Sheep Industry News May 2022

Technology, Innovation Focus of Discovery Center A s a member of the Superior Farms Producer Advisory Board that first envisioned the concept of the com pany's Sheep Discovery Center, Wyoming rancher Vance Broadbent was determined to be a part of it from the beginning. goals Superior Farms has for the new facility, which will most likely house 5,000 to 8,000 sheep by the end of 2022. "As far as our capacity, we're still trying to really target that number," Atkinson said. "We have an idea, but as we continue to build this facility out, things are changing every day. So, I can't give you an exact number right now."

So much so, that be purchased additional ewes to make sure he could send sheep to the center before its official ribbon cutting ceremony on April 19. "From the very beginning, we were interested as a fam ily just because of the benefits this center can provide to the industry as far as information and data. We just had to figure out a way we could participate without having a negative ef fect on our operation," he said. "So, we ended up buying four truckloads of ewes out of Colorado. Two came directly here to the Sheep Discovery Center and two went to our ranch in Wyoming." Located in Nephi, Utah, the Sheep Discovery Center "will focus on animal health and wellbeing and the reduction of its environmental footprint while realizing the full potential of each sheep and meeting their needs in every phase of the animal's life," according to Superior Farms. "The center will converge technologies and create a more consistent and sus tainable lamb production model that will benefit all American lamb industry stakeholders." How exactly will Sheep Discovery Center General Manager Jordan Atkinson and his staff go about that? Through the use of technology. That includes applying the company's Flock 54 genetic management practices, optimizing nutrition and flock care, tracking data through the use of electronic identification tags, exploring ground-breaking fodder systems that use 90 percent less water, and utilizing advanced lighting that encour age accelerated lambing. "There's an important sustainability aspect of what we do, but we're going to take that message to a higher level at the Sheep Discovery Center," said Superior Farms CEO Rick Stott, adding that the center will make animal welfare a priority. "We want to make sure that every day here is a perfect day for these animals." On site since September 2021, Atkinson has seen the former turkey facility transformed to house sheep – which started arriving in December 2021. The center's current staff of seven employees was just getting started on lambing 700 ewes as several hundred guests arrived for the official ribbon cutting ceremony. Those are small numbers compared to the lofty

It's important, Atkinson said, to maintain sheep numbers at a level that allows the animals to live comfortably on the facil ity. Sheep generally can come and go as they please between the barns and accompanying pastures, and that's an important aspect of meeting the company's animal welfare goals at the facility. "The buildings were already here when we bought the place," Atkinson said. "We've just gone inside and taken out some of the turkey equipment and built pens and different things that we need – feeding systems, water troughs, lighting systems – to raise sheep here and have them live comfortably in those barns." Sheep will come from the company's producer partners in six states, and will lamb out at the facility while Superior Farms staff keeps records on just about everything. "We take thousands of records each day," Atkinson said. "Every ewe and lamb gets an EID tag, and we're using those to record data. We're continuing to refine that process to find more data points that we want to track. Along with our feeding system, we can track every pound of feed and where it goes. I'm just grateful to everyone who is supporting us in this jour ney, and we look forward to growing it out and doing our best to help improve the sheep industry. The beauty of sheep is that they are always a challenge, and I love a good challenge." Broadbent and his brother, Matt, visited the facility for the first time about a month before the ribbon cutting, and got an in-depth tour of the facility from Atkinson. "They've done a lot of work even since then, so it's con tinuing to move forward" Broadbent said. "The shed lambing concept is new to me because we range lamb. So, there's a lot of exciting things going on here." The ribbon cutting ceremony was attended by a variety of Superior Farms staff, the company's board of directors and dozens of producer partners who have or will send sheep to the center in the months and years to come. "What you see here today is just the start," Stott said. "We're going to discover a ton. We still have so much to learn about how to produce these animals."

18 • Sheep Industry News • sheepusa.org