Social distancing has put a chill on a market normally bolstered by the Easter season, as well as Jewish Passover celebrations and the start of Ramadan on the Islamic calendar later in April.

The Manitoba government declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 March 20. The province limited the number of people able to gather at one time, as well as closing dining rooms in restaurants and bars as of April 1 and suspending non-essential businesses.

On March 27, the Manitoba government further restricted social gatherings. The province announced that gatherings, including weddings, funerals and other family events, would now be limited to 10 people or less, down from 50.

Why it matters: Spring holidays such as Easter, Passover and Ramadan typically draw big demand for lamb, but this year the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing has put a chill on celebrations.

Morgan Moore, chair of the Manitoba Sheep Association, says the pandemic has sparked uncertainty in the market.

Demand has shifted away from the lightweight lambs normally popular at this time of year, he said, largely because families are not able to gather.

“It seems like there’s maybe a little more demand for the larger, finished lamb so that they can have a lamb roast or have cuts that would allow for smaller family gatherings,” he said.

In Manitoba, lamb prices at the Grunthal Auction Mart April 8 ranged from $1.50-$2 per pound for lambs under 60 pounds to $1.70-$2.02 per pound for lambs 80 to 100 pounds. At Winnipeg Livestock Sales, prices as of April 3 ranged from $150-$175 for lambs under 60 pounds to $180-$220 for lambs 60 to 80 pounds.

Moore added that market prices after Easter may give a better indication of where the market is going.

“We really don’t feel like we have a clear sense of direction,” he said. “The Easter market started out very strong, but then it softened a lot in the last couple of weeks. It remains to be seen where this is headed.”

The Ontario sheep market has reported a sharp downturn after a promising start to the spring.

According to data from the Ontario Sheep Farmers, lambs across the board broke well above the five-year average in the first half of March, before diving. The average price for lambs between 95 and 109 pounds March 11-March 17 came in $71.94 per hundredweight higher than the same week last year and $50.12 per hundredweight higher than the average price during the four weeks before. Two weeks later, however, the market had dropped almost $100 per hundredweight before starting to recover in the first week of April.

Lambs under 50 pounds, likewise, started strong before falling well below the five-year average. Prices in the first week of April had fallen $94.99 per hundredweight below the four-week average, and $109.97 per hundredweight below the price in the same week last year.

Direct marketing

Some producers direct marketing their lambs, however, say they have seen a beneficial impact.

Natalie Degerness of HomeGrown Acres near Wawanesa says she has been sold out of lamb since early March.

The farm typically slaughters in fall. Some of that meat sells immediately, Degerness said, or it is otherwise sold frozen.

The farm downsized its herd last year and last butchered in December.

“Those sold very, very quickly,” Degerness said, although she added that the farm has also seen similar increase in demand for its beef.

“There’s definitely more demand than usual right now to buy locally,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s because there isn’t as much in store or if it’s just people wanting to support local.”

Empty grocery shelves made headlines in mid-March after the COVID-19 pandemic heated up and social distancing measures were announced in Manitoba.

Processing questions

The pandemic has also raised anxiety about processing capacity.

Temporary plant closures have hit headlines throughout the meat sector. In late March, Olymel announced that it would be shutting down its 1,000-staff pork-processing plant in Yamachiche, Que., for two weeks due to increasing cases of COVID-19. That news was followed by the temporary closure of an Alberta beef-packing plant.

In the U.S., a growing number of packers have likewise suspended operations. The pork sector was rocked by news that Tyson Foods would be shutting down a major packing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, following more than two dozen cases of COVID-19. The company later said that hogs bound for the plant would be diverted to other facilities, Reuters reported April 6.

Other companies include JBS, which shuttered operations at a beef plant in Pennsylvania until April 16, according to Reuters, and Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Local media reported April 8 that over 80 employees of the meat-packing plant had got sick and that the plant was closing for three days.

The rash of closures has done little to reassure the Manitoba sheep sector.

“We have such a bottleneck currently because we’ve got such limited processing options that one or two disruptions in our fragile process, I think, would be pretty devastating to our industry and especially in the short term,” Moore said.

