Sheep operation's first years bring hard lessons for Minnesota farm couple

PIPESTONE COUNTY, Minn. — When Matti Boomgaarden and Kyle Blume added sheep to their southwest Minnesota operation two years ago, they did it as a dare. "We really started it talking about it as a joke," Boomgaarden said. ADVERTISEMENT Two years later, Boomgaarden and Blume — who spoke during a recent University of Minnesota Extension sheep production webinar — are wrapping up their second lambing season, running 65 ewes alongside a Red Angus cow-calf herd and two off-farm jobs, with Boomgaarden's father doing the same. "Everyone's busy and always working around our schedules," Boomgaarden said. The sheep were supposed to help the couple's cash flow as they work toward taking over Boomgaarden's family's third-generation operation. What they found instead was another full-time job, a steep learning curve but eventually a workable system. What went wrong Boomgaarden, a University of Minnesota Extension educator in Pipestone and Murray counties, and Blume, a crop applicator, had livestock experience coming in, but that didn't transfer to sheep production. They left the ram in too long, stretching their first lambing window from May into August. They fed open ewes all winter without knowing which animals were bred. They fed on the ground and lost significant feed to waste, and the two said their records were inadequate. Their biggest mistake, Boomgaarden said, was hesitating to pull struggling lambs. She said it was a cattle habit that doesn't apply to sheep. "If they're struggling, you pull them," she said. "We kind of struggled to do that." ADVERTISEMENT Before their second breeding season, they ultrasounded the entire flock at $10 per head. Any open ewe was culled immediately, with no second chances. "It really helped us not feed everyone through the winter who didn't need to be fed," Boomgaarden said. They tightened their breeding window, switched to elevated feeders to cut waste, and invested in bottle-lamb bucket pens, which ended a system of filling pop bottles with milk replacer multiple times a day. For colostrum, they buy frozen dairy cow colostrum from a local producer for around $20 for three gallons, repackage it in six-ounce breast milk bags, and thaw as needed. Lambs get four feedings before moving to replacer. Ring cameras on a barn hotspot let them monitor overnight from the house, and Blume said he handles most barn checks at night. Boomgaarden manages records and covers during the day when Blume is in the field. This season, the couple is finishing their second lambing at roughly 1.4 lambs per ewe, which is just below their 1.5 goal but consistent with Hampshire breed averages. They have lost two ewes and are managing 10 bottle lambs. Early in the season, multiple lambs were born with low body temperature and poor vigor. After the third loss, Blume said they called their veterinarian. ADVERTISEMENT "Once you start realizing you're getting really good at intervening — too good — that's when you go, 'We really need to figure something out,'" Blume said. Their vet identified a likely fever event late in gestation that left lambs without enough brown fat to thrive. Medicated feed and aggressive early intervention turned the season around. A first-year program analysis found losses per ewe, with feed waste as the primary driver. That finding has reshaped how they manage feed this year. "Sheep can't carry much debt," Boomgaarden said. "They don't generate enough cash flow to support a large amount of debt, so understanding your expenses and keeping them under control is critical." What's next Grants from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the American Lamb Board will fund a dedicated sheep barn, allowing the couple to separate the two species and move lambing to April. The couple said their long-term targets are 150-plus ewes, rotational grazing, accelerated lambing, in three cycles over two years, and contracts requiring guaranteed lamb numbers. They also plan to introduce more prolific breeds, such as Polypay crosses with Hampshires, to push their lambs-per-ewe average higher. ADVERTISEMENT For beginning producers, Boomgaarden said their best advice is to find mentors, establish a veterinarian relationship before a crisis and intervene early with struggling lambs. "When you see they're ill, you have to treat them," she said. "You can't wait to see if they're going to get better."