Sheep Industry News October 2025

lenges our producers face in the US. There was much talk of climate change, and I pointed out we (in Montana) went from -40 to 110 degrees in one year, grow most of our pasture in 45 days and it must provide feed for the rest of the year, and we face multiple layers of constant predation pressure. They tend to view their exports as the US grain, beef or pork produc ers view other countries around the world. One producer threw some numbers at me that I had to triple check. The US consumer eats around ninety-nine pounds of chicken per year, sixty-seven pounds of pork, around fifty-four pounds of beef and one pound of lamb. If the US consumer would eat just ten pounds of lamb, the US would consume all the lamb produced in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Aus tralia and that is why they view our market as a gold mine. This is certainly not a criticism of the American Lamb Board as they worked hard to get the American consumer to find lamb again and are making progress. But the final thought is that Australia will continue to send a lot of lamb to the US, and it will be interesting to see if we can find a way to increase consumption in the US while protecting the next generation of US sheep producers.

people expressed their thanks for the US forces during WWII and our continued presence in the area. One of the important things I learned was why they still focus on wool production so much when they are exporting so much lamb. Most of the places we visited are running about one sheep to every two acres year-round. As they still have a steady supply chain into to China, their wool moves pretty fast and at decent prices. Many operations still generate around $50-80 Australian per ewe on their wool, so they are making $25 to 40 ($16 to $26 USD) per acre just on wool. Their light lambs sell for much less than ours do in the US and in April they were getting $35 per head for their lambs, but the price has about doubled now. Animal welfare is a huge issue down there as they export almost everything. As the fashion indus try has said they need to find an alternative to mulesing, they have started developing a “sustainable” merino. These sheep really look and produce like our western whiteface ewes. They weigh about 145 pounds, have almost no wrinkles, shear around ten pounds of 19-micron wool and can wean over 150% lamb crop on pasture. Modern genomics or DNA testing has allowed them to make immense progress on multiple traits in a brief period of time to address these marketing issues. They too worry about the markets and infrastructure even with 70+ million sheep. Many people were amazed to learn the US had over fifty million sheep in 1942. They view our US domestic market as a major opportunity. I do not think the producers themselves where aware the chal

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