After receiving multiple requests for information about sheep production from local farmers and new landowners, we saw a need for educational courses to be offered to cover this topic. LaRue County ANR Agent reached out to the Kentucky Sheep and Goat office for educational materials and was provided with course materials known as Small Ruminant Profit School (SRPS). SRPS was developed to assist the many new producers that are entering into the business of sheep and goat production and are struggling with the challenges of small ruminant production.

Recently, the sheep industry in Kentucky has seen rapid growth (mainly in the hair sheep industry) as producers are looking for low labor and low input animals to raise on their farms. However, professionals within the small ruminant industry are seeing a large number of inferior animals coming through the marketplace and hearing reports of large losses in kids and lambs, indicating that producers are still struggling with the same health and management issues. High death losses and low quality animals being marketed quickly equates to significant monetary losses and some producers who have been in the business for less than a year are already exiting to mitigate overall losses.

The SRPS covered topics like industry overview, markets, breeds, health, parasite management, genetics, reproduction, selection, quality assurance, facilities/equipment, annual production plans, foot care, nutrition, and record keeping. 

There were 6 courses and we had 39 participants to attend at least one course. 20% of those who attended had not been to an extension program before. 40% of participants were female. 35% had not gotten into small ruminant production at the beginning of the class, and by the end all of them had plans to purchase breeding stock within the next year.

There are now plans to offer continuing educational classes for Small ruminant production, including a field event this summer for hands-on training.