Wisconsin’s small ruminants provide meat, milk, and fiber to meet the growing local and national demand for quality products. Extension Specialists and Educators support the economic viability of Wisconsin’s sheep and goat producers with the following resources.
The Small Ruminant Webinar Series provides research-driven solutions to popular sheep production issues. It also connects sheep and goat producers to useful tools, techniques, and tricks of the trade & tips from the field.
For decades, livestock producers have moved animals on and off the farm by way of sale, leasing, renting, and between other facilities or pastures owned by the farm. With these movements comes the risk of the introduction or spread of disease.
Properly cleaning, sanitizing, and storing multi-dose syringes and transfer needles will reduce contamination from many viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The steps described here use only tap and distilled or deionzed (purified) water and do not render the equipment sterile.
Understanding the relationship between forages, sheep, and parasitic stomach worms (helminths) is the first step in creating a management strategy to increase animal production and decrease anthelmintic resistance (AR
Many beef and small ruminant producers are looking forward to pastures greening up in Wisconsin. In some pastures that will include troublesome weeds. Management timing for weed control is narrow for some species and can be the difference between success and a waste of time and money.
Download a copy of the Sheep Operation Enterprise Budget to determine the past year’s production costs and profitability, and develop budgets for evaluating next year’s profitability. Accurate closeouts and projections can help identify the sheep enterprises’ strengths and areas for improvement.
The FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) plan for supporting veterinary antimicrobial stewardship will be fully implemented in 2023 when all remaining over-the-counter (OTC) antibiotics are switched to prescription-only status. The medically important antibiotics (used by humans and animals) becoming prescription only include injectable tylosin, injectable and intramammary penicillin, injectable and oral tetracycline, sulfadimethoxine and sulfamethazine, and cephapirin and cephapirin benzathine intramammary tubes.
It may be common knowledge Wisconsin leads the United States in cheese production, but did you know that Wisconsin is the leader in sheep milk and cheese production? Sheep cheese is not a new culinary concoction, rather a 4000-year-old tradition staking a claim amongst Wisconsin’s dairy producers, cheesemakers, and cheese lovers. Wisconsin’s sheep milk is […]
Gene Schriefer, UW-Madison Division of Extension, and Adam Abel, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Soil Conservationist discuss planning for intentional grazing of sheep and goats.
Branding represents your message to your consumer about your product. What is it that your product stands for? Branding helps differentiate your product from everyone else’s. When we market our product, we’re selling the brand. This webinar will showcase three producers and different means by which they connect with the consumer to sell meat and fiber.
Consumer demand for lamb and goat from ethnic communities with a cultural bias for lamb and goat consumption is growing. Some demand is seasonal centered around holidays and other demand is more year round. Ethnic consumers are often looking for different type of lamb or goat than the traditional commodity product. Understanding different ethnicities and demand and meeting this market represents a potential profit opportunity for lamb and goat producers.