There are currently two options for federally inspected sheep slaughter plants in Canada, he said. Animals slated for slaughter are shipped either to Sungold Specialty Meats in Innisfail, Alta., or to Newmarket Meat Packers in southern Ontario.

“Some are going direct for slaughter,” Moore said. “Most of the lambs that go east from Manitoba though are going either to a feedlot for further finishing or else to the auction mart to be further marketed from there.”

The Manitoba Sheep Association has long pushed for increased processing capacity.

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The issue of livestock kills is once again high on the agenda of beef producers as they gather at district meetings this fall.

Wolves and other predators repeatedly take out animals, and aggravation is mounting that solutions to a problem as pressing as this gain so little traction year after year.

Why it matters: Manitoba livestock producers have been suffering from rising predation losses for a number of years, but say they can’t get any action on their concerns.

“I’m not going to say I’m as frustrated as producers are because I’d probably get run out of town, but we are certainly frustrated as well,” Brian Lemon, Manitoba Beef Producers general manager, said at District 9’s meeting October 23, attended by Interlake producers who are being especially hard hit from repeat wolf kills and feel a real threat to livelihoods.

Some have reported losses as high as 10 per cent of herds, plus there are other production losses such as from cows aborting pregnancies due to predation stresses.

One faint hope now lies with the Livestock Predator Protection Working Group (LPPWG)’s efforts, however. It is now in the very earliest stages of putting together a pilot program that will demonstrate the kind of supports producers need.

MBP has just received funding approval through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) to help this group, which also includes sheep and goat producers, to start designing a pilot project.

Lemon says the group is still in its infancy and the design work lays ahead, but generally there are three main components to such a program.

There will be a way to remove problem predators. There will be a reasonable compensation program for producer losses. And there will be a program of on-farm risk assessments to help producers do what they can to minimize losses. That would include herd management practices such as more regular pasture checks, timely disposal of deadstock so it doesn’t attract predators, and so on, Lemon said.

“One piece of the puzzle is always going to be making sure that producers do the proper risk assessments,” Lemon said.

The term ‘problem predators’ will be key in helping the public understand what livestock producers’ concerns are, and what they’re specifically asking for, Lemon said.

“We’re not trying to remove all predators,” he said. “We’re trying to remove the ones that have developed a taste for beef and threaten our livelihoods.”

These right now predominantly include wolves worrying Interlake producers, but coyotes, bears and even cougars kill cattle, too.

Lemon said the real work ahead lies with convincing the rank and file within the Department of Sustainable Development, whose focus is largely on the protection of wildlife, that even as beef producers ask for protection from these problem predators, they also play a key conservation role on the landscape — and that they value wildlife, too.

“Increasingly, we as beef producers recognize that there is this intersection between the environment and beef production, and what that means is increasingly there’s an intersection between (the) Agriculture and Sustainable Development (ministries),” he said.

What’s needed is a better understanding of that because “that gives us a chance to tell our story differently,” he told the District 9 producers’ meeting.

“It’s a long, slow process, but we’re kind of pulling the Titanic around an iceberg here.”

Manitoba’s beef producers are by no means alone in their predicament. The Manitoba Sheep Association (MSA), representing over 400 sheep and lamb producers in Manitoba is also at the table of the LPPWG.

Its members continuously lose animals to predation, said Kate Basford, MSA executive director of the MSA and a Winnipegosis-area sheep producer.

“It’s definitely something that we talk about all the time,” she said. “As you can well imagine, if cattle are being predated sheep are that much more vulnerable to be taken down by any number of animals. At one time it was just coyotes. There’s an area not far from me that has a bad wolf problem. It seems to come in cycles.”

Basford added that sheep producers do often deploy guard dogs because their flocks are so vulnerable to predation and many have found them an effective deterrent.

“The value of a few dogs goes a long way,” she said.

Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) statistics show in 2017 there were 1,878 predation claims covering all types of livestock, including beef, sheep and goats. More than $1.8 million was paid out in compensation to producers for their losses.

So far, halfway through the reporting period for 2018, there have been 1,387 total claims for predation kills across the province. That number also includes 326 wolf claims in 2018 specifically.

