Study shows shepherds intend to grow flocks over next five years

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Meat production was the most commonly reported primary production type across all flock sizes in the National Animal Health Monitoring System Sheep 2024 study.

“These are preliminary results for phase one and phase two of the study and we are actively working on the statistical validation for the report,” said Alyson Wiedenheft, biologics coordinator for NAHMS.

The major focus of the sheep study included internal parasites and resistance, antimicrobial stewardship and resistance, and describing economically important diseases.

The general sheep management questionnaire was administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service between January and April 2024.

“Operations with one or more ewes in 30 states were eligible to participate,” said Wiedenheft during a webinar hosted by the American Sheep Industry Association.

After completing phase one of the study, operations with 20 or more ewes were contacted to participate in phase two of the study, which included the health and management questionnaire and biological sampling from April to December 2024.

“The 30 states selected to participate in the study accounted for 84% of the operations with one or more sheep and 91% of the sheep on operations in the U.S,” said Wiedenheft, of the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

“States were chosen based on their percentage of sheep inventory or operations, the change in sheep inventory or operations, their geographic representativeness and the inclusion of more states in the southeast region.”

For phase one of the sheep study, 2,431 farms completed the questionnaire.

“The response rate was 60% and we were very happy with these results,” Wiedenheft said. “We feel like the study was well supported by the industry and producers.”

Market Dynamics

Wool production was more frequently reported as the primary production type for medium and large operations compared to small operations, said Natalie Urie, veterinary epidemiologist at CSU.

“There are a handful of operations across all size classes that are brush control, fire suppression and solar grazing,” she said. “Those seem to be more commonly reported on our very small operations compared to the small, medium and large operations.”

In the study, about one-quarter of the operations expected to have fewer or no sheep in the next five years, the study lead said.

“The main reason was due to retirement or lack of a successor,” Urie said. “It has increased a bit when comparing this to data in 2011, when 17% of the operations expected to have fewer or no sheep in the next five years.”

“On a more positive note, about one-quarter of the farms plan to grow their flocks in the next five years,” she said. “Additionally, the years of operator experience has held pretty steady with an average of 25 years of experience.”

Direct sales to consumers or ethnic markets are growing.

“In 2011, we had 17% of the operations reporting direct sales to consumers and now we see it at 24%,” Urie said.

“Accurate and consistent recordkeeping is really the cornerstone of effective livestock management,” she said. “It helps support decision-making relating to breeding, health treatments, culling, nutrition and overall productivity of an operation.”

The study showed that over half of all operations kept handwritten notes, 13% used electronic record-keeping systems and 28% did not maintain any records.

“The most common records maintained included the number of lambs born, the date of lambing, number of animals that died, number of animals that were culled and preventive practices such as vaccinations,” Urie said.

Animal Health

The four most common diseases that were suspected or confirmed in the previous three years, reported by shepherds, included sore mouth, foot rot, enterotoxemia and coccidiosis.

“They were all hovering around 30 to 35%,” said Wiedenheft, who grew up in Illinois and attended the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

“Having a good relationship with your veterinarian can help with not only disease management, but lambing and ram management, biosecurity and a wide variety of other subjects,” she said. “Thirty-four percent of the operations consulted a vet in 2023 and the method included farm visits, phone or text consults.”

The other two-thirds of the operations did not contact a veterinarian.

“The most common reason was that they did not need one at 48%,” Wiedenheft said. “And those that had sheep with health problems, 26% said they did not need a vet because they treated the animals themselves.”

Part of the phase two visit to the operations included optional biologics collection by a veterinarian professional.

“Producers seemed the most interested in the composite fecal collection for egg counts,” Wiedenheft said.

“Scrapie phenotyping was also very popular among producers and blood samples were collected and tested for the presence of alleles,” she said. “Alleles are the alternative form of the same gene that appear to make sheep less susceptible to classical scrapie.”

The veterinarians also collected interdigital swab samples and tested those samples for foot rot pathogens.

“Results show that 57% of the operations have at least one positive result for campylobacter and about 14% of the sampled sheep were positive,” Wiedenheft said. “Those results were pretty similar to the 2011 study where we had 54% of the operations and 13% of the sheep positive.”

There were a very low number of sheep farms that were positive for salmonella, the biologics coordinator said, and even smaller number of sheep that were positive.

“Clostridium perfringens is a new bacteria we included this year which are normally found in low numbers in the gastrointestinal tract of sheep and goats, but cause problems when they start increasing in the intestines,” Wiedenheft said.

“This usually occurs due to diet change and can lead to enterotoxemia, which is also called overeating disease,” she said. “We found a very high prevalence of Clostridium perfringens at both the operational and sheep levels.”

Lameness can be caused by infectious agents resulting in interdigital dermatitis or foot rot.

“Foot rot is one of the main causes of lameness in sheep, so it is important to identify the bacteria causing the foot rot to provide effective treatment and management,” Wiedenheft said.

“We have tested about half of the samples so far and we are seeing about three-quarters of the operations are testing positive for lameness pathogens,” she said.

About 300 sheep operations submitted samples totaling about 6,000 sheep to be tested for GI parasites.

“The average fecal egg count is 535 eggs per gram,” Wiedenheft said. “About 50% had less than 200 eggs per gram and about 5% had fecal egg count of greater than 2,500.”

Thirty operations tested positive for liver flukes, she said.

“Most of the positives were where we expected, which is the Pacific Northwest,” the instructor said. “However, we did find liver flukes in all four regions, which was a surprise.”