Sheep Industry News July 2022

Young Entrepreneurs

Cody Chambliss Highmore, S.D.

At 35, Cody Chambliss might be the old man of ASI's Young Entrepreneurs group, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a young producer who stays busier than the South Dakota cowboy. A divorce put him back to "ground zero" four years ago, but he and Alexis Shoup (who works full-time as a registered nurse, but helps a lot with the livestock) have since built a diverse livestock operation that includes 200 Merino ewes, cattle, hogs and goats. Cody also works a full-time, off-farm job as grain warehouse manager for the state's public utilities commission, so there's never a shortage of work to be done.

I GREW UP WITH A SMALL SUFFOLK OPERATION, then tran sitioned into cattle in high school. I went to college and couldn’t afford to pay anyone to take care of my cows, so I sold them. Got back into sheep eventually. Had sheep most of my life. I grew up in central South Dakota. Back on the home place for now until we find a place of our own. I’m the only one in the family with sheep. Land availability and capital input are two of the main reasons I didn’t get back into cows. I do like the sheep. Don’t remember the last time I was kicked by a sheep, but the biggest reason is the availability of labor. Sheep stuff we can do mostly by ourselves. WITH A STATE JOB THAT MOSTLY PAYS THE BILLS, I can do some different things with the livestock operation. Working on maintaining my wool clip and my lambing percentage right now. Hope to improve those numbers. I'll probably stay in the 250 ewe range until some more land becomes available. I'm always looking for some more land. We kind of dabble in everything. Sheep and cattle will probably always be the biggest parts of our operation, but we wanted to diversify to spread out the revenue. PREVIOUSLY, WE SHIPPED THE WOOL THROUGH Roswell and marketed there. But with the fall in the market and wool not mov ing the last couple of years, we sought out other options to increase our wool price in a tough marketing time. That's how we got involved with Zeilinger Wool Company in Michigan. I think it’s re ally exciting for producers to see where their wool goes and what it goes in to. There were lots of times where I might have heard who bought my wool, but I wouldn’t know what products it was going in to. Nice to see it stay in the U.S., get processed in the U.S. and become a product on the shelf in a store here. We're mostly mak ing socks with them to start, but it could grow into some different things. I'VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH THE SOUTH DAKOTA Sheep Grow ers Association and ASI for several years now. Hopefully, we can get the Young Entrepreneurs up and running a little stronger. I'm just trying to learn and network with people. We’re such a small

industry, we need to network so that we can help each other out from time to time. Whether it’s on wool, lambs or buying cull ewes, I think it's beneficial. I’m a person who tries to problem solve and think outside of the box. I just feel a need to get the younger generations involved and maybe those younger members can relate to someone who’s 15 years older as opposed to their grandparent's age. I was a state FFA officer, and that put me into some leadership positions and taught me a lot about how to deal with people. Times are changing in our industry, and I think the younger producers need to be involved in getting lamb to people of a younger age. I think we’re starting to see that trend a little bit. Industry wise, bringing a younger person to the table can bring some new ideas. Change isn’t always good, but sometimes change and a younger voice can help others think a bit differently. I'D LIKE TO DEVELOP A LAMB PRODUCT FOR A SCHOOL lunch program, and get kids wanting something different. A burger, a sausage or a brat, something along that line. Every time I bring it up, I’m met with the thought that lamb is a superior meat and that it is for white table cloth restaurants. But we still have cuts that don’t fit there. We really need to be open to change and to market ing. If you just follow traditional marketing methods, then you might miss out on some things. I'm always looking for opportuni ties because I like staying busy. The only vacations I ever take are sheep related. The ASI Convention and the Lamb Summit/YE Tour are my two big trips for this year. AFTER THE AMERICAN LAMB BOARD'S LAMB SUMMIT in Michigan in August, we're doing a YE Tour of the state's sheep industry. ASI hasn’t really visited that area much, to my knowl edge. A lot of the operations up there are intensive care, intensive lambing. We have a wool mill there that is coming on strong. I'm looking forward to working with the YE's on the Michigan trip. I think this group is a door to open younger producers' eyes to the industry as a whole. ALB, ASI, the National Lamb Feeders, they all play an important role in the industry, and they all have to work together to move the industry forward.

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