats are known as small ruminants. For more information see ATTRA's Goats:Sustainable Production Overview.
Small Ruminants to the Rescue
A grant awarded to Dr. Karen Launchbaugh (University of Idaho) and Dr. John Walker (Texas A&M University) will result in a much-needed new handbook, Prescribed Grazing for Vegetation Management: A Handbook for Sheep and Goat Producers and Land Managers. NCAT staff have been invited to contribute to this new guide, which is funded by USDA's National Sheep Industry Improvement Center. The ATTRA Web site will be a gateway to the new manual, which will be published in early 2006. Other partners on the project include the American Sheep Industry Association, the Joe Skeen Institute for Rangeland Restoration, and the Montana Sheep Institute. The new handbook will address the details of managing grazing sheep and goats to remove weeds, reduce fire frequency, and improve plant composition on rangelands and wildlife habitat. Many states are facing serious land management problems due to the spread of flammable brush, leafy spurge, spotted knapweed, yellow starthistle, cheatgrass, salt cedar, and kudzu. Property owners generally hire crews to apply expensive herbicides or to hoe, chop, and burn unwanted vegetation. Sheep and goats are proving to be an even more effective tool. In the Northern Great Plains, for example, leafy spurge aggressively competes with native plants on more than 3 million acres of rangeland. Cattle avoid grazing leafy spurge, but small ruminants find it a nutritious and desirable forage. In many areas of Montana and North Dakota, sheep and goats are reducing the dominance of leafy spurge for as little as $.60 per acre, compared to a cost of $35 per acre to spray herbicides from a helicopter. According to Dr. John Walker, the traditional products of the sheep and goat industry — meat, wool, and dairy products — are vulnerable to foreign competition, but vegetation management is not. Furthermore, controlled grazing can convert unwanted vegetation on power line easements, irrigation canals, roadsides, forest plantations, and orchards into saleable products. For more information on the project and related topics, contact NCAT Agriculture Specialist Linda Coffey at lindac@ncat.org. Only Ewes
Can Prevent Wildfire
Reducing Parasite Problems in Small Ruminants
Internal parasites are a major health concern for sheep and goats. The problem is compounded by the fact that the parasites are rapidly becoming resistant to de-worming medications. Therefore, management must be the primary method for sustainable control of internal parasites You can reduce parasite problems by having a low stock density and rotating your animals to different pastures. All parasite infestations occur when the animal ingests the infective larval stage in contaminated pasture, hay, or living quarters. The larvae develop from eggs that were passed from an animal through its feces. Because the larvae do not climb up very high on grass blades, removing animals from pastures before the plants are grazed shorter than four inches will help prevent infestations. Letting animals browse on vines, shrubs, and woody plants will also help. Including cattle and poultry in your rotation is a good idea, since they ingest the parasites of sheep and goats without harm, removing larvae from the pasture. Symptoms of a parasite problem include weight loss, rough coat, depression, and anemia (evidenced by pale mucous membranes, especially in the lower eyelid or gums). It is important to realize that heavily infected animals are "seeding" the pastures with parasite larvae. Culling severely affected animals will decrease the herd's problems by reducing pasture contamination and by selecting for parasite-resistant animals. A clinical on-farm system called FAMACHA© was developed in South Africa to classify animals based upon level of anemia. This is done by comparing the color of the lower eyelid to a special colored card. The system recommends de-worming or culling the most susceptible animals. FAMACHA© is only useful in detecting animals infected with barber-pole worms (Haemonchus contortus), the primary problem in goats and sheep. To learn about FAMACHA©, visit the Web site of the Southern Consortium on Small Ruminant Parasite Control, www.scsrpc.org, and then enlist the help of your veterinarian.
