George Good encourages an ewe to come to her twin lambs. Spring lambing was once a significant seasonal moment on the family farm which often had a variety of livestock. Today, most farms specialize in only one or two animals or crops. (photo by Lester Graham)
Even if you didn’t grow up on a farm, springtime seems to bring with it thoughts of baby chicks and spring lambs. But it’s not as common to find sheep on the farm today. Farming is different. The GLRC’s Lester Graham found some spring lambs… and a man who still thinks sheep have a place on the farm:
Transcript
Even if you didn’t grow up on a farm, springtime seems to bring with it
thoughts of baby chicks and spring lambs. But it’s not as common to
find sheep on the farm today. Farming is different. The GLRC’s Lester
Graham found some spring lambs… and a man who still thinks sheep
have a place on the farm:
(Sound of lambs)
It’s chilly and it’s raining outside, but nestled in the straw, three newborn
lambs are snuggling for a little warmth in the barn. George Good is milking
their mother – in farm parlance she’s called a ewe. He’s inserted her teat
directly into a green Mountain Dew bottle. After getting a little of the
ewe’s first milk, he holds the plastic bottle up to the light to see if he’s
got enough. Then he twists on a screw top nipple and picks up a
newborn lamb. It’s weak, kind of floppy, too wobbly to stand on its
own, but it eagerly takes the nipple and the first milk – called colostrum.
“I’m gonna give these lambs a little bit of supplement, you know, to get
them started, about two to three ounces of colostrum so they’ve got some
strength to get up and go. It’s really rich, high energy, and this ewe –
anything she’s immune to, the anti-bodies are in that first milk. So that
gives that lamb a boost to get off and is really healthy.”
Good is dressed to ward off the chill of the day… insulated overalls, stocking cap
and a pale blue kerchief around his neck. His easy going, warm way of
talking belies his quickness as he nimbly picks up another lamb to give it
a bit of the first milk.
Sheep used to be common on family farms. That’s when farming meant
a balance of different kinds of livestock, crops and income, but that’s
pretty rare these days… and this isn’t a family farm. George Good is the
farm manager at the Michigan State University Sheep Teaching and Research Center,
but Good himself was raised on one of those family farms.
“You know, they used to milk a few cows, have a few laying hens, and a
flock of ewes that they’d lamb in the spring, and lambing in the spring,
that’s a good time because it’s just before they go to the crop, to do the
field work, see?”
The lambs were born in the spring, just before it really got busy. Then,
after the crops were planted, it was time to shear the sheep. The wool
meant income that came at a pretty good time. Farming used to be all
about timing. After going all winter with little to sell, spring offered a
chance for some income. Selling lambs for meat, selling wool, and then
raising different livestock to sell at different times of the year. Farmers
would grow hay and wheat to bring in money during the summer, tiding
the family over until the corn crop came in during the fall and with it
more money.
“And I can remember a lot of people telling me – old farmers – that their
flock of sheep really kind of helped to make the farm payments. They
may not have been necessarily focused largely on the flock of sheep, but
it was something that fit in, that was compatible, you know.”
But, today farms usually are not that diverse. They specialize. Livestock
farms often raise just one kind of animal. Hog farms with tens of
thousands of pigs. Cattle farms that concentrate the animals in feedlots.
Or farms that don’t raise livestock at all, just crops. Modern farms
count on the efficiencies of mass production rather than the balance of
the cycles of nature and husbandry.
Good says even sheep farms have to raise hundreds of sheep to make
enough money to support a family, but Good says sheep are great if
they’re thought of as they once were on traditional farms… as a little
supplemental income.
“If you have a flock of sheep or a group of sheep it’s a great family
project. It’s something the wife and children can help, labor-wise, take
care of. They’re smaller. You got the wool crop. If you have some hilly
land or some rough area that you don’t farm, they graze it and you end
up with a nice product to sell. But, the family, the thing about sheep is
the family can really do a lot of the work, your children and your wife
and so on.”
Good notes that there’s been increased demand for lamb from growing
Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean populations in cities such as Detroit
and Toronto. Lamb prices are higher, making sheep worth the effort.
But then, Good seems to be partial to the animals. He gives you the
impression that nursing these lambs has to do with something more than
just profit and product. Maybe it’s just a reminder of how it used to be
on so many family farms.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.