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What does your lamb taste like? This was a question that led Katie and her family to start Linners Lamb, their cut and pack or paddock to plate business. 
Katie and her husband run 130 Wiltshire Horn ewes on their farm near Bacchus Marsh in Victoria. They have been marketing and selling their lamb direct to consumers for three years. Katie shares her journey with us in this episode as well as the benefits of embarking on a cut and pack venture. 

Together we explore:

What made Katie decide to shift to direct marketing?

How does it all work – a cut and pack option?

What challenges did they face?

What are the benefits?

How do they find customers?

Advantages and disadvantages of selling direct

Who do you need to have relationships with to get things going?

How do you choose which animals to send to the abattoir?

What are you aiming for in the future for Linner’s Lamb

You can reach Katie and Linners lamb at https://linnerslamb.com.au/.

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In this episode I take the podcast from our sheep yards to our kitchen table with Geoff Davey! We sit down and record a pre-dinner sheep podcast after scanning sheep and selling a few sheep during our day together at Hallston Valley Farm. We find out that spending all day with sheep is a normal day for Geoff and that is just the way he likes it!

Together we explore:

What is muscle scanning in sheep?

Why do we muscle scan our sheep? 

Benefits of scanning your sheep

Eye muscle heritability and total eye muscle area getting to know the meat ratio to weight 

What do we scale for?

Selecting and culling in figures 

How to use the data for sire/ram evaluation and sire selection 

Making decisions with muscle scanning data 

How much fat should you looking for on your sheep in millimetres?

How to significantly improve your flock in just three of four generations

You can contact Geoff and Julie Davey at [email protected] or via their website www.stockscanservices.com.au

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Lions and tigers and bears oh my! All countries have challenges with predators preying on sheep and lambs and the USA has some of the biggest challenges. In this episode we learn strategies to protect our flock from a pro! 

Crystal, her husband and their boys run Emsoff Livestock Company in Chilcott California (near the Nevada border), focusing on show lambs, Dorpers, Hampshires and livestock guardian dogs (LGD). Crystal is a first generation sheep producer, she studied Animal Science at University in Texas, has worked for the US Forest Service managing cattle and 8,000 western range ewes in the Tahoe National Forest. She has served on the Western States Dorper Association for two years, she shows Dorpers and is training to be a sheep judge and best of all she can talk about sheep all day. 

In this episode we explore:

• That Crystal is like me and you! - she can talk about sheep all day!
• What predators are there in the US? What is the impact of these predators on sheep and their business? What do predators cost (in terms of loses or $$) US sheep producers each year?
• What they use to successfully manage these predators?
• What LGDs work best?
• How should you treat a LGD?
• What about any birds of prey as lamb predators like vultures? 
• What about alpacas?
• When are lambs most vulnerable to predators?
• Where should someone start if they are wanting to lamb for the first time or if they wanting to improve their lamb survival rate re predators?

You can reach Crystal at:
http://www.emsofflivestockcompany.com/
https://www.facebook.com/EmsoffLivestockCompany

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Nick Lawrence  founded Pinnacle Suffolk stud  in 1996 with the purchase of 20 Suffolk ewes from Burwood and Urrbrae High School. Since then we have introduced leading AI sires including Alkoomie 305, Mt Ronan 276, Burwood Hurricane 1076 and NZ Coleford Sires. In 2011 Stuart Staude joined in partnership with Nick & Holly to form the basis of the White Suffolk stud with the purchase of ewes from Burwood's dispersal sale and a number of ewes purchased from the Elite Foundation sale. 
Nick is a sought after and well regarded sheep judge and operates a pregnancy, muscle scanning and lamb marking business through Livescan . 

In this fascinating episode with Nick we explore: 

• What is structural correctness and why is this important when breeding sheep?
• What are the challenges with breeding and culling on structural correctness?
• What are the performance measures to consider when breeding sheep?
• How do you track and measure these?
• What is more important structural correctness or performance measures?
• When you are classing sheep what/which should you focus on? 
• How can you increase performance in your flock? 
• If you breed commercial sheep what is more important structural correctness or performance measures?
• If you breed stud sheep/pure breed sheep what is more important structural correctness or performance measures?
• When you buy sheep which element should you focus on - structural correctness or performance measures?
• How do you get the balance right between the two? What works? 

