Starting in 2021, April Wilhoit and I began the discussion about how there is not much programming offered on small ruminant topics. We have seen an increase in people venturing into sheep and goat production here in the past few years. There have been several new people moving into our area and they are wanting to try something new and something different. Beef cattle can be intimidating to people that were not raised around them, therefore making them weary of jumping feet first into the cattle business. Sheep and goats are often appealing because they are smaller and may seem easier to handle. They also do not require as much larger equipment and not as much acreage for grazing. 

Because of this surge in interest, we made the decision to host an introduction to sheep and goat production class. The class was in-person and was hosted at the Fleming County Extension Office. We had Dr. Andries, from KSU come and present the most pertinent information to the group. There are so many topics that can take on their own program, so he wanted to be very basic with what everyone should know if they are considering going into the sheep and goat business. There were 36 people in attendance that represented several surrounding counties.