But, producers also insist the MASC numbers don’t tell the whole story, due to the fact its Wildlife Damage Compensation Program only compensates those who can provide sufficient evidence of a predator kill. Aside from being unable to provide an accurate account of the situation, that also means lost revenues amounting to tens of thousands of dollars among hardest-hit producers.

Lemon said MBP is continuing its voluntary cattle loss survey asking producers to help their organization better define the scope of the problem.

“We continue to collect the surveys,” he said. “Anecdotally, talking to producers I’ve heard from a couple losing as much as 10 per cent of their herd. Those would be the extremes probably. It’s something we’ll add up when we’re done with our district meetings and we should have numbers towards the middle of November.”

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Delegates to KAP’s advisory council meeting here Aug. 9 passed a resolution calling on KAP to lobby against the fee increase and to get Health Canada to reassess its current fees and approval process to allow data from other countries when registering veterinary drugs for use in Canada.

“It seems like they’ve come up with these fees without doing their homework,” Manitoba Sheep Association executive director Kate Basford told delegates while speaking to the resolution. “It’s really quite arbitrary. They’ve looked at what other countries are charging and then transferred it. They haven’t looked at the number of livestock that are going to be paying for this. So it’s really creating an unfair trade environment for all commodities and it has some serious ramifications.”

The federal government is downloading costs to farmers and adding red tape and it discourages companies from bringing new veterinary drugs to Canada, added Paul Gregory of the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association.

“The current fees are already high and that means drug companies are not marketing drugs to smaller industries such as the Canadian sheep industry,” KAP president Bill Campbell said in a news release later. “Our producers are being put in a less competitive position in the global marketplace.”

Six other resolutions were put to delegates and all passed, including one calling on KAP to lobby the Manitoba government to let local governments decide on banning crop residue burning outside the fall period when Manitoba Agriculture regulates crop residue burning.

This spring the Manitoba government considered a province-wide fire ban, Dauphin farmer Don Dewar told delegates.

“For the Province of Manitoba to have some bureaucrat in the Department of Environment deciding that we won’t have any burning in the province I think is wrong,” Dewar said. “We need to let those decisions be made by local governments.”

Hemp and ryegrass are two crops with residues that burn better in the spring than in the fall, he said.

Delegates passed a resolution for KAP to ask the Manitoba government to make trespassing on private property a chargeable offence.

Portage la Prairie farmer Rae Trimble-Olsen said it came up at her local KAP district meeting that trespassers can’t be charged.

The resolution’s preamble noted trespassers risk spreading animal and crop diseases and herbicide-tolerant weed seeds.

Delegates passed two resolutions dealing with licences for foreign, seasonal farm workers.

One asks KAP to lobby the Manitoba government and work with the Manitoba Public Insurance to exempt foreign workers under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program from having to obtain a Manitoba driver’s licence after being in the province 90 days.

The other calls on KAP to lobby the minister responsible for Manitoba Public Insurance to instruct it to develop digital licence training modules in both Spanish and Tagalog and for the Manitoba government to establish a reciprocal agreement with the Philippines and Mexico for driver licensing.

Delegates also passed resolutions for KAP to lobby the Manitoba government to repair and maintain three pump stations diverting water from the Assiniboine River into the Elm River, La Salle River and Mill Creek to keep water levels up and for KAP to meet with International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr to discuss Canada ratifying the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

A resolution from District 3 for KAP to lobby the federal government to “disallow the testing, funding and introduction of glyphosate-tolerant wheat in Canada” was not debated because it had no mover.

KAP delegates also heard what Assiniboine Community College (ACC) in Brandon has planned for a new Agricultural Operator’s Program.

The intent is to provide graduates with entry-level skills to work on farms, Tannis James, ACC’s director of continuing studies, told the meeting.

The program will have nine courses, totalling 500 hours at ACC’s Brandon campus.

In addition there will be a two-week, on-farm practicum providing hands-on learning.

Its proposed course applicants have at least Grade 10 education and a Class 5 driver’s licence.

