Interesting tidbit re: market lambs

[Debbie Meier]

Deb,

 

This gives info for small scale poultry producers in IA.

 

Iowa Poultry Slaughter, Processing, and Sales Guidelines for Small-scale Producers

 

look at: Official Inspected Slaughter versus Exempt Slaughter

Mark

 

Thanks Mark.

 

Going through all these restrictions is reminding me why we just take lambs to the auction twice a year. The goal is to produce milkfed lambs 8 weeks before Christmas and Easter. Our Christmas lambs brought us about $2.30 / lb live weight, fingers crossed that we will be close to the same in two weeks at the Easter sale. We also took some older lambs, $1.00 - $1.25 / lb. Way less headache, no advertising and no dealing with people coming to look at sheep and trying to get us to lower our price....

 

Deb

[dracina]

Thank you for the explanation, Julie.

 

I am curious about this discussion for several reasons, but mostly because my husband is a chef, and we are very interested in the farm-to-table concept.

 

Not particularly on topic, but although I loathe the term, "slow food movement"- in my opinion, it takes the way we SHOULD support local producers and nourish ourselves, and reduces it to a slick marketing slogan- I find it encouraging that that it is making independents more accessible. I suppose that sometimes catchy terminology is what is needed to convince people of an idea's worth.

 

Mark- is it possible that you could post (or send me) a link to your local virtual farmer's market?

 

Karrin

[Sue R]

When we lived in NYS, we had a local extended Greek family come by to purchase live goat kids for their Easter feast. They did all the killing and processing themselves at their own location. They were buying 10 each year towards the end of our time producing kids (and our family's milk) there. We also had a family come out for an older wether a couple of times a year to celebrate Muslim and Hindu holidays. We killed, gutted, and skinned in their presence and they did the rest.

[Debbie Meier]

When we lived in NYS, we had a local extended Greek family come by to purchase live goat kids for their Easter feast. They did all the killing and processing themselves at their own location. They were buying 10 each year towards the end of our time producing kids (and our family's milk) there. We also had a family come out for an older wether a couple of times a year to celebrate Muslim and Hindu holidays. We killed, gutted, and skinned in their presence and they did the rest.

 

Sue, we were told that our Christmas lambs went to New York.

[Sue R]

We have a packer down here that used to do custom slaughter. Very shortly, though, this family-owned plant was contracted to do nothing but lambs, year-round. I understand (should be a knowlegeable source) that they are going to the San Francisco area. That's a lot of shipping. I have no idea where the lambs come from, though.

[Mark Billadeau]

Frederick County (MD) Virtual Farmers' Market

 

We're not listed on this site yet (we recently moved to this county); but another board member's farm is listed here.

[Bill Fosher]

When the checkoff was designed, it was set up for political reasons in my estimation so that the people who were voting for it would probably never have to actually write a check or fill out a form. What ALB considers "traditional" sheep marketing is that lambs are raised to feeder weights, weaned off their mothers, sold through a sale barn, sent to a feeder, and from the feeder to the packer. The system was set up so that the producer's portion of the checkoff fee was collected as a deduction from the sale barn check, then passed through to the feeder and the packer, and whoever owns the animal when it is slaughtered is to remit the checkoff and first handler's fee.

 

Since the checkoff was first enacted in 2002 or 2003, I have been trying to get an answer from the ALB about how to handle my "non-traditional" marketing of lambs, which is based on selling lamb directly to consumers, or to cooperatives, etc., based on hanging, rather than live weight. I have tried calling, e-mailing, snail mail, asking others who market lambs similarly, and I have not been able to get any advice. In fact, I have not even gotten an acknowledgment that my question has been received. As a result, I make remittances based on my best estimate of the live weights of my lambs, or on the actual live weights if I happen to capture it at or shortly before the time of shipment.

 

ALB seems to have no problem cashing my checks, so I know the address works. I have even included a question with a remittance. The check was cashed, but the question wasn't answered or acknowledged.

 

My suspicion is that because the ALB has done less than nothing to help producers like me comply with the checkoff, most of us probably aren't bothering. I do so only because I was so outspoken in my opposition to the checkoff leading up to both votes that I figure I would be in the crosshairs for a compliance action. So I do the best I can and do what I believe to be my legal obligation based on my interpretation of the law as it applies to my circumstances.

 

But I am not in the least surprised that there's a disconnect between the number of lambs accounted for by the checkoff and the number of lambs accounted for by the survey. In fact, I'd be surprised if it were otherwise. That the ALB and ASI want to "find" those "missing" lambs is also not a surprise. All of a sudden they are starting to realize that there is a sheep industry outside the of the Intermountain West, and that not all lamb goes to food service markets -- both facts that if they were in actual contact with the sheep industry they purport to represent they would have known.

 

As far as I am concerned, they can go piss up a rope. My lambs are not going to go through "traditional" channels, where middlemen take a cut of the action at each step. I will continue to control my product from birth to the hook (and beyond in many cases), and I will sell it to people who appreciate the effort that it entails. I will not promote it as "American lamb" because some of the junk that's out there with that label is appalling and I do not want to be associated with a "brand" over which I have no control that is being developed by people who can't even be bothered to answer my questions about how to pay their salaries.

[Bill Fosher]

ps -- this is not a "siphoning" off of lambs from "traditional markets." This is has always been done, and industry association was simply too sclerotic to realize it.

[Tea]

I too have a problem with the terms slow food...especially as I was introduced to the affluent foody folks. Some who were very kind and others who called me a ludite...(What the h*** is that? Because I am not that great on the computer......?!)

 

Also even predator friendly sends maybe signs of offereing up livestock to local predators......Which is not what we teach.

 

Words are important.

 

But what words do we use?

 

My favorite is sustainible

 

But I have had to use the others in my work to be understood.

 

What words do others use?

 

---------------------------

 

Off the subject but

 

Milking sheep now! I am always happy to have the milk for my coffee and cheese!

[juliepoudrier]

I like naturally raised and sustainable agriculture.

 

J.

[Bill Fosher]

Sustainable means different things to different people. My lamb is not sustainable because my operation is not profitable. I can't keep going this way forever. I believe that it is environmentally sustainable, in that it is increasing organic matter in the soil and promoting a healthy environment, but it is not economically sustainable.

 

Naturally raised also means different things to different people. At the moment, if you want to use the phrase "natural" or "naturally raised" on USDA inspected meat, you must include a footnote indicating what that means. I have seen labels, approved and in use, that say "natural*" and the * reads "minimally processed." So it could have been raised in a feedlot with hormone implants, and as long as it isn't highly processed, natural will cut the mustard.

 

I prefer to talk to my customers about how I raise my lamb and avoid catch phrases. However, my label does say "naturally raised*" "*raised on pasture without synthetic growth promotants."