Rock Valley Precast/VanZee

Before and after: Katherine Moser providing instruction at a shearing school at North Dakota State University. Photos by Alex Moser.

for sheep, but no more for feeder cattle. It was the best thing that ever happened.” With limited acres and the expense of equipment, Wes chooses to hire out the field work, allowing the family to focus on sheep. Feed for the sheep typically all comes from their land, with Caleb and Alex in the field for the silage harvest. Their dad shore his own sheep for a few years and did some jobs for others. Alex learned to shear in 1994 and has been doing it ever since. Caleb joked, “I learned from Alex – he’ll want me to say that. Some days he’s proud of me, some days he’s not.” Alex said the sheep market is fairly steady. “There aren’t as many people in it anymore. Some of the little ones are selling out. Those sticking with it are getting bigger, maybe going from 300 to 600 ewes. There used to be a lot more people with 20 head.” The Moser sheep herd is on an accelerated lambing program where the ewes have lambs in both the spring and the fall. This intensive reproductive management typically reduces maintenance costs of breeding stock per offspring reared and will often increase net return. Accelerated lambing systems usually require higher resource and management inputs and are used only when a producer can provide skilled management, as well as adequate nutrition for the ewe and the lamb. Most finished sheep in this area are shipped out of Hawarden to the Superior Farms processing plant in Colorado. Some are shipped to Detroit and quite a few lambs go straight to the east coast to small butcher shops which directly serve ethnic markets.

In the sheep market, “You might not get rich, but you won’t go broke,” Alex said.

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