Courses would include safe work practices, employability skills, equipment maintenance, mobile equipment startup and basic operation, GPS guidance system operation, livestock industry equipment identification, grain industry equipment identification and safe transport of implements on roads.

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“Once the combine goes and chops it (grain straw) that field is done (as a feed source),” Campbell said here at KAP’s advisory council meeting Aug. 9. “We need to have some of those conversations and neighbours need to have that conversation on how we facilitate the baling of straw. I’m not sure there’s room for speculation on a lot of grain producers’ part.

“From what I can gather two weeks and we’ll be right into full-fledged wheat harvest. Once you combine it’s gone.”

A dry, hot summer has reduced hay production in many parts of the province, KAP delegates told Campbell.

“Straw is going to be in huge demand,” Walt Finlay of Souris said. “There are dugouts and sloughs that are drying up now that haven’t been dry since the ‘80s.”

• Read more: Services available for producers affected by dry conditions

Neil Galbraith, who farms near Minnedosa, said hay yields in his area are down 50 per cent or more and some farmers will be feeding cattle by Sept. 1.

“There’s just no regrowth after they (cattle) chew it down once,” he told the meeting.

Wheat harvesting has already begun in many parts of the province.

There’s more to consider than whether to drop or chop straw as it’s being combined, delegates said. For example, it’s harder to bale straw that’s gone through a rotary threshing machine.

“The (wheat) varieties are shorter,” Campbell said in an interview. “They are meant for straight cutting. We’re spraying more glyphosate on the wheat for desiccation. It (straw) just disintegrates (when combined). There will be a lots of areas of this province even if you say you can have my straw there’s nothing left.

“Hopefully, we can take a co-operative approach… because straw and pellets; they will work. It will be a change in how you winter your cow herds, but it can work.”

Poor cell coverage

Poor cellphone service and municipal and education taxes on farmland were also discussed hot topics

Cell coverage isn’t just a matter of convenience, but life and death, Campbell said, alluding to the EF-4 tornado that killed Jack Furrie, 77, near Alonsa Aug. 3.

Those in the affected area weren’t warned via cellphone because there was no service.

KAP delegates from across the province complained about spotty service and cell dead zones.

“Where I live I have absolutely no cellphone service,” said Manitoba Sheep Association executive director Kate Basford, who lives near Winnipegosis.

“Since Bell took over (MTS) with their claim of making huge improvements it has actually gotten worse. I have to go 20 minutes from my home towards Dauphin to get any kind of cell service.”

After several years of double-digit increases in farmland taxes, many delegates said their property tax bills are up again.

Walter Finlay of Souris said taxes in the R.M. of Oakland-Wawanesa were up 49 to 60 per cent.

Craig Riese, who farms near Lockport, said farmland taxes in his area are up 37 per cent, while residential property taxes are down 15 per cent — a clear sign the tax burden continues to shift to farmers.

“My brother is running for council to try to get some farmer representation back,” Riese said. “That’s the attitude we’re taking. Put your money where your mouth is. You’ve got to get involved. If you complain and don’t get involved then don’t complain.”

Campbell agreed.

“We are pressing their (councillors’) feet to the fire on how they deal with this because this has become a financial burden on agriculture and we will not let this rest or fall to the wayside,” he said.

The post Farmers urged to co-operate to secure winter livestock feed appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Members at its annual meeting Nov. 18 widely supported a resolution calling for the establishment of what is to be called the Manitoba Sheep Enhancement Board.

• Read more: Sheep producers want more resources for optimizing productivity

The concept has been under discussion among directors since last spring, said Kate Basford, the northwest director and a Winnipegosis sheep producer.

The resolution voted on states that ‘the Manitoba Sheep Association should establish a Manitoba Sheep Enhancement Board to provide producers with another voluntary marketing option and provide marketing education and tools for producers.’

They are calling this an enhancement board rather than marketing board because of the emphasis to be placed on educating producers to improve production practices to meet market needs, Basford said.

“It’s another opportunity and another venue to market, but more so we’re really pushing the educational component,” she said.

“There really needs to be an educational component to teach producers what a good lamb is and what a finished lamb is. This is about learning to produce better lambs and understand markets and start thinking about how do you make more money.”

