Highly organised U.S. sheep industry

Press, 18 February 1983, Page 20

Highly organised U.S. sheep industry

Two United States visitors to Christchurch last week for a meeting of the Lamb Promotion Co-ordinating Committee provided a fine illustration of the organisation of the sheep industry- in the United States.

Mr Don Meike. the past president of the National Wool Growers Association, and Mr Steve Beal, of the National Lamb Feeders Association, represent . the two sections of the United States industry.

Mr Meike comes from Wyoming (“where the sheep industry is a very important part of the State economy”) and Mr Beal from Kansas, where as the name of his association shows, he fattens up to 40,000 lambs each year with an ariable farm and feedlot combination.

The working association of these two farmers, for they are business associates as well as agropolitical confederates, and thousands like them in the United States, gives some indication of the formidable barriers facing increased New Zealand penetration of the American lamb market. Mr Meike runs 4000 Rambouilet sheep on 12,000 ha of open range and 500 ha of irrigated land in Wyoming. The Rambouilets are a branch of the Merino breed and have been bred in the United States for 250 years, with concentration on large

carcase size, quick and large fat lamb production and lack of neck folds. Half of Mr Meike’s ewes give birth inside during March and have averaged over 160 per cent lambs and the other half of the flock drop outside during the spring in May and average about 100 per cent lambing. In the mob outside the lambing percentage varies according to the severity of the winter weather and’ the losses from attacks by coyotes.

While housed for the most severe two months of the winter, the indoor ewes receive silage, hay and barley, all of which is grown on the property. On the fat lamb side of his operation, Mr Meike aims to market lambs at around 55kg liveweight or 25kg carcaseweight and he plans on keeping the lambs for about five to seven months to achieve these targets. The split lambing enables him to spread fat lamb killing over an extended period from August to February. Any lambs which do not look like making the weight grade, perhaps through lack of pasture during summer, can be sold to the lamb fatteners such as Mr Beal.

Wool production is also an important part of Mr Meike's operation and the United States' average clip is around 4kg per head per year

greasy. In Mr Meike’s case his production is all less than 22 microns in diameter. Up to 65 per cent clean yield would be considered good. Mr Meike said that two factors contributed to the low clean wool yields in the United States compared with New Zealand. The first was the climatic conditions in the Mid-West, where dust and wind were constant factors, and the second was the better breeding job done on wool by the New Zealand sheep industry. United States fine wool was sold by auction and brought, at present, an average of about 460 c a kg clean. Mr Meike explained that this was some 10 to 20 per cent below the world market because United States w T ool prices had not recovered from dumping by South American countries into the United States two years ago. In the medium wool range of 28 to 30 microns, domestic United States prices had been adversely affected by large imports of jerseys from South-East Asia. However, a price support system operated which redistributed the duties levied on imported wools and woollen garments on the basis of a grower's volume of production. Mr Steve Beal explained that lamb feeding was a necessary operation for him to dispose of the lucerne, corn, sorghum and soyabeans grown on 650 ha of irrigated land along the Arkansas River. He bought lambs from 10 states in the mid-west and west from New Mecico and Texas in the south to Montana and North Dakota in the north. He very seldom saw the lambs he bought before they arrived on his property and most of them came in at around 36kg and were kept about 90 days until they were nearly 60kg liveweight. Others were purchased at 22 to 25kg liveweight and started on silage before going onto the cut lucerne and cereal rations in the feed lots. The lambs were confined in 50 metre by 100 metre pens, arranged in groups of

four with feeding troughs right round the perimeter. Each pen would hold about 700 to 800 lambs. All lambs were shorn about 50 days before slaughter and were very seldom over 11 months old when marketed.

Both men stressed that the American fat lamb’was an “exceptional product," well in advance in size and visual appeal of the imported New

Zealand frozen lamb, marketed by Devco.

Another feature of the operations of both farmers was the number of staff they employ. Mr Meike and his brother have 10 employees who are engaged in looking after the shed ewes, riding range on the sheep and cattle and working: the irrigated land.

Mr Beal employs four men and two of his sons.