2019 Howard Wyman Sheep Industry

2019 Howard Wyman Sheep Industry Leadership School

Problem or Opportunity:

The Howard Wyman Sheep Industry Leadership School (HWSILS) offers a continuing education opportunity for individuals in the sheep industry. As landscapes and businesses change, it is imperative for animal agricultural industries to not only learn about the changes but be able to adapt to keep their businesses and the industry viable. The HWSILS bridges the gap and provides regular education programs and tools to support the current generation as well as the next generation of lamb producers in the US. In addition, by moving the program to different locations each year, the participants are exposed to differences in lamb production by region, offering opportunities for improvements in their own production and growing programs.

Project Objectives

Introduce the attendees to the Pennsylvania lamb industry, touring and evaluating: growing and raising operations, feeding operations, sale barns, research facilities and programs, etc.

Introduce the participants to National and State industry organizations; providing information and details about the different organizations, how they work together to benefit the industry, how they are funded and how to get involved and become leaders in the organizations.

Provide leadership "training" – in functional areas such as spokesperson/media training, lobbying 101, how to use social media to advocate for the lamb industry, etc.

National Sheep Improvement Program

Productivity improvement has been identified as one of four priorities to the long-term success of the sheep industryby the U.S. Lamb Industry Roadmap project. The National Sheep Improvement Program has been expanding eversince the roadmap; increasing the use of quantitative genetic selection throughout the country with now over 400members. However, genetic selection should be utilized as part of a system-wide approach to improving production efficiency. Therefore, NSIP can expand its scope/mission to further the industry and fill other voids outlined by theRoadmap project and industry leaders. The Roadmap project also reported:

• “Producers keenly feel the loss of industry infrastructure-from processing capacity to academic, extension and research assets”

• “Numerous participants desired greater alignment between commercial producers, seedstock producers, producers who show animals and club participants-greater coordination can help address the needs for quality and production improvements industry-wide”.

• “Research results not being fully communicated to producers due to lack of funding”. Through the efforts of the industry-sponsored re-launch of NSIP in 2014, the program has gained additional exposure and awareness industry wide. The proposed project takes advantage of this increased awareness of NSIP to better serve the U.S. sheep industry by cooperating with producers, feeders, packers, American Sheep Industry Association, American Lamb Board, National Lamb Feeders Association, academia and industry educators while addressing the void in research and education efforts offered to the industry, especially in areas with limited or no university or extension programs. With limited resources for research and producer education, information exchange leading to productivity improvement needs to be as efficient as possible and an organization to lead the efforts. In the inaugural Sheep Industry Roundtable meeting, held in Denver in July 2018, the industry identified The National Sheep Improvement Program as the key organization in facilitating producer education, coordinating outreach and research efforts and taking a whole-systems approach to productivity improvement in the U.S. sheep industry. This project has been designed to work in conjunction with the efforts of ASI and ALB to streamline producer education and allow NSIP to provide the most efficient/comprehensive service possible to the industry.

Wool Research and Education

Wool prices over the past several years have been trending upward with prices in 2018 at all-time worldwide highs. World wool production is down to 70 year lows since 2008 according to IWTO country statistics. The US produces primarily apparel style wools with lower worldwide production of these wool types. Demand however, is increasing. All major segments of the wool textile industry report an unprecedented normal to good conditions moving forward. Demand for wool products has been supported by positive economic growth projections in major industrialized countries. Now is the time for wool producers to expand by improving the quality and quantity of wool they produce on a per head basis. ASI published a report entitled: "U.S. Sheep Industry Research, Development, and Education Priorities." This report found that twenty-five percent of survey respondents identified wool production as either their primary or secondary type of operation. There is a growing market trend toward local and American grown, raised, produced and constructed apparel. The wool labs in Montana and Texas will be the facilitator of many interactions between wool growers, processors and manufacturers. Expanding avenues of domestic use are in the knitting sectors of the wool industry and include outdoor and active wear garments and socks. The goal of this proposal is to provide leadership and technical assistance to American sheep producers on wool production, preparation and marketing to help improve the quality, marketing efficiency and competitiveness of US wool both internationally and domestically. The objectives are: (1) Continue to evaluate new technology and application in wool metrology by expanding development of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to regions outside of Texas for yield and AFD determination. (2) To develop, evaluate, and implement wool sampling procedures for on farm testing. (3) To provide educational outreach programs for producers, stakeholders, and end users of American wool. Montana State University and Texas A&M University are the only remaining university wool labs in the US. Funding will allow these universities to expand their research and outreach efforts to meet the national needs of wool growers and to increase the value of their product.