Demand for lamb is strong and their sector has tremendous potential to expand, but a clear need is for better understanding of the markets that want their commodity, she said.

“That’s very much a problem with Manitoba sheep producers right now,” she said. “We raise lambs… and then it’s, ‘let’s see who wants them,’ and we just sell them off. There has to be a mindset change.”

Education around market needs, feeding regimes and other requirements of finished animals for specific markets could go a long ways toward increasing potential sales, she said. The Greater Toronto Market, for example, is looking for very lean animals and for lamb at a certain time of year.

“Our producers need to know when they want to sell their animals, what the market is actually demanding at that time,” she said.

The initiative will also help facilitate greater communication between participating producers and buyers thereby offering increased market knowledge to sheep producers.

Other advantages touted in a pre-vote discussion at the annual meeting included how this would offer producers regular shipping opportunities, a chance for smaller flocks to be part of larger loads, knowledge of prices prior to loading and guaranteed payments.

Participation in the enhancement initiative will remain entirely voluntary, and any producer with any size of flock or breed could choose to take part as often or as infrequently as they so chose.

It actually remains to be seen whether this will get off the ground, Basford stressed, noting that last week’s vote only begins a process.

“This is step one,” she said.

The MSA must also seek approval for adding marketing to its articles of incorporation to get this started.

There were a fair number of questions raised during the AGM around how exactly an MSEB would operate and those details need further discussion through ongoing consultations with MSA members.

The new Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) is a potential source of funding to support the various components of the program, which, in addition to offering more training and education opportunities for producers, would also include assembly points for loading animals and related staffing and administrative needs.

MSA directors say the program would operate on a revenue neutral basis.

The move is part of the MSA’s broader Vision 2020, a five-point action strategy aiming to bolster all segments of the Manitoba sheep industry.

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It’s been a period of remarkable growth of the sheep sector, says the Carberry-area farmer and co-owner of Shereff Stock Farms. Bieganski is also acting chair for the Manitoba Sheep Producers.

“There is a lot of optimism out there,” she said.

The latest Census of Agriculture figures on Manitoba’s sheep flock bear that out. Manitoba’s flock is the fastest growing in Canada, expanding 43.2 per cent between 2011 and 2016, to 90,423 animals in 2016. The growth is attributable to significant expansion of one producer in eastern Manitoba but overall consumer demand for fresh lamb is also spurring more entrants to the sector.

The MSA’s membership and other producers’ flock expansion also tell that story, said Bieganski.

“We’ve seen several new producers over the last few years, and at the same time existing producers have been growing their flocks as well,” she said.

• Read more: Sheep association supports concept of ‘enhancement board’

Questions

But both new and existing producers also have plenty of questions around flock management and care, and the MSA’s fluctuating membership can also be seen as a sign not everyone is getting those questions answered.

The MSA recognizes that need and is trying very hard to develop and provide educational resources and opportunities for producers, said Bieganski.

“There is a steep learning curve,” she said. “There’s just so many areas in sheep production that can be stumbling blocks.”

The November 18 annual meeting was also billed as a sheep symposium, with a variety of speakers present to answer pressing questions about flock management and care.

Among them was Manitoba veterinarian Dr. Judy Hodge who spoke of some of the looming issues that producers need to recognize will affect them and how to be prepared to deal with them.

Antimicrobial resistance and increasing veterinarian oversight for antibiotics usage of them is one of them. Producers will need to ensure they have client relationships established with their veterinarians, because it will soon no longer be possible to buy medicated feed or pick up a bottle of penicillin at the local Co-op without a veterinarian’s prescription, said Hodge.

New diseases

Climate change, which can sometimes seem a distant matter, is another. What climate change is going to bring are new diseases and producers need to know the risks these diseases pose as well as what role they could inadvertently play in spreading them.

Bluetongue, which has not been detected in Manitoba yet, is spread by biting midges but as well as through contaminated needles. If bluetongue affects an animal in a flock, and the producer continues to vaccinate the flock it’s in with the same needle, the disease will be spread to other animals, she said.

“That’s going to be a risk factor once we get bluetongue,” she said. “You are going to have to start to adapt your ways of doing things.”

