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Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 December 2011 16:53

Written by Jennifer Womack

Kaycee — It’s always amazing to see what a small community, when combined with the drive of a few dedicated volunteers, can accomplish. The annual Kaycee Sheep Festival and Challenge is a prime example.
    Stock dogs and the sheep they attempt to maneuver through an open course, take center stage at the event, but since the festival was launched in 2004 Kaycee residents have worked to expand the action. A cook-off, a ram sale, sheep industry exhibits, a lamb BBQ, a street dance and a rodeo will all take place in Kaycee this Labor Day weekend.
    On Saturday evening at 6 p.m. the community will host the “Not Your Mama’s Wool Fashion and Craft Show.” According to Mary Cunningham, the event will be held in conjunction with the annual lamb cook-off at Jarrard Park.
    Kaycee High School junior Sara Goni is two-time champion of the event, but says she won’t be in town to compete at the 2009 cook-off. Both championships have been earned with a slow-roasted leg of lamb basted in tomato sauce and seasonings. While she only cooks on occasion at home, the cook-off is something Goni looks forward to and enjoys.
    On its second year at the event is a ram sale including various breeds of sheep. The sale was held via silent auction in 2008, but at the 2009 event there will be a live auction including around 60 head of rams that have been consigned. The sale will be held prior to the final round of the dog trials on Monday morning, Labor Day.
    According to event organizer Lisa Cunningham, the sale was launched to fill the gap created when the long-time Buffalo ram sale ended. “Suffolk, Rambouillet, Dorset, Hampshire, Columbia and CVM,” she says, “will be displayed throughout the Labor Day Weekend in our ‘Sheep Breed Display’ section of the Sheep Industry Festival.  Monday, Sept. 7 at 10 a.m. at the Sheep Industry Festival site, on the south end of Kaycee, rams will be run through a live auction.” L. Cunningham says it provides producers an opportunity to promote their product and educate the public.
    M. Cunningham says that on Sunday evening there will be a free lamb BBQ at the rodeo grounds where John Forbes will hold a night rodeo. “There will be a minimal fee for entry to the rodeo,” she says, “but the BBQ is free.”
    “We now have 54 dogs entered,” says M. Cunningham. “Each dog runs once on Saturday and once on Sunday. The top 10 qualify for the finals. We will have spinners, weavers, authors, industry representatives and local artisans and other booths at the festival. The wool mill from Buffalo will also be there.”
    Bevis Jordan, a farm manger from Northumberland, England, will officiate over the 2009 Kaycee Challenge Sheep Dog Trial. Jordan is an experienced dog handler who raises Border collies and has exported several of the dogs to the United States. At home on the 3,500-acre farm he manages, Jordan keeps four to five dogs in various stages of training.
    For a complete agenda and information visit http://sheepfestival.net. Jennifer Womack is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 December 2011 16:53

Written by Jennifer Womack

Buffalo — Twenty-five years ago when sheep shearers were coming to her husband’s family ranch, Rita Long says the shearers wanted Heiniger combs and cutters, but couldn’t find them in the United States.
    That led to the launching of a company to meet the demand for this top-of -the-line Swiss shearing equipment in the United States. Over 25 years later Heiniger Shearing Equipment, Inc. is still going strong with distributors across the nation. The company’s headquarters are in Buffalo where Long’s family remains in the ranching industry.
    Heiniger Shearing Equipment is a family corporation, says Long, who is the president. “While our largest customers are involved with the sheep industry,” she says, “our equipment is also used to shear goats, llamas alpacas, cattle, dogs and horses. We even supply zoos equipment to shear camels and whatever other animals that need sheared. There are also some brush manufacturers, leather companies and rug makers that use Heiniger equipment.”
    “We sell primarily through mail order to dealers and distributors,” she says. In Wyoming, however, most people purchase these products at MTR Ranch Supply in Buffalo.
    “We carry combs, cutters, electric shearing machines and clippers as well as the professional shearing plants with flexible or rigid drops and mechanical handpieces,” says Long. “Electric grinders, sharpening equipment, shearing moccasins, singlets and many other specialty items are also available. Most professional sheep shearers use our products.”
    While sheep numbers have declined, Long says the company has seen less demand in the sheep shearing sector, but other markets have expanded. For example, she’s expecting a shipment of new Heiniger cordless clippers for dogs, horses, crias (baby alpacas) and show cattle. She feels this new clipper will be the best on the market thanks to innovative Swiss technology. It comes with two rechargeable batteries — one to charge, while the other is being used for continuous clipping.
    Heiniger products are distributed throughout more that 50 countries worldwide and are known for their excellence in quality and performance. Long says, selling Heiniger shearing equipment in the United States has been a wonderful business for her family.
    Rita Long of Heiniger Shearing Equipment, Inc. can be reached at 800-215-7701. Jennifer Womack is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Saturday, 21 January 2012 11:53