Web Sites:
ATTRA Publications about Small Ruminants General
Wool, Mohair, Cashmere: Marketing the Softer Side of Small Ruminants
As a sheep farmer and a knitter, I personally enjoy working with wooled sheep and using natural fibers such as wool and mohair to make beautiful and useful items. And I'm not alone. Jamie Gunthal, publicist for Interweave Press, visited with me recently about the tremendous current interest in spinning and knitting. During the past three years, the newsstand sales of one of their magazines, Spin-Off, increased by 46%. Their readership (of a magazine geared to hand spinners) is now more than 27,000. According to the Craft Fair Council of America, one out of every five women under the age of 45 knows how to knit. It is estimated that 34 million knitters and crocheters are in the United States right now. I have to admit that the price of commodity wool does not provide much incentive to keep raising wooled sheep. That is, unless you can find a way to make more money from the wool you grow. As sheep farmer Ken Hargis of Morning Glory Farm, Bentonville, Arkansas, says, “When you have a market that pays $4 per pound for raw wool or $40 per pound for wool yarn, versus 30 to 40 cents per pound from a wool broker, it changes the way you look at your sheep. Instead of focusing on size and fertility, your emphasis shifts to wool quality and yield. Color, fineness, crimp, and softness are all qualities you breed for. The lambs are a bonus—not only for the meat markets but for the fiber markets as well, since clean “hogget” (first) fleeces command a premium price from hand spinners. "We have expanded our farm operation to include a retail shop and a teaching studio," Hargis says. "It is our goal to be able to sell all of the wool we grow on our farm in one form or another to crafters and fiber artists." Contact Ken and Jan Hargis, 3168 Ozark Acres, Bentonville, AR 72712. Dempsy and Brenda Perkins of Louisiana also market their wool effectively. They raise Gulf Coast Native sheep, a rare breed. Their focus is on conserving the breed and making a living at the same time. I had the pleasure of attending one of their "Wool Days" in April 2003, when the family invited hand spinners to come out and watch the sheep shearing and select some fleeces fresh off the sheep. The farm was very attractive, the atmosphere enjoyable, with musicians playing fiddles and banjos, handspinners working in the open air, and the farm shop open for business. The Perkinses send some of their fleeces to MacAusland's Woollen Mill on Prince Edward Island, where the fleece is converted into beautiful blankets sold in the farm shop. Contact Dempsy and Brenda Perkins at P.O. Box 1, Reeves, LA 70658. Liz Gipson, editor of Spin-Off magazine, emphasizes that there is a great need for the farming community to communicate with the crafting community. We farmers must do a better job of understanding what we can sell, and not wasting the assets we have. As Ken Hargis says, "If a farmer has wooled sheep and doesn't market the wool, it's like letting a crop rot on the ground." For more information, contact me at lindac@ncat.org.
Congress Takes Final Action on 2005 Sustainable Ag Budgets; 2006 Work Starts Soon The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture have provided this update on funding approved for key sustainable agriculture programs within USDA in the omnibus bill passed in November 2004. Congress began its 109th session on January 4, and in a few weeks they will begin considering new funding bills for FY06, which begins on October 1. To learn about current and future funding for these and more than 20 other key programs, including conservation programs provided for in the 2002 Farm Bill, please contact Margaret Krome at 608-238-1440 or mkrome@inxpress.net. Note: The following programs are also reduced by a .83% across-the-board cut, which is not reflected in the chart numbers.
New and Updated ATTRA Publications
=============================================== ATTRAnews is the bi-monthly newsletter of the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service. The newsletter is distributed free throughout the United States to farmers, ranchers, Cooperative Extension agents, educators and others interested in sustainable agriculture. ATTRA is funded through the USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service and is a project of the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), a private, non-profit organization that since 1976 has helped people by championing small-scale, local and sustainable solutions to reduce poverty, promote healthy communities, and protect natural resources. Teresa Maurer, Project Manager Comments? Questions? Email the ATTRAnews editor Karen Van Epen at karenv@ncat.org. ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
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Katahdin sheep at Round Mountain Farm, Arkansas. Katahdins have been used in parts of the Southeast to control kudzu.
©
Copyright 2004 NCAT