Genetic Selection Tools and Techniques to Benefit Texas Range Sheep Producers

The nation’s leading sheep state in terms of numbers, Texas, has historically utilized phenotypic appraisal and information from centralized performance tests as the primary selection tools within their flocks. However, with no advancement in reproductive rate and lamb crop percentage over the last several decades Rambouillet breeders inparticular have struggled to maintain profitable production, as evident by declining numbers of wool sheep and wool sheep producers. Hair sheep production has grown exponentially in Texas over the last 20 years. Dorper is the primary breed of hair or shedding sheep that have replaced wool sheep, along with meat goat herds. For the mostpart, Dorper breeders have not used NSIP to better select animals for productivity and animal health. Regionally within the United States, certain producers and producer groups have been successful utilizing the genetic trackingprogram through the National Sheep Improvement Program to increase lamb crop, parasite resistance, and value of their annual wool clip. Limited by the large scale of most range operations, extensive production systems, and a lackof emphasis from state industry leaders, NSIP is underutilized by Texas seedstock sheep producers. Most seedstock producers use multi‐sire pasture mating and range lamb, presenting difficulties for pedigree determination, and in turn, collection of genetic information. Texas falls behind the rest of the nation in terms of average lamb crop, number of lambs born, and number of lambs weaned. With the low heritability of reproductive traits, it is very challenging to make much progress from limited data collection. NSIP excels at offering valuable information in these regards due to the extensive tracking and linkage of animals within a flock. This concept has been validated in Australia and New Zealand, where this technology is widely utilized and sheep production efficiency has never been higher. Within America, the cattle seedstock industry has made significant gains with the adoption of EPDs, which again are similar to the information provided by NSIP.

Trace mineral concentrations in common Wyoming plants on sheep winter range

As of January 2018, Wyoming has a breeding sheep inventory of approximately 260,000 head. The majority of these ewes occur on ranching enterprises relying on extensive rangelands. A major problem in this production environment is the mismatch between available forage quality and sheep production stages, specifically during the physiologically demanding periods of breeding and pregnancy when the nutritional composition of grazing diets is at it’s lowest nutritive value. While more obvious aspects of this problem have been quantified on sheep winter range such macro nutrients including energy and crude protein, very little information about trace mineral composition of grass and browse species on winter range has been developed for sheep producers. For sheep operations in the western United States that rely on naturally grown rangeland forage as their primary feed source, this is problematic because clinical or subclinical trace mineral deficiencies that limit animal productivity may manifest themselves. Such issues related to trace mineral deficiencies that could arise include a broad spectrum of problems related to essential perform essential functions including structural, physiological, catalytic, and regulatory roles (Suttle, 2010). Finally, because forage trace mineral concentrations are highly variable across rangelands due to the strong influence of soil geochemistry and plant stage of maturity, more information is necessary to deal with this complex issue (Mathis and Sawyer, 2004; Smith et al.,2014; Jones and Tracy, 2015).Many range sheep operators do not provide a free choice mineral while on winter range which could predispose ewes to clinical and subclinical trace mineral deficiencies. While the reasons for not providing a trace mineral supplement vary, among Wyoming range flocks many deficiencies and subclinical deficiencies go undiagnosed and may not always be solely attributed to trace mineral deficiencies. By characterizing the trace mineral composition of consumed rangeland plants, we will be able to build trace mineral maps for Wyoming and a calculator tool to assist producers in making supplementation decisions and to guide feed manufacturers in formulating regionally or ranch- specific mineral packages. A similar study funded by NSIIC in 2016 was recently published in the scientific journal ‘The Professional Animal Scientist’ and reported that 33% of Montana (MT) ranches were not providing a complete mineral, and that 19 and 23% were deficient or marginally deficient in selenium (Se) and 10 and 57% were deficient or marginally deficient in zinc (Zn). Participating ranches in the MT study anecdotally reported improvements in animal health and lamb and wool growth when trace mineral supplementation was offered to the flock. The ability to engage Wyoming sheep producers in this type of field research not only answers important production questions, but more importantly, has the potential to reduce production losses due to trace mineral deficiencies. Experience from the Montana study demonstrated the value of engaging producers with field research as a means of understanding what is happening at an operational level so that better management decisions are made. Furthermore, conducting translational research of this nature allows sheep extension personnel to work with mineral manufacturers to provide a more tailored product for range-sheep producers.