ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at San Angelo Director Dr. Reid Redden discusses seasonality of the American lamb industry in this month’s ASI Research Update podcast.
“About 80 percent of the lambs in the U.S. are born in the first five months of the year,” Redden said. “So, you have a bunch of lambs at one point in time and if all of those lambs are managed the same, they would all reach market weight around the same time frame. But we don’t have a five-month demand season. There’s a steady demand for lamb year-round.”
Redden said lambing in the first several months of the year tends to work for sheep producers for a variety of reasons, including weather and that it’s a slower time for farming operations. But sheep also tend to produce a better lamb crop when breeding in the fall and lambing in the spring.
“The vast majority of the breeds that are common in the U.S. have the ability to lamb out of season,” Redden added. “Our fine wool breeds can all breed out of season. Hair sheep breeds all have the ability to lamb out of season. They might not breed up as well as we’d like them to, but we definitely can get lambs born in the fall.”— American Sheep Industry Association
— American Sheep Industry Association
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