Hodge also stressed the importance of understanding chronic and subclinical diseases in sheep flocks. Many of the diseases that affect sheep have very long incubation periods and it will not be obvious to the producer how they’re affecting flock productivity, she said.

“It’s really just chipping away at your profits.”

The November 18 meeting also included talks from Manitoba Agriculture food safety specialist Diane Roberts on the requirements for selling at the farm gate, and Calgary-based veterinarian Dr. Michel Levy described new tests for gastrointestinal parasites.

Manitoba agriculture’s dairy specialist Rob Berry spoke about sheep nutrition and the need to pay attention to water quality. The latter can affect sheep health and productivity in ways producers may not always realize, he said.

“We wonder why animals aren’t reproducing and we may look at the feed or environment, and then we have a look at the water test,” he said.

Future vision

The MSA also released Vision 2020 — a five-point strategy at this meeting. Vision 2020 lays out five actions listed under communications, production efficiency, flock expansion, market development and organizational capacity.

A vote at this meeting to go forward with establishing an ‘enhancement board’ falls under the category of market expansion and development. The MSA’s other stated goals include increasing the number of sheep producers in the province, supporting research benefiting the sector, government lobbying to increase access to programs, and fostering economic viability within the sector through pushing the value of having lambs available year round. The MSA is also aiming to encourage new entrants into the industry and to promote lamb consumption.

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The latest Census of Agriculture figures show flock expansion of 43.2 per cent between 2011 and 2016, to 90,423 animals in 2016. Elsewhere in Canada the sheep flock declined in that same time period by 4.9 per cent.

Jonathon Nichol isn’t surprised to hear those numbers.

Much of that growth is due to significant expansion on one particular farm, Canada Sheep and Lamb, located in eastern Manitoba, said Nichol, chairperson of the Manitoba Sheep Association and a sheep producer near Manitou.

“They’re a large percentage of the sheep flock in Manitoba,” he said. “We do have other producers growing as well, but at the rate it’s growing overshadows the rest of the growth within the province.”

Their association is encouraging others among its 500 membership to keep expanding flocks as well, he said.

Manitoba’s advantage for sheep is affordable land suitable for these animals. As production grows, local demand for fresh lamb within the province is also increasing.

But it’s consistent profitability and a growing market as demand for lamb rises in urban Canada contributing to the flock growth, Nichol said.

“Prices have stayed consistent over the last five years which goes a long way to helping encourage growth as well.”

Canada continues to import almost 60 per cent of lamb consumed here.

“It’s an import market unlike most commodities where we’re trying to export,” Nichol said.

“If we can create larger production we can get more of that market for ourselves.”

The attraction to sheep is they’re easier to handle and a relatively less expensive investment compared to the costs associated with other livestock, Nichol said.

“I can buy 10 ewes for basically the price of one cow,” he said, adding he currently has about 70 ewes with a long-term plan of expanding his flock to about 250.

What most find is that a flock of about 30 is easy to handle, whereas any larger places more management challenges on producers, he added. The association is there to help educate producers through seminars and farm tours to take on those challenges.

“It’s when people get bigger and get bigger quick that they quite often get discouraged and get out. We’re looking to mitigate those problems,” he said. “The typical sheep producer is in the industry for about five years.”

Nichol said the majority of sheep producers are raising the animals for meat but some have developed niche market opportunities for wool too. Value added “makes a big difference” for those producers because wool isn’t worth much, he said.

“I shouldn’t say wool isn’t worth anything. It’s just a low-priced commodity,” he said.

“It’s worth it to ship, but not worth enough to specifically grow unless you’re into a niche market.”

Nichol said if producers can sustain flock growth it ultimately helps make a case for federal kill facilities in Manitoba for sheep. Right now the majority raised here are shipped to slaughter plants in Ontario and in Alberta.

The post Manitoba sheep flock expands appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In September, the Manitoba Sheep Association reported that through June and July, processing plants in Ontario saw an increase in the number of adult carcasses being condemned due to jaundice.

