2003
Master Sheep Producer Is Continuation of
Family Tradition
Brett Stroh
Tappen
Being an innovative leader in the sheep industry runs in the family for 2003 North Dakota Master Sheep Producer Brett Stroh.
Stroh is the third in his family to receive the award. His father, Alton, received the award in 1985. Brother Brent received the honor in 1999. "My dad raised sheep for as long as I can remember," Stroh says. "I grew up with them." The Strohs all farm near Tappen. Stroh received the award at the North Dakota Lamb and Wool Producers annual convention in Mandan Dec. 6. The award recognizes excellence in sheep production and management.
Like a growing number of sheep producers, Stroh holds full-time employment off the farm. He’s an electrician for a company based in Steele. That’s meant he’s needed to customize his management, handling techniques and facilities so that his 250 to 300 ewes can be managed in a limited amount of time.
"Brett has designed his chutes and pens and other facilities to make it easier and more efficient to handle the sheep," says Roger Haugen, North Dakota State University Extension Service sheep specialist and member of the award committee. "We’ve seen operations with higher production, but Brett does a good job in all areas of his operation."
Stroh and his wife, Kris, began farming in 1986 and had sheep for a time then. About 10 years ago, they began producing sheep again. About six years ago, the family phased out it’s beef enterprise. "It was just too much with working off the farm," Brett says.
Today the farm has about 260 ewes. They typically cross white-faced ewes with black-faced bucks and feed 300 to 350 lambs each year.
Most of the lambs are born in February. "We’re questioning that right now," Stroh says. "It’s an awfully cold time of the year for lambing." However that early lambing has allowed Stroh to market his lambs at a peak time in the market, August and September.
As lambing approaches, the ewes are moved into to large barns. Those closest to lambing are penned in small pens for easier management. After lambing the ewes and lambs are gradually moved to larger pens. Last winter, Brett took three weeks off to devote himself to lambing. His 16-year-old son, Scott, also devotes considerable time to tending the sheep during lambing time. Daughter Kaylyn, 14, also helps with feeding and other chores.
"We’re a little concerned that lambing and basketball season may overlap this year," Brett notes.
The barns are outfitted with custom-made gates that can be disassembled and rearranged easily. Walk-through gates make moving from pen to pen easier. "It didn’t take long for me to get tired of climbing over panels," Brett says. He’s assembled most of the gates himself using with a wire-feed welder.
Over the years, Stroh has also worked on improving the barns. He added a 30-foot by 40-foot addition to one of them and both have been insulated. Plans are to add propane heat to one of the barns this winter to improve conditions for lambing.
Lambs are put on creep feed immediately and fed corn, wheat midds, flax meal, molasses and a pelletted supplement. They’re weaned at two months. And most are marketed at 8 months. "The lambs never see pasture," Stroh said. "When we pastured them, we had coyote problems and this system works really well for us."
Stroh markets cooperatively with his father and two brothers. The family members begin sorting off the largest sheep in August to assemble enough truck load-sized lots. The sheep are sold via on-line auction with the Equity Cooperative Livestock Sales Association based in Wisconsin.
"We all have electronic scales and sorting facilities. So we each do sort our own. Ours is made so the two kids and I can do it. Last year we weighed each individual lamb," Stroh says.
Stroh does little individual record keeping. He marks lambs so they can be matched to corresponding ewes. Any ewes with udder or lambing problems are tagged with a red ear tag so they can be sorted out of the flock later.
Stroh doesn’t usually keep his ewe lambs, but purchases one- to three-year-old ewes. "We’re not always around for lambing, and the older ewes tend to do better in that situation," he says.
Stroh says sheep have been a good fit with his job and family. The entire family has been able to be involved, particularly Scott and Kaylyn. Recently Scott purchased some sheep as part of the FFA Young Farmer Program. That makes him the third generation of Stroh sheep producers in the Tappen area.