A 40 hour trip to the Calgary Stampede was well worth it for two Ontario sheep farms.
Supreme championships were awarded to Stonehill Sheep Farm of Chatsworth for the best ewe and Todd Farms of Lucknow for the best ram over 11 breeds competing at the All Canada Sheep Classic July 8-13.
Purebred sheep producers from Prince Edward Island to Vancouver Island attended the event to show and sell their purebred stock.
Keith and Valerie Todd’s Hampshire ram was described as a “perfect specimen” by judge Peggy Newman when she selected the yearling for her supreme champion.
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The ram was also grand champion at last year’s Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, an unusual accomplishment for an animal born only in February 2008, said Keith Todd.
He is a third generation sheep producer and farms with his parents, Hugh and JoAnn. The farm is diverse partly because of the domino effects of the BSE border closures, which barred sheep as well as cattle from international markets.
The family runs an 800 ewe dairy, which sells milk through Shepherd Gourmet Dairy to produce feta and ricotta cheese and yogurt.
“We went more toward the dairy because of the border issues,” Todd said.
The dairy flock is mostly East Friesian, but the Todds also raise purebred Hampshire, Southdown and Suffolk. They are always looking for strong genetics to increase meat yield but also improve milk volume.
Sheep milk has six to seven percent fat, five to six percent protein and 18 percent total solids.
To expand the dairy, the family imported a double 32 stall rapid exit parlour from Greece.
Even though the border has been closed to exports, Todd said the Ontario meat market has been strong. Lambs weighing 90 pounds have been sold for $150 in recent weeks.
The farm finishes about 1,000 lambs a year.
At Stonehill Farm, the partnership of Glen and Judy Porteous and Paul Dick and Tina Harrington also maintains a strong genetic component but chooses to maintain a closed flock, comprising polled Dorset, Suffolk and Texel.
It is under the national scrapie surveillance program as well as regular testing for the wasting disease, maedi visna. The flock is disease free.
Glen Porteus has been in the sheep business for 40 years, and this supreme championship was the first major win from his Dorset line.
The farm also won the grand champion Suffolk ewe, which sold for the sale’s top price of $1,600 at the auction held on the last day of the sheep classic. The champion Dorset sold for $650.
Porteus and his father have always been in the purebred business. Five years ago he took on partners Dick and Harrington, Toronto transplants who wanted a slower life.
Dick is a pediatrician in Owen Sound, Ont., and Harrington gave up her academic career as a biotechnologist to spend more time with their three children and learn how to farm.
It has been a rapid learning experience working alongside Porteous with his years of knowledge in genetic and performance improvement. Harrington has also learned how to get up in the middle of the night to check on lambing ewes.
“I’ve never been knocked over by a microorganism. Glen had a lot of nerve taking me on,” she said. “I understand the genetics, but in terms of husbandry, I didn’t bring anything.”
With the family well settled, the couple is prepared to stay even as their old Toronto friends express bafflement and envy over their decision.
Next year’s national show is in Quebec.
