Hardin County – A statewide sheep production tour of Knox, Licking, and Crawford Counties has been planned for Ohio Sheep Producers the weekend of Saturday, October 15 and Sunday, October 16, 2022. This year’s tour is jointly sponsored by the Ohio Sheep Improvement Association and Hardin County OSU Extension. Join us for a drive your own, sheep production tour focusing on dry lot/confinement sheep operations. There will be four tour stops on this year’s statewide tour, with each farm stop only being offered at the time listed.
The first farm stop will be at Cable Family Lamb Feedlot (10491 Canal Road, Hebron, Ohio 43025). This Licking County stop will be at 10:00 am Saturday, October 15. The Dave Cable family is the host of this stop which includes a large contract lamb finishing feedlot in Ohio feeding several thousand lambs from all over the United States. This farm has more recently added a dry lot/confinement ewe flock to produce additional lambs for the Cable Farms feedlot. Primary facilities include hoop buildings. Lunch will be on your own at 11:30 am.
The second stop on the tour will be Lone Pine Ranch (25267 Blanchard Road, Howard, Ohio 43028). This Know County stop will be at 1:00 pm Saturday, October 15. Greg and Bev Miller are the host of this stop which is in the prime sheep producing area of Knox County. Historically known for their pasture-based sheep production systems, but for the purpose of this production tour, we will be concentrating our educational efforts on their buildings and facilities, where they lamb out their 160 commercial ewe flock and feed out their own lambs for market.
The third stop on the tour will be Skyline Farms (14501 Skyline Drive, Danville, Ohio 43014). This Knox County stop will be at 3:00 pm Saturday, October 15. The Don Hawk family will be the host of this stop, which is a large contract lamb finishing feedlot in Ohio feeding several thousand lambs from all over the United States. This operation has more recently added a dry lot/confinement ewe flock to produce additional lambs for the Skyline Farms feedlot. The primary facilities include renovated turkey barns. There will be a scheduled overnight stay in the Mt. Vernon area. If you need hotel accommodations, contact Hardin County OSU Extension Educator Mark Badertscher at badertscher.4@osu.edu or 419-767-6037 for details. Dinner will be on your own.
The second day of the tour will feature a stop at Hartschuh Livestock (6348 Parks Road, Sycamore, Ohio 44882). This Crawford County stop will be at 10:30 am Sunday, October 16. The Greg Hartschuh family will be the host of this stop, which has recently added a dry lot/confinement commercial and Club Lamb operation in combination with their confinement dairy herd. The recently built confinement/lot building has new and innovative methods of feeding the ewe flock and concentrate many resources to high quality forages due to the dairy cattle part of the operation.
Producers and others who are interested in participating on this statewide sheep tour should register at https://www.ohiosheep.org/osia-programs.html#tour to let the tour hosts know how many people to expect at each stop. Hotel reservations need to be made in advance to assure room availability. Tour participants will be responsible for their own hotel room and meals. As in the past, we have rented a van for Hardin and Hancock County area producers to travel together. If there is enough interest from our area, we will meet for breakfast and travel together in the van. Let me know how many from your family plan to attend so we can make local arrangements.