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Executive Director News
by Gord Schroeder
The industry is right in the
middle of lambing as I write this article. I've heard from
producers with all kinds of different experiences and lambing
percentages this year. Some disappointing but it seems that
for the most part numbers are good. One producer called me -
she had a ewe with 6 live lambs, another producer told me he lambed
out 175 Canadian Arcott based ewes, he had only 13 singles and 44
ewes which had either triplets or quads - the rest were twins and
they were good lambs. One common thing I am hearing is that
proper records and good culling have really paid off. Whatever
your numbers and stories are I really hope you are enjoying this
time and that things are going well.
Colleen Sawyer Appreciation Dinner
will be held on Saturday July 26th in conjunction with the
Grasslands Sheep Show and Sale to be held in Drake. Colleen
has spent many years serving our industry; please plan to attend and
show your appreciation. As well, if you have any good pictures
of Colleen and her involvement in the sheep industry, please send
them to the office.
Please mark July 25-26 on your
calendar. These are the dates for the Grasslands Show and Sale
in Drake. The committee is working hard to add more
demonstrations, trade booths and sheep entries to the show. It
will be a great weekend.
You should be aware by now that
western Canada is having a serious problem with Taenia Ovis (dog
tapeworm), this tapeworm causes sheep measles, which leads to lamb
carcasses being condemned at slaughter facilities. This is a
very serious situation and producers need to treat their dogs with a
proper wormer that will take care of the tapeworm. Please talk
to your local vet about this. One hint you may ask them about
is if Safeguard will do the trick. Here is a story from one
producer I talked to; he had shipped 48 lambs and 17 of them had
been condemned. Lambs were traced back to the producer and the
cost to him was huge. As well there is the cost to lamb
buyers, these costs will be passed on to producers by was of prices
to allow for condemns. Please treat your dogs!!
Producers continue to call us on
the market outlook. If we knew this for sure we would be
rich!! However, I will say this; there is good reason to
believe the prices will remain strong. things like feed costs
and the Canadian dollar could have a negative effect on prices.
Supply is short so prices should remain strong.
We are in the process of
implementing some changes to how we market animals through the
board. We would like to establish a more regular marketing
schedule. So what we are proposing is that every first and
third Monday of the month we will accept bids from buyers for the
lambs and sheep we have on offer with the option of taking any
additional lambs offered during that week at the same price.
Assembly would happen the following week. In this way
producers know on a more regular basis when they can expect to
market animals. As well, if the buyer is wanting more lambs
than are offered at that price producers can phone the office
following the bid and book lambs knowing the price has been set.
Basically, we will have a lamb auction twice a month with the
possibility of producers being able to book lambs after the price
has been set. There will be some exceptions to this to allow
for holidays and times of the year when there are very few lambs
being offered for sale. Call the office for more information.
On a final note - I met with our
new Agriculture Minister, we wanted to brief him on the lamb
industry and open doors to working together with the Ministry.
As a follow up to this meeting I was asked to attend a meeting with
several Branch Managers. The intent of this meeting was to
discuss ways in which we could work together more closely to build
the Saskatchewan lamb industry. We look forward to this
relationship.
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