Bosview Katahdins: Record Keeping to Grow Flock Production

Located in the Pontiac region of western Quebec, two first generation sheep farmers, Ursina Studhalter and Andrew Bos, have turned their dream of farming into a reality. Ursina grew up on a mixed farm, and it was her dream to one day have her own farm. Fast forward to 2017 and that dream turned to reality when her and husband, Andrew, purchased their first farm along with a flock of 85 Katahdin sheep. Today their flock consists of 200 Katahdin and Romanov-crossed ewes on a modified accelerated lambing schedule using bioTrack for their record keeping needs.

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The Paper Record Keeping Shortfall

From the start Ursina and Andrew managed their flock record keeping as many others do in the industry – by paper and pen. However their flock grew in size, keeping track of performance and lineages each year became an issue.

Basic lambing information was recorded in lambing journals, but they struggled to connect the information to get a good grasp of each ewe’s production over the course of her life.

“We had about 130 ewes when we began to run into issues with our record keeping – at that point all we had was bits of information all over the place. We easily had 3 to 4 lambing journals with lambing records and cross-referencing to the ATQ inventory lists all in an attempt to determine whose lambs were who’s. We had birthdates and tags but no dam information and records that ewes had lambed but no details on their lambs.”

No More Guessing Games

The couple began researching affordable management tools that could help them streamline their animal record keeping, and to improve the management of their flock. They liked the features offered in bioTrack and it seemed to be a good fit.

“We chose bioTrack because of how adaptable and accessible it is. We love how we can add modules when we get to that point. Right now, tracking weights would be a challenge but we know that as soon as we get our scale and scanning setup improved, we can add the weight module.”

In 2018 they implemented the record keeping solution into their operation, and they haven’t looked back!

With the help of bioTrack, Ursina and Andrew have a better insight into their flock’s performance and culling criteria.

“Our culling criteria is better documented, and the quality and consistency of our replacement ewe lambs is improving. In terms of productivity, we’ve had more consistent lambing results, fewer open ewes and a lot more ewes on the accelerated track.”

Planning for the Future

Ursina and Andrew have seen a great improvement in their flocks overall performance and productivity in just a short time since implementing an enhanced record keeping strategy, finding that it has “become more predictable”. The couple plans to expand their operation to 300 ewes in the coming years and they are confident in bioTrack growing with their operation and its profitability.

“Half of managing a sheep flock is understanding your productivity and without a management tool of some kind, it is really difficult to expand and grow. It needs to be convenient, easy to understand and quickly accessible, which is everything bioTrack offers.”

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Bosview Katahdins: Record Keeping to Grow Flock Production

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