Sheep Industry News April 2023

President’s Notes BRAD BONER ASI PRESIDENT

Old Man Winter

H ello to you all from a wintery Central Wyoming. Since mid-December mother nature has certainly been show ing us who’s the boss! Most of the Western range flocks graze out on the prairie during the winter and are fed supplemental nu trition in the form of protein and energy to assure they meet all their nutritional requirements that the mature dried out forages are lacking. That typically involves feeding high-quality supplements to livestock at somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of their total intake on a daily basis, and then they fill up by grazing on the available forages. Everyone cusses the Wyoming wind, but many times it is a blessing as it bares off ground so grazing can continue throughout the winter months. That hasn’t been the case this winter as numerous heavy and wet snow events have more than covered up all the available forage. On top of the snowfall, our infamous wind has made it extremely difficult to even get to the livestock so they can be fed. As you can imagine, plowing your way miles and miles into the flocks and then out again in order to trail and/or truck each individual flock closer to the haystack has been an extremely difficult, time con suming and expensive job for many of our producers. The equipment resources and man hours it takes to accomplish this is sometimes mind blowing. Tough decisions are made as to how we can have the most impact on getting the most livestock in with the least time spent. This sometimes means some bands will have to wait while efforts are made to bring others in. These are stressful and painful decisions that are not unique in a crisis. That said, they must be made, as there is much at stake. This winter has been particularly challenging as the snow kept coming. We've had roughly another storm once a week as everyone tirelessly worked to save their livestock. As the efforts continued to bring livestock in closer, time was also required to find the additional feed resources that would need to be trucked in, in-order-to feed 100 percent of each animal’s daily intake. As I am sure everyone can appreciate, this comes at a high additional cost to the producer. Using our operation as an example, we have to date purchased 150 percent of our normal tonnage in supplemental feed. With the prices per ton of these feeds, we are looking at doubling our cost of feed – at the very least – compared to normal. Understand that in a normal year, feed costs are our second biggest budget expense. More purchases might have to be made depending on when the weather breaks and some grazing can begin again. Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has sent in a request to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a Secretarial Disaster Decla ration. No word back from USDA as of this writing. This is not meant to be a whining rant, but rather an effort to show what agricultural produces must go through sometimes to keep their livestock and operations feeding and clothing the world. Many times, we do it with no consideration of the cost to do so. I look forward to talking with you next month as the GREEN GRASS begins to make it’s appearance on the Wyoming prairie. Until then, keep it on the sunny side.

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