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Experience, Efficiency and Success: one farm family's story
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Experience, Efficiency and Success: one farm family's story

By: Philip D. Smith

To make today’s sheep farms viable, producers must find effective ways to manage their time and resources. For Philip D. Smith and Elizabeth W. Smith of Sutton, Ontario this means careful selection of breeding ewes, pasture rotation and health management to ensure their sheep operation stays competitive.

Phil and Liz operate Breezy Ridge Farm, with a flock of 250 purebred Rideau Arcott ewes along with their two sons. They have been raising sheep for over 20 years, playing an active role in Ontario’s sheep industry.

“We are always striving to improve efficiencies on the farm,” says Phil, who has been a director for York County since 1985.

The Smiths chose the Rideau breed for its reproductive, milking and out-of-season lambing ability. They lamb three times every two years during the months of March, June and November. This allows them to offer a continuous supply of lambs for market and to spread the labour of lambing into less intensive periods.

The Rideau Arcott is a breed developed by Agriculture Canada with the intentions of producing a high-fertility dam-line that performs well in Canada’s environment. Decades of cross breeding and genetic selection have produced a breed with high quality and consistent characteristics for milking, body conformation, growth rate, fertility and prolificacy. The breed was released to Canadian farms in 1989 and has continued to demonstrate these superior traits for which it was bred. Phil and Liz recognized the benefits of this breed for their operation, so they replaced their Suffolk and North Country Cheviot flock with purchased Rideau Arcotts.

Rideau Arcott consistently provides multiple births, which means they require extra care at lambing. The Smiths move their ewes into a maternity barn in the winter, where they can properly monitor diet and health around lambing. It’s not uncommon for the breed to successfully raise quadruplets, weaning at a healthy 50 lbs at 50 days of age. Phil ensures that his animals are well feed and works closely with his feed mill in selecting the correct ration mixture.

The Smith farm has a greenhouse structure, used as a maternity unit for wintering ewes with lambs. The building remains at a comfortable temperature for the winter, and uses a gas radiant heater on those colder nights during lambing.

Pasture lambs are weaned at 80 days, while winter lambs fed in the barn are weaned at 60 days. From here, weaned lambs are moved into another barn, which has an auger-driven automatic grain dispenser to deliver a ration of whole corn and 34% protein pellets into the feeders. The auger allows Phil to quickly feed 300 plus lambs a diet that is closely tailored to their nutritional needs.

To best make use of the grazing season, Phil and Liz leave the May-born lambs on grass until mid-October, before moving them into the finishing barn. While these lambs grow more slowly, they are raised cost effectively to generate a profit. This, coupled with a faster finishing rate on lambs born in other seasons, provides a steady income throughout the year from the sheep operation. The accelerated lambing also makes use of the farm’s facilities more consistently by maximizing the use of the buildings. Producing lambs in all seasons can be profitable as long as a close eye is kept on cost, says Phil.

The genetic quality of the Rideau Arcott ewes is something the Smiths are diligent to maintain. Only the top 10 to 20 percent of lambs are retained as replacement ewes, which amounts to about 40 per year. Rams are selected from only the top ewes that are five years of age and older. This selection process takes advantage of a highly inheritable longevity trait, to produce ewes that will remain productive in the flock for longer.

“Longevity is really important to the bottom line,” says Phil. “We have ewes in our flock that are still lambing at 10 years old.”

To assist in selecting the best replacement ewes on genetic merit, Phil and Liz have been involved in the Sheep Flock Improvement Program (SFIP) since the early 80's. They believe this program allows them to keep their production high, while improving genetics over time.

“More producers need to be using the Sheep Flock Improvement Program because it’s the fastest way to improve production,” Phil says. “If you don’t have good flock genetics, you’re not producing lambs in the numbers necessary to make an economical and sustainable production.”

The flock at Breezy Ridge Farm is moving towards a closed flock, and only rams from trustworthy sources have been brought in over the years. A high health protocol allows the Smiths to spend their time on other tasks, rather than with disease outbreaks.

To improve carcass quality, growth rates and final lamb weights, the Smiths have begun to use Charollais and English Suffolk as terminal sires on some of the ewes. Most of the 650 lambs weaned each year are marketed at 80-90 lbs through the Ontario Stockyards in Cookstown.

Phil and Liz also sell rams and a number of replacement ewe lambs to other Rideau Arcott breeders and commercial producers each year, and have been a part of the sire-referencing program for the Rideau breed. This program helps to further improve the SFIP data on the breed by linking the data from all flocks involved and in turn helping all flocks in the program to improve their own genetic base.

“Our goal is to be profitable and use a sustainable system of agriculture production,” says Phil.

One method the Smiths use is rotational grazing on their 100 acres of pastures and hay fields. The flock grazes from mid-April to mid-December, and ewes not scheduled for lambing are wintered on round bales outside. Over the years they have found rotational grazing very beneficial to the efficiency of raising sheep.

Phil and Liz have been using Gallagher high-power electric fencing for their pastures since 1983, when the farm was established. They were the first in the area to use this type of electric fencing and are the longest consistent users of this system in Canada. They have found it very helpful in protecting the sheep from predators, especially since their flock is on pasture throughout the night. Their losses from predators have amounted to fewer than 10 animals, over their 22-year career. The Smiths also use Great Pyrenees dogs to protect the flock. The dogs are the most important in the winter when the electric fence is not as effective. "We don’t have enough time to fool around with stuff we can guard against," Phil says. "We have to be efficient."

The ewe flock is only a part-time job for the Smith family. Phil and Liz also own a furniture business, where they reupholster and create original pieces of furniture to order for individual customers and decorators. The furniture business, established in 1977, is full-time when they are not lambing. This approach has allowed Phil and Liz to work the furniture business around lambing periods and still find time for family.

“The nice thing about being in business for ourselves is that we have the time and flexibility to do the things we enjoy,” Phil says.

When they are not farming or making furniture, Phil and Liz enjoy camping and the outdoors. Liz is an avid bird watcher and gardener, while Phil is a history buff, spending his leisure time reading.

The couple travel for one or two weeks at a time, enjoying the sun in Mexico, Bahamas and Jamaica. They have also visited the Arctic and Israel.

The future of the farm has yet to be decided. Their twin sons are finishing high school this year and will be going on to do postsecondary education. This summer, after school is finished, they will be travelling to Haifa, Israel for a year of service, to do volunteer work at the world headquarters of the Baha'i Faith. The boys are the third generation of the Smith family to be Baha'i. "This year away from home is an opportunity for the boys to gain some experience and have fun too," says Phil.

“If one or both of the boys do decide to farm, we would increase the flock size,” he continues. Phil feels it’s important that the older generation step aside and not be an obstacle for the younger generation to continue farming.

Until that time, Phil and Liz plan to keep working the farm, and encourage their sons to make their own future career decisions.

This Article is co-written with Clare Illingworth.

Article Source: http://articlenexus.com

Philip D. Smith is a master shepherd and is a founding member of the Rideau Association of Canada together with his wife Elizabeth W Smith. See more about them and their farm, Breezy Ridge Farm, at rideausheep.com Clare Illingworth is a director at Eastern Canada Farm Writers Association. Clare is also a member of Syngenta Crop Protection Canada. See more about the Eastern Canada Farm Writers Association at www.ecfwa.ca

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