“Copper toxicity is what is causing the jaundice being found at the slaughter plants in Ontario, which is caused by an overload of copper in the animal’s system,” said Jonathon Nichol, chair of the Manitoba Sheep Association.

Copper toxicosis can occur when sheep are fed rations that are high in copper. If animal feed is grown in soil containing high levels of copper, chances are copper levels in the feed are also high.

Complicating things further, copper content in soil varies greatly across Canadian geography, and according to Nichol, Manitoba has a reduced level of copper in its soil in comparison to Ontario, and has seen more reports of copper deficiency in sheep than copper toxicity, which can be equally harmful to herd productivity.

“We know that Ontario is having an issue with jaundice but Manitoba has a different copper content in the soil and in our feed than in Ontario, so we have seen multiple producers within the province that are on the opposite side of this problem, with a copper deficiency,” Nichol said. “This is something that producers need to be aware of. Yes, too much copper will kill a sheep but not enough copper will also kill a sheep.”

There are several locations within Manitoba that are known to be copper deficient and the province is also known to have molybdenum present in certain areas, which binds copper from being used effectively in sheep.

“The symptoms of a copper deficiency look similar to that of a high parasite load. The animal becomes anemic, some of them will go lame and some will get what is called wire wool, which creates a difference in the wool texture. But the end result, if the animal is too low in copper for too long, they start to do very poorly and if you do not catch that problem they won’t survive,” Nichol said.

Nichol says he has personally had a deficiency issue on his own sheep farm near Manitou.

“I assumed I had a worm problem and eventually, when I ran out of options, I started to look at every other potential possibility and narrowed it down,” Nichol said.

If producers are seeing several anemic animals and have been deworming regularly but have not seen an improvement, Nichol suggests that they may want to talk to their vet about testing for copper deficiency.

Producers can test soil and feed to get an inkling of the trace levels of copper the herd is receiving, however, the only way to determine the true level of copper in the animal’s system is by testing a liver sample.

“A blood sample can’t really tell you. The only true way to find out what your copper level is in your sheep is through a liver sample and typically that is post-mortem,” Nichol said. “Liver samples are the best bet. It costs me approximately $200 a lamb to send in a piece of liver to be sampled and that will tell me pretty quickly the amount of mineral and the amount of copper I am feeding them. The expense of having a couple of samples taken and tested is far less expensive than losing a bunch of animals.”

After testing liver samples and getting an understanding of copper levels, sheep can be supplemented copper, however, it takes time for the copper to both accumulate or leave the animal’s system.

“Copper builds slowly and also takes a long time to get out of the animal’s system. You can’t cure it overnight. It is not going to be a five-day course of antibiotics to solve the problem, it will take an extended period of time.”

On his own operation, after taking a number of liver tests and consulting his veterinarian, Nichol began supplementing his herd with copper and has seen positive results.

“I have had a lot of people who are concerned about what I have been doing on my operation, in terms of managing the copper deficiencies. Some people were very skeptical, as we have been told for many years not to feed copper to sheep. But, I have done a lot of liver tests to see where my animals are at and why my problem is where it is,” Nichol said. “I have noticed significant changes in the animals since I began supplementing copper. It takes three to five weeks to notice the big change but the anemia goes away and there are certainly less deaths.”

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Sheep producers generally have two options for packaging wool, long tube bags made from jute or New Zealand square bags made of polyethylene.

At its annual general meeting in early March, the Manitoba Sheep Association (MSA) passed a resolution to lobby the Canadian Co-operative Wool Growers (CCWG) to continue to have a sufficient supply of long tube bags.

“The long tube bags are available right now, but the resolution comes as more of a concern because there has been a shift in terms of preference,” said Herman Bouw, chair of the MSA. “Those who have invested in a packing system for the tube bags are concerned suppliers may stop supplying them.”

The wool industry has seen an increase in the use of the square bags as they have been said to be easier and safer to pack and more efficient in transport.

“The New Zealand square bags are preferred because they are a more efficient way of transporting wool,” said Bouw. He said the difference can be significant, up to 10,000 pounds difference on a single trailer.

He says growers who are concerned about the change can expect a gradual conversion.

