American Lamb Board Sheep IQ: Improving Productivity to Meet Demand
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6
West Virginia University – Monongalia County Events Center
Day 1: Matching environment with production
Theme: Understanding local/regional markets, managing sheep in forage-based system
Time / Session
- 9:00 AM Welcome, introductions, and workshop goals
- 9:15 AM Benchmarking: Where’s your flock at, where is it going?
- 10:30 AM Break
- 10:45 AM Managing forages to meet lamb production needs
- 11:15 AM Nutrition: Pasture renovation or supplementation
- 11:45 AM Genetic Selection: Adaptable sheep to forage-based productions systems
- 12:15 PM Lunch
- 1:15 PM Capitalizing on out-of-season breeding and the hidden value of BSE
- 2:15 PM Veterinarian relationship – Flock Health Checks – Preventative medicine
- 3:15 PM Break
- 3:30 PM Parasitism in the grazing flock – Fecal egg counting
- 4:30 PM FAMACHA Training
- 6:00 PM Questions and closing remarks
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7
West Virginia University – Evansdale Campus
Day 2: Routes to take in reaching your end-point
Theme: Enterprise budgeting, enterprise diversification, product quality and production model evaluation
Time / Session
- 8:30 AM Enterprise budgeting – an interactive-guided group activity
- 10:00 AM Break
- 10:15 AM Crossbreeding: the value of terminal sires
- 11:00 AM The eastern wool market: value added opportunity
- 11:30 AM Seedstock sales: value added opportunity
- 12:15 PM Lunch
- 1:15 PM Carcass evaluation
- 2:30 PM Producer productivity action plans group activity
- 4:00 PM Closing remarks and program conclusion