From the Pastures: Pricing your product

Hello from Graze-N-Grow. Now is the time for “speed grazing” the pastures to keep ahead of the rapid-growth stage of early spring. With the older ram lambs sorted to graze here at home, the ewes and their ewe lambs and younger ram lambs are on the home farm. We don’t castrate, hence the need to separate, but we don’t wean off the females as they seem to do best when staying with mama.

I put two young rams with the flock for about three weeks to see if any of the winter-lambing ewes would breed for fall lambs. I tried that a few years ago with poor results, but maybe better luck this time. I will let you know next fall. With the current high lamb prices there is an opportunity to cash in on the ethnic holiday market if lambs are over 6 months old, and this year the holiday is May 27, so next year will be May 16-17. As those dates keep getting earlier, it becomes more difficult to have a lamb old enough for that market without fall lambing.

We have had to turn away customers calling or stopping in almost every day. You could just about set your own price on any lamb and they will grab anything they can find. I expect next fall the replacement ewe lambs to be setting price records with the great demand we’ve encountered. All inquiries we’ve had for those are met with “wait and see next fall.”

When you consider the risk of investing in the current sky-high cattle prices, it makes good sense to reduce that risk with sheep that can provide a much better return and a quicker turnaround, so I’m glad to help them get started right.

On the cropping side, I expect my neighbor, Richard, to start planting my corn by May 14 or 15 when soil temps pick up so that fast emergence can get ahead of the weeds. With frequent tine weeding trips along with cultivation we hope to keep ahead. Organic corn prices allow for great returns if done right, even with the high diesel prices.

Richard and his partner, Brandon, finally got their new litter spreader going and got all my litter spread. The wheat was boot-high by the time they got to it, but track damage seems minimal. Last year was almost a perfect spring for planting conditions, for both temperature and moisture — not so much this year, so we are about a week later, but still not too late. Planters have been moving everywhere around here for about a week and by the time you read this most farmers will be done. Once again, it’s great to be a farmer. Happy trails.