“I think there is a long switch over what is happening but no one needs to panic,” he said. “It is just becoming the preferred type of handling. Both style bags are equally accessible to producers at this time.”

Canada’s supplier of wool-packing material reassures Manitoba sheep producers there will be no drastic change in packaging options.

Adequate supply

“We have plenty of inventory of both style bags available and it is entirely the choice of the producer or the shearer,” said Eric Bjergso, general manager of the CCWG. “There are a number of shearers who have pressers that use the tube bags and others prefer the square. There are both schools of thought out there, so that’s why we have both options available.”

Bjergso says he was surprised when he read the resolution, but notes there is no issue with supply or plans to purposely limit packaging options.

“I saw the motion in their newsletter and had been planning to follow it up because that should not be a concern at all,” said Bjergso. “I think that eventually the industry will make the transition to the square bags because I think they are more efficient and durable but we certainly have no intentions of pulling the rug out from producers and shearers who are wanting to use the tube bags.”

According to Bjergso, the concern around supply of tube bags should be focused less on industry preference and more on the global jute supply.

“Right now they have had severe crop failure in Bangladesh, where jute is produced, so that is a bit of a concern moving forward,” said Bjergso.

Jute prices rise

In early December, Mexim S.A., the fibre supplier and manufacturer from Switzerland that supplies the CCWG with tube or jute bags, informed them of volatility in the international jute market, based on twin crop failures in both Bangladesh and India, both major exporters.

Among other issues they noted the government of Bangladesh had extended a month-long export ban on jute “indefinitely.” The move also hit the Indian jute industry, which relies on imports from Bangladesh.

Adding to the situation, at the end of October a ‘Mandatory Jute Packaging Act’ was adopted in Bangladesh, requiring all production to be packaged in jute bags only, including products like fertilizer, sugar, rice and other food grains that were typically packaged in polypropylene and paper bags, contributing further to the global shortfall.

“These orders are literally drying up all the hessian cloth and bag production of Bangladeshi jute mills.”

India has seen more than a dozen jute mills closed after crop shortfall and the mills that remain in operation have reduced their production levels drastically.

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According to Herman Bouw, Manitoba sheep producer and director of the Manitoba Sheep Association (MSA), COOL continues to affect the sector, isolating it from the U.S. market, due to active lobbying from the American sheep industry.

“Everyone in pork and beef has seen some progress but there are still other sectors being affected by this,” said Bouw. “The U.S. has not lifted COOL from lamb and sheep and I believe it is because of diligent lobbying from the American sheep industry.”

The MSA held its annual general meeting in mid-February, when the organization passed a resolution to aggressively pursue strategic alliances with sector partners to lobby both the federal and provincial governments to work towards rescinding the COOL provisions.

In the resolution, MSA specifically noted the COOL provisions to be a protectionist movement by the American Sheep Industry.

“Manitoba used to be very active in the exportation of ewes and heavy lambs into the States and now that option is no longer there,” said Bouw. “We have been left scratching our heads, trying to figure out how we can work with the new federal minister of agriculture and see if there isn’t some way to get this lifted.”

The impacts of the trade restrictions were highlighted this fall when the heavy lamb market saw an increase in animals, along with a drop in prices.

“It is a bizarre situation and it actually became quite apparent it was a negative thing for use this fall,” said Bouw. “There was a glut of heavy lamb in Western Canada and with the Canadian dollar being as poor as it was, it should have lent itself to sending our heavy lambs into the American industry.”

According to Bouw, the heavy lamb market saw an excess number of animals in the fall due to drought conditions in Western Canada, which caused a number of lambs to be pulled off the grass early.

“The drought conditions in Western Canada caused those lambs to be backgrounded sooner than what normally would have occurred and so the market was flooded slightly,” said Bouw.

Bouw is also the Manitoba representative on the Canadian Sheep Federation (CSF), the national organization responsible for bringing issues that are affecting the industry to the attention of the federal government. He said the CSF has met with the new minister of agriculture and he is aware of the situation and stated he would make an effort to get a resolution.

“We are hoping to get this dealt with sooner rather than later but it doesn’t look like it is going to be a very quick resolution to this from where we sit right now,” said Bouw.

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