Sheep Industry Trends and Economics Favorable

The American Sheep Industry recently held its annual meeting in Denver, Colorado. As part of the meeting, several members joined a tour in northeast Colorado, where they went through the Colorado Lamb Processing plant, and then went on to Rule Feeders, which is a feedlot with a 45,000 head capacity, but they maintain about 25,000 head in order to supply the processing plant. Spence Rule is part owner in the processing plant and owner of rural feeders. And he commented on industry trends that he is observing.

“We've become more and more selective in what we're doing. The lambing times are getting closer and closer together, we have to go into the feeding industry and stretch these lambs further and further. As we go. We've got ourselves where we're about a niche industry. Now we've got down pretty small in saying that we're still pretty good demand for our product. And as long as we continue to produce quality product, I think we still have a place in this business. There's a lot of people and a lot asking people that eat lamb doesn't matter because the Jewish population, the Islamic population, who it is, there's still a lot of people that do like it. And I think a lot of them are becoming more and more used to eating quality fed lamb as opposed to grass-fed lamb.”

Rule says they take about 3,000 head to the plant weekly for processing. The carcasses are then sent on to various customers mainly on the East Coast for fabrication and finishing. As for the economics of the sheep industry right now he says they aren't too bad.

“We're not making a ton of money, but we're not losing money. So it's pretty good.”