990507 Farmers Want to Produce Spring Lamb

Morgantown, WV - West Virginia University researchers and sheep farmers in six counties may have found a way to capitalize on the forces of supply and demand: Outsmart Mother Nature.

By getting their ewes to give birth in the fall instead of the spring, farmers could deliver lamb to market before Easter, when supply is low and prices are high.

More than one year into WVU's three-year experiment, there is some success. On participating farms, 60 percent of the flock delivered lambs in the fall, WVU professor Keith Inskeep said.

In the early 1940s, there were about 1 million sheep in West Virginia and 50 million nationwide. Today, there are about 48,000 in the state and just 5.8 million in the country, Inskeep said.

Imported wool, the growing costs of labor, land and fencing, and an increasing threat from predators contributed to the decline.

Getting ewes to breed with rams out of season is sometimes as easy as putting them together, Inskeep said. That stimulates two ovulation periods, followed by a normal cycle, then breeding in about 20 days, he said.

But WVU's project also involves hormone treatments to speed things along.

A plastic device that emits progesterone -- the same hormone used in women's birth control pills -- is inserted in the sheep for five to 12 days, then withdrawn.

“It kind of tunes up the reproductive system,” then prepares the ewe for breeding, Inskeep said.

The goal of the research is to get all ewes on a single farm breeding within a 24- to 48-hour period, which would synchronize the births to within a few days.

Nature also plays a part: Farmers are keeping sheep that breed out of season, along with those born out of season, to change the mating patterns over the long term.

Jeff Harsh, who has about 200 sheep on his farm in Eglon, is happy to have WVU's help on his farm, where about 75 percent of the flock had lambs in October.

“Getting most of them to breed at the same time is the biggest problem. Some of them just won't do it,” Harsh said.

But when they do, Harsh benefits. By selling lamb in January, he can command twice the price he ordinarily gets, about $1.20 per pound instead of 60 cents to 70 cents.

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