Written by Saige Albert

Riverton – In a unique deal, Dean and Charleen Von Krosigk have sold their premier Targhee ewes to the Wyoming Wool Growers Association (WWGA).
    The Von Krosigk Targhees now call the Laramie Research and Extension Center’s (LREC) Animal Science Livestock facility home.
    “The main focus of the agreement is to continue with the genetic program that the Von Krosigks have had for more than 30 years,” says WWGA Executive Vice President Bryce Reece, noting that the arrangement provides a rare opportunity.    
The Von Krosigk Targhees
    “The Von Krosigks are the number one premier Targhee breeder in the country,” says Reece.
    At the 2011 National Targhee Show and Sale, the Von Krosigk family received the honors of the grand champion ram and grand champion ewe, as well as grand champion pen of yearling ewes.
    Charleen says, “We’ve had a lot of national champions over the years.”
    After her children started the flock in 1976 as a 4-H project, Charleen says, “We just happened to have really good luck in the sheep we bought, and we had God as a guide. There is no other reason why our sheep turned out better than others, except that we have a love for Targhees.”
    Both Charleen and Dean are retired, and, since their children don’t have the facilities to house the sheep, they began looking for options to get out of the sheep business last spring.
    “We wanted the sheep to stay somewhere where they would be available to people,” explained Charleen. “We mentioned to Bryce that we were thinking of selling, and he got the WWGA board together. They surprised us and said they wanted to buy our flock.”
A unique agreement
    “We started talking in late spring, but the deal finally came together this fall,” says Reece. “We bought 50 head of ewes, with one stud ram.”
    Reece explains that the ram will be kept by the Von Krosigk family, but says, “We got the heart and soul of their operation.”
     “It’s a unique opportunity,” he adds.  “I can safely say there is no other sheep association that owns its own flock of sheep, so we are breaking new ground.”
    The partnership is also unique for UW.
    Reece continues, “There is a whole lot of trust.”
    “We all have the same goals in mind for the flock,” says LREC director Doug Zalesky. “We hope to continue to propagate the genetics of the flock, and to provide those genetics to the industry.”
    In the agreement reached late last fall, the Von Krosigks, WWGA and UW decided the ewes would stay together, stay in Wyoming and their genetics would be continually offered to the sheep industry through ram sales.
    WWGA owns the sheep, while UW provides housing and the day-to-day management of the herd and the proceeds are split between the two groups. Reece also mentions that an advisory group has been assembled that will meet once a year to discuss management.
    “The Von Krosigks will sit on that group for as long as they want to, and we will continue to take their advice,” says Reece. “They will be a valuable component of this thing moving forward.”
    “We still intend to be involved,” adds Charleen. “We will be on the advisory board to help the university make decisions, and they can call us if they have problems. We also still plan on helping to market the sheep.”
Research opportunities
    The flock will serve as a wealth of information that could lead to an increased understanding of the Targhee breed.
    “Part of the agreement is that the WWGA has access to any and all the data on these sheep,” says Reece. “There will be more data collected on this bunch of ewes than probably any in the history of ewes.”
     “Being at a research facility, it will allow us to do exciting things in terms of developing new information and new technology, but they are not research subjects,” clarified Reece. “Their purpose is to do what they’ve been doing, but if we can gather information to benefit the industry, we will.”
    Larson notes they will likely be used as part of feed efficiency trials utilizing UW’s unique GrowSafe system, in the ram sire tests and in wool studies.
    “It gives us an opportunity to evaluate the breed as they continue to become more popular in the industry for some of their strong traits and characteristics,” adds Zalesky. “We look forward to feed efficiency trials with them.”
    He continues, “To be able to look at feed efficiency on a fairly uniform group of sheep like this will be a real advantage from a research standpoint. I think they will provide UW with a really nice resource.”
    “We will also have wool data on every ewe, and that’s something that hasn’t been done on any of the purebred flocks,” explains Reece.
    Reece also says he’s contacted the Wyoming Livestock Board to inquire about electronic implant animal identification programs, for which the Targhees could sever as a pilot herd.
    “We have offered up the flock to become a pilot project in terms of animal ID implant record keeping,” says Reece. “I’m a big believer in animal ID, and I’ve asked the Wyoming Livestock Board to see where we are at in terms of using implants in livestock.”
Genetics, genetics, genetics
    While the sheep will be available for more than showing and breeding purposes, maintaining the genetic superiority of the flock is paramount to all parties.
    To maintain the integrity of the line, Reece says they will continue to utilize the Von Krosigks’ current stud ram along with two other rams.
    “They do a lot of line breeding and we think it’s time to infuse some outside genetics into the herd,” says Reece of the Von Krosigk breeding program. “Brent and I went to the Montana Ram Sale and bought interest in two rams.”
    “Those two young rams are tremendous rams, and we are pretty excited to see what will come,” Reece adds, noting that this year most of the ewes will be bred by the Von Krosigk ram. “The majority of the ewes were bred to the stud ram. We split the remaining half between the two new rams.”
A new home
    The Von Krosigk herd remained at their home ranch for as long as possible, until it was necessary to remove them from pasture. From there, they were moved to UW.
    Ultimately, Reece says the prize flock is in good hands, adding, “They will be taken care of very well.”
    Reece adds that the university is extremely capable of taking care of the sheep, saying, “We have unwavering trust in Brent, and they are in great hands. If he ever leaves UW, we will decide whether or not to keep the ewes there.”
    At the end of the day, Zalesky says, “The biggest thing is that we want to be able to help the industry keep those genetics available and continue to propagate them. We wanted to keep the flock together and in the state of Wyoming.”
    Reece adds, “It’s a pretty exciting deal.”
    Saige Albert is editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

