News

Bottineau County sees a good lamb season for 2014

By Scott Wagar

04/29/2014

With lambing season coming to an end in Bottineau County local lamb producers have seen a good season.

“The lambing season has been very good to most with little issues really to report on,” said Jared Nelson, county agent for Bottineau County. “The cold made it a little harder for a few people. This required the herd to be checked on quite a bit more often than usual to help ensure that any new lambs could be brought in to the barn as soon as possible.”

For Brian Knudson of Bottineau, he was pleased with how lambing went for him this year.

“It went very well, the weather cooperated, conditions were not to wet,” Knudson said, who raises Columbia and Dorset sheep breeds and had 70 lambs this spring. “For sheep, singles and twins are common for them to give birth to. I averaged 160 percent, or 1.6 lambs produced overall. I did have some triplets and I had twins and I had singles.”

As for hay and feed to care for the sheep, Knudson stated the two averaged out evenly.

“Hay prices are up a little bit from last year, and the cost to put up hay last summer was a little higher than the previous year,” Knudson said.  “However, grain, which is fed to ewes prior to lambing, during late gestation and the early lactation period, the cost this year was down, primarily because of using corn.”

Nelson added that the price of corn is at a lower price than last year, which assists not only in feeding the sheep, but to fatten up them up, too.

“The cost of lambing and fatting them up this year has gone down when looking at the aspect of corn prices,” Nelson said.

“Some lambers use corn to fatten the sheep up and with the lower prices compared to last year, it has made easier for them to buy corn.”

Sheering took place in March for the lamb farmers, which saw an average production, but sold higher than last spring.

“The wool clip in pounds per ewe was average at about 11 to 12 pounds,” Knudson said. “The wool market seems to be a little bit higher than last year, not a lot, but it’s pretty stable.”

When it comes to the market in the fall of 2014, it is too early to tell where the prices will be; but, the outlook does look optimistic.

 “The market fluctuates from year to year,” Knudson said. “The last couple of years it has gone up and down, but the market right now looks positive for the early fall market.”

At the present moment, the market is higher than last year. Nelson said that if it continues lamb producers can look forward to a pretty good year.

For those who had to deal with cold weather this spring, Nelson stated that the cold air assisted in lambing when it came to disease, but that producers will have to look out for one specific type of disease.

“One benefit of the colder weather for the earlier lambers is that there is less concern for disease to occur,” Nelson said. “One disease to be on the outlook for is the Deer Liver Fluke. This fluke does not complete its life cycle in sheep; therefore, infected animals do not pass eggs in their feces. It only takes as few as two or three flukes to cause the death in sheep due to extensive migration in internal organs.

“The life cycle of most liver flukes is very similar. They deposit eggs in the liver of the deer host. Then, when the egg hatches they enter the snail which would be the intermediate host and eventually maturing and encysting on vegetation. This vegetation can then be ingested by grazing, causing the sheep to become infected,” Nelson said.

“There are no products available for use, so work with a vet on a treatment plan. Deer and snails are needed for completion of the life cycle, so producers have to control either one of these species by changing grazing locations.”