Patty Smith dispersed one of her two purebred sheep flocks at Canadian Western Agribition last month.
It wasn’t a matter of downsizing as much as it was sharpening her focus on the real reason she got into the business in the first place.
“My ultimate goal was genetic advancement,” she said.
That means bringing in out-cross genetics to improve flocks across western Canada.
She had small flocks of both Suffolk and North Country Cheviot, but the latter were sold off at Agribition with two remaining rams set to go later.
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“Bringing semen from the U.K. for Suffolk is much easier,” she ex-plained.
“It’s more plentiful and available.”
Smith sold five ewes and two rams at Agribition. Her Suffolk flock she keeps to no more than 10 ewes.
Introducing new genetics is a costly and involved process that includes laparoscopic surgery for the ewes receiving the semen.
The work is done at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine, under anesthetic, and results in a stay of eight to nine days.
But Smith notes that if each ewe has twins she can offer about 20 lambs each year as breeding stock.
And if she keeps her breeding flock small she can continue to bring in new genetics, maintain her full-time job as director of business development and human resources at Blair’s, and help with the large beef cow herd she and her husband Shawn run.
Both Suffolk and North Country Cheviot offer advantages to producers. Suffolks have better dispositions, grow quickly and the rams are good terminal cross sires for commercial producers, she said.
“It’s difficult to get a better maternal breed than North Country Cheviot,” she said.
One of her two remaining rams is set to be sold off the farm while the other will sell at the All Canadian Classic in Winnipeg next summer.
At Agribition, Smith consigned the high-selling lot of the sale. Rocking S Jilly 1X, a Suffolk ewe, sold for $825 to Ryder Feuher of Weyburn, Sask.
She also had success in the show ring, showing the grand champion North Country Cheviot ram, Coneygeers El Grande 3Z , and the reserve ewe, Coneygeers Beep 2Z, which sold for $750 and $500, respectively.
