OLDS, Alta. – Producing good quality lambs is serious business for Eldor and Marie Klause.
They come to the Western Super Sire sale at Olds every year to pick a top performing ram to add to their flock of 500 commercial and purebred ewes at Gunn near Barrhead.
“Our attitude has always been if you buy a good ram, ideally it will show up in your flock,” said Marie after the June 30 sale.
The high selling and high performing ram came from Walt Strand of Lethbridge who consistently tops the program with his Suffolks. This year the Klauses bought his 215 index ram for $1,000. The index is based on an average of 100.
Read Also
Growth plates are instrumental in shaping a horse’s life
Young horse training plans and workloads must match their skeletal development. Failing to plan around growth plates can create lifelong physical problems.
The Klauses studied the statistics on this particular ram and decided it was the best choice. They regularly buy breeding stock from Strand.
“We’ve always had good luck with them. They always have a good rate of gain,” Klause said.
The sire reference program is the only one of its kind in the West. It started 10 years ago as a way to measure the genetic performance of Suffolks. The program has expanded to other breeds like Charollais, Rambouillet and Canadians.
The program assesses Alberta rams’ performance in terms of weight gain, bone structure, ribeye size, backfat and expected progeny difference data. An expected progeny difference (EPD) is an estimate of the superiority of the progeny of an animal relative to the average within the general population.
Since the program started the improvements have been tremendous, said Strand, who had 36 rams and ewes in the wrap-up sale.
For a commercial lamb producer who wants better carcass quality, the improvements have to start with a serious breeding program headed by quality rams with solid EPDs, he said.
Strand has raised Suffolks since he was a 4-H member and continues to support the program many years later by supplying quality lambs to youngsters.
Suffolks remained his favourites after he returned from university.
“I had a patch of land and put some sheep on it,” he said.
“They have been the best terminal sire you could put on commercial ewes and get really wonderful market lambs,” said the 70-year-old, who runs 95 purebred ewes.
A major improvement came some years ago when Strand and some fellow breeders imported British Suffolk semen. The result was thicker bodied sheep.
His customers tell him a Strand ram can get lambs to market weight of 120 pounds in 90 days with top grading carcasses.
The attention to quality drew the interest of a Chilean delegation at this sale, where they purchased a Strand ram. It cannot leave the country so they will rely on frozen semen, said Marcela Gomez of the group of 18, which consisted of veterinarians, producers and government officials.