UW facility provides student opportunities    The University of Wyoming’s Animal Livestock Center, constructed in 1990, is a vast facility that offers students the opportunities to obtain hands-on experience related to livestock.
    The facility consists of 12 buildings, including a temperature modified lambing barn, beef and sheep sheds, a wool laboratory and classroom, a sheep handling building, a sheep confinement building, a multipurpose building, a swine confinement unit and a feed mill.
    Because of the high traffic through the facility, primarily from students at UW and 4-H and FFA members who are judging, Brent Larson, livestock manager at the Sheep Unit, says, “We do things a lot differently than the normal operations would. It is labor intensive.”
    Four to five classes utilize the sheep facility in particular, including Introductory Animal Science, Sheep Production, Livestock Evaluation and several reproductive classes.
    “We have between 400 and 450 mature sheep here,” adds Larson, noting that the five registered breeds housed in the facility include Columbia, Hampshire, Rambouillet, Suffolk and now Targhee.
    “There are good uses for all of them,” says Larson. “Most all of the sheep in the registered breeds go on the ram sire test in the fall, and the Columbia are coming up on their 100th anniversary of being here.”
    Ultimately the sheep facility provides a number of animals for a hands-on learning experience for students and for a myriad of research projects by both graduate students and faculty at UW.
    To learn more about research at the Laramie Research and Extension Center, visit uwyo.edu/uwexpstn/centers/Laramie. 

Simple Beginnings
Riverton – Charleen Von Krosigk says her family’s Targhee herd started as her son’s 4-H project in 1976.
    “We were looking at getting Columbias,” explains Charleen. “Then Barney Cosner, our extension agent here in Fremont County, told the boys about a breed that he thought would be better and take us farther, so we went with Targhees.”
    The Von Krosigks purchased their first ewes from Bob Innis of Gillette after attending their first Targhee show and sale there. They also bought two market ewes and two bred ewes from Jon Beastrom of Pierre, S.D.
    “Inside one of the bred ewes was our first good ram,” says Dean.
    “We called him Big Max, and he stamped the breed,” adds Charleen. “The kids showed him for 10 years.”
    The Von Krosigk brothers, Wendell, Sam and Clint, raised sheep for a number of years. Later, Charleen and Dean’s grandchildren helped them to raise and show the sheep at the National Targhee Show, earning showmanship honors of their own.
    “We’ve bred and raised range rams that happened to be national champions,” says Dean.
    Since the herd first started, the Von Krosigks have only missed the national show twice, and only when they decided to get out of the business once before. Dean notes that they have kept 15 ewes and are planning to sell part of those throughout the year.
    Prior to selling their Targhees to the Wyoming Wool Growers Association, Beastrom purchased a number of ewes from the Von Krosigk family’s 2011 herd, including the national champion ram, national champion ewe and national champion pair of ewes.

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 December 2011 16:53

Written by Christy Hemken

Casper – With the help of people from around the state and the leadership of Pinky and Jackie Ellis of Casper, the Fort Caspar Museum in Casper has developed and dedicated an exhibit area to the sheep industry in Wyoming.
    The effort to construct new exhibits relating to prominent industries in Natrona County began in 2005 with a grant to the museum and funding approved by the City Council for a museum addition.
    “The museum called together people in the community, oil and gas and agriculture to decide on the subjects and industries to be featured,” says Jackie. “After that was decided they approached people within those industries, and they asked us to organize the sheep exhibit.”
    That led to an article in the Roundup, which generated responses for the Ellises from people from Gillette to Kaycee to Wheatland and Bill.
    LJ Turner of Campbell County donated a ball bearing shearing machine from 1909, accompanied by its brochure. “It’s a two-man operation,” says Pinky. “One guy turned the crank to supply the power and the other guy shore the sheep.”
    Turner also donated an early 1900s wool sacking frame, which was too big to fit in the Fort Caspar and it now resides at the Kaycee Hoofprints of the Past Museum. “It’s one of those things you have to see to appreciate,” says Pinky. “Today they use trailers with hydraulic packing equipment, but this was a sturdily built frame that worked well, and everything was manual labor.”
    In addition to the old-time sheep equipment many people also donated historic photos relating to the sheep industry, including one by Wyoming photographer Charles Belden. Another photo of sheep crossing Rock Creek belonged to Pinky’s mother, and she had it colorized around 1930.
    A sheepwagon anchors the exhibit, and it was donated