Much has been written about the financial difficulties of the cattle industry and the imminent collapse of the hog industry in Alberta. Diversified livestock has seen the ups and inevitable downs of alpacas, boer goats, llamas and ostriches. But one livestock group has quietly survived and seems to offer some hope - that being the venerable sheep industry. Few realize that sheep have been in Alberta almost as long as cattle. They walked across the border by the thousands in the 1880s, along with the great cattle drives from Montana and Wyoming.
Fortunes were made on wool alone in the early 1900s, peaking in 1917 when it fetched a dollar a pound (that’s about $25 a pound in today’s dollar) and that was when labour was a few dollars a day. But alas for a number of reasons, the last of the great range flocks in Alberta disappeared in the early 1960s. Only some Hutterite colonies have maintained sizeable flocks and even they are becoming scarce.
From a production and capital investment perspective sheep have usually been more viable than cattle. The problem with sheep is management - you either have to manage them very intensively to maximize production on a small scale or manage them extensively on a large scale with low input production. It can be done either way as proven in the UK, New Zealand and Australia.
Marketing sheep meat is usually not a problem, demand always exceeds supply. But it’s not a gold mine, imported product from down under tends to set an upper price limit. So the profit usually lies at home - the lower your input costs, the more profit.
About 30 years ago Alberta Agriculture, flush with money to spend back in an earlier oil boom, proceeded to spend millions on expanding the existing sheep industry. In short order, there were all kinds of sheep specialists (including the present Alta Ag deputy minister), technicians, subsidies, seminars, studies, research and on and on. The province even took over and operated the only federally inspected sheep packing plant in the country. Even lamb feedlots were established and government loans became readily available.
Expansion did occur and Alberta became the second largest lamb producing province in Canada. But alas, there was a fatal flaw, government experts favoured intensive sheep production. The idea was to turn sheep into hogs, that being increase lambs per ewe on a yearly basis and engage in out-of-season breeding techniques. That requires detailed management and increased the production costs significantly. Producers (God bless them) who entered the business at that time were seriously misled by government experts about all the management, extra costs and labour involved with intensive sheep production. Many gave up in despair and producer turnover was massive.
There was a bit of a reprieve in the late 1980’s when sheep were in demand for forestry cut block grazing in BC. Producers with larger flocks rented out their sheep for the summer - money was made but that created its own problems. At one time, over 20,000 head of sheep were transported to BC each summer. That contract grazing still exists but it’s down to a few highly specialized operators who use their own flocks. But I digress.
Back to reality, successive cutbacks and perennial restructuring at Alberta Agriculture saw basically all of their sheep support programs completely disappear by 2000. Now it’s up to the industry itself to promote development, which they have been doing with limited resources. But they can’t win for losing. The provincial agriculture minister last year cut the legs off the Alberta Lamb Producers organization by ending their mandatory checkoff. The sheep people were caught in the crossfire when the minister decided to punish the Alberta Beef Producers group.
Sheep production can easily expand in Alberta, but they need to not repeat the recent history. What potential producers need to know up front is what is needed to make a real living from sheep. Actual costs of production need to be realistic, in my view intensive production should be left to the dedicated. What should be promoted is more extensive low input operations that require minimal labour input and involve as much grazing as possible. It’s sort of a back to the future approach - that’s how the large profitable flocks operated over a hundred years ago. That’s the kind of history that needs to be repeated.