# Presentation: 017570

## Needs for USA Sheep IndustryExtension/Education & Research

**Jim Morgan**
**Fayetteville Arkansas**
- Katahdin NSIP Breeder’s Group – Data Coordinator
- Direct Meat Marketing
- NSIP Board President
- Contributing Editor – The Shepherd magazine
- Registered Katahdin Breeder

## Parasites

- Parasite Resistant Genetics
- Management
- Southern Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control – _[www.scsrpc.org](http://www.scsrpc.org/)_
- Excellent Work – Integrating Immunology, Population Genetics of worms, Nutrition, Ecology .........
- Providing New Tools – FAMACHA, Sericea Lespedeza ........
- Preaching Selective Deworming

## DrenchRite Anthelmintic Tests for 35 Farms/Ranches in the USA (2002-2004)

|  | % with benzimidazole resistance | % with levasole resistance | % with avermectin resistance |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Southern Sheep | 100 % | 33 % | 75 % |
| Southern Goat | 100 % | 33 % | 90 % |
| Northern Goat | 100 % | 33 % | 20 %  |

## National Sheep Improvement Program

- Need a strong buy in from the Academic, Research & Extension Communities
- Excellent Product
- New traits
- Ewe Productivity Trait (lbs lamb weaned/ewe lambing
- Targhee Financial EPD Index
- In development
- Accelerated Lambing EPD
- FEC-EPD
- Carcass traits – Lean Growth EPD

## NSIP II

-  Need Support – USDA-ARS is a great option
- Impact all 50 states
- Multiple species
- Boer Goats
- Alpacas
- Kiko Goats in 2007
- Minimal Investment
- $50,000 - $100,000
- $100,000 would allow
- Faster development of new traits
- Improved Education – Prevent the train wrecks that have occurred in other species.  “BALANCED SELECTION”

## Easy-CareLow Energy Meat Production

- Meat production in the USA will be drastically different in 25 years.  Energy costs and access to grain.
- Corn & Soybean Production is shifting overseas.
- More need for information on forage-based meat production
- Use small ruminants to help manage landscape & pests
- If paid for the services, then value received for meat can be more competitive on the global market
- Low labor costs to compete with the global market
- Ewe Productivity Trait (EPT-EPD) – Identify genetics of ewes that are in tune with their environment and management  (% weaned EPD as well as pounds)

## Hair Sheep Leather

- Estimated 500,000 raw skins a year are imported from Africa into the USA (Dr Dennis Shelley – Texas Tech Leather Institute)
- Disease risk
- Berry Amendment
- $4-$20 value/lamb
- Fighter Pilot Helmets, Apparel, Upholstery
- Golf gloves
- Why Hair Sheep Leather
- Softness of wool sheep leather & strength of goat/cattle (hair leathers)

## Hair Sheep Leather - II

-  Preliminary Studies at TTU
- 50% Rambouillet x 25% Dorper x 25% St Croix had too many genetic defects
- 25% Rambouillet x 37.5% Dorper x 37.5% St Croix was acceptable
- Dr Maurice Shelton cites earlier work
- Hair is dominant
- 90% of the secondary wool follicle is lost in the first cross with a tropical hair sheep

## Hair Sheep Leather - IIII

- Future Work
- Repeated?
- Environment x genotype interactions
- Season of harvest
- Age
- Environmental temperature – ND versus FL?
- Breed – Does a Suffolk cross have the same number of defects in the leather as a Rambouillet cross?
- Result
- Commercial shedding ewes – Can they have significant shedding wool or do they need to be what KHSI calls a AA coat?
- What coat type can a terminal sire on shedding ewes have for cross-bred lamb production
- Charles Parker has asked, “Will the value for leather skin returned to the producer be the third lamb from a hair sheep ewe?”  (2 x $20 = $40 profit)

## Terminal Hair Sire

- Does the industry need a terminal hair sire?
- By definition, it doesn’t matter if it is hair or wool since all lambs would be slaughtered.
- Take away some of the impetus for  Dorper and Katahdin breeders to produce 180-250 pound ewes
- Leather – may need it
- Markets for hair sheep meat – e.g. Major marketing coops
- 150+ members in SW VA – 7-9000 ewes
- 50 member – 13000 ewes centered in OK

##  Diseases

- Know more about financial implications of the following diseases.  Should seedstock producers be providing OPP or Johne’s free animals?
- Johne’s
- OPP – Maedni-Visna Virus
- Different strains of the virus?
- Difference in individual animal or breed resistances
- Management – Seems like Northern flocks that lamb in the barn have major management & financial impacts
- Mastitis
- Survey – Why do some flocks experience 15-20% incidence?  Major effect on ewe longevity.
- Are their breed differences?
- Scrapie – Need a 6 yr protocol for exporting genetics rather than the current 5 yr protocol for SFCP.
- Gene Markers for Foot Rot Resistance – Do the NZ researchers have the whole story?

## Lamb-Mutton Taste & Nutrition

- Personal Anecdotes – I can market 3-5 year old hair sheep mutton next to lamb at our Farmer’s Market.  Leftovers are not issues.
- Susan Duckett has found that there are differences in fatty acid composition when hair sheep are compared to wool lambs.
- Current research supports minimal breed differences in lamb prepared under standard conditions.
- May need to try methods more typical of kitchens – leftovers
- Document nutritional differences, if any in lambs raised on forage and grain.

## Extension

- 25% of my time for the Katahdin breed association is extension.
- Budget cutting has eliminated both sheep research & extension