You can find Nick and Pinnacle Stud via their Facebook page. 
https://www.facebook.com/Pinnacle-Suffolk-White-Suffolk-Stud-496453700419210

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What an honour to interview David Smith, the world's first scientist to develop a vaccine for a worm in any host! David is a qualified Vet, who grew up in South Africa and lives in Scotland. He has a PHD on sheep immunology and since 1975 has studied worms in sheep and how sheep have become immune to worm infections.
This research has been done at the Moredun Institute, a farmer owned and led research institution. https://www.moredun.org.uk/

You can purchase or find out more about Barbervax from Ben Foster at
https://www.grazag.com.au/

Learn more about worms online including some of the scientific terms that are used in this podcast, by your vet and more broadly in the sheep industry - go to:
http://www.wormboss.com.au/sheep-goats/
http://www.wormboss.com.au/sheep-goats/worms.php

In this fascinating episode we explore the challenges we all have with internal parasites in sheep, particularly worms. We answer questions and explore issues like drench use and drench resistance. 

Listen and learn about the following:

• Why do sheep get worms/internal parasites?
• What worms impact sheep? 
• What do worms do to sheep?
• How do you know if your sheep have worms? What are the symptoms to look for?
• What about scours? Is this a sign of worms?
• How or where can you do a fecal worm egg count in sheep? How to read and understand the results of this egg count?
• How can I prevent my sheep from getting internal parasites?
• What animals on our farm are most vulnerable to worms and why?
• How to reduce drench resistance? 
• What about Barber’s pole worm? How is this different to the other worms? 
• What are the symptoms of Barber’s pole worm?
• What the benefits are of using Barbervax to manage Barber's Pole worm. 
• How does it all work? – learn the process for using Barbervax

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Gary knows grass!
At 19 he was growing grass on a golf course as a turf horticulturalist! Since then he has read every book, research paper and follows all the grass youtubers that exist!
Albrecht, Voisin, Greg Judy, Joel Salatin, Gaye Brown, Pat Coleby, Colin Seis and Allan Savory are his main influences. 
For the last four and a half years Gary has been putting it all into practice and growing his own grass on Hallston Valley Farm and boy do our sheep benefit from it. Our sheep should benefit, they are the ones doing the work!! 
Growing great grass with zero inputs! 
In this episode we learn how sheep (and other animals) eat, how does grass grow, how weeds are part of the solution, how to mimic mother nature, how to identify vulnerable pasture, when grass is ready to graze for sheep, the life cycle of grass, how we can sequest carbon with sheep, how many sheep you should have in a paddock, how long should you rest pasture for, how we can encourage diversity in pasture and how to improve the biology of the soil. 
We also learn that mother nature is modest and likes to be covered! 

You can reach Gary at www.hallstonvalleyfarm.com or email me, [email protected], and I'll pass your message, comment or question on to him! 

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What data should you track? What farm data are you legally obliged to record? What decisions can data and statistics help you make? What tools can you use to record data?
What to record when you are lambing? What statistics help you monitor the performance of your ewes and rams? What can help you make an informed culling decision?

Are stats everything? Where does a good sheep come into the picture? 

And what on earth has Sienna Williams got to do with sheep!?

In this episode you will get answers to these questions and so much more with Simon Thomas from Silk Southdowns, Cavendish, Victoria!

You can find Simon, Kate, Imogen, Lexi and Emma at Silk Southdowns on Facebook, Instagram and at www.silksouthdowns.com. 

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https://www.buzzsprout.com/954910/supporters/new

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Just how painful is it to get your tail docked? What are the animal welfare laws around tail docking? How can we, as ethical sheep breeders, make this practice and lamb castration more numbing for lambs? 

In this podcast, with product design engineer Robin Smith we learn about how one man's passion for user centered design has led to a new way of doing things in the sheep industry. This new approach  benefits our lambs, ourselves and anyone who eats lamb or wears wool!

In fact Robin and his global team have worked for over 10 years to bring us the Numnuts Device. Learn about this device, how it works and what it can do for you and your lambs on this fact filled podcast episode of The Sheep Show Podcast. 

You'll also realize that no matter what it is, it all starts with sheep! Sheep First Forever!!

You can contact Robin via www.numnuts.store or [email protected]. 

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What are the benefits of breeding wool sheep? What can wool tell you about a sheep's health? What are the different types of wool sheep? What does wool offer us? Learn more about wool from the Godfather of Sheep and all round Aussie legend Gavin Wall! 

You can contact Gavin Wall at [email protected]. 

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Agricultural like many other industries is very fond of TLAs and FLAs - that's Three Letter Acronyms and Four/Five Letter Acronyms!! 
Demystify the mire of legal obligations in this episode which introduces you to what you need to know and do in your country when you own, sell, buy or move sheep.
So whether you are a shepherd in Canada, United States of America, Ireland, Australia, United Kingdom or Europe this podcast will help you know your PIDs from your PINs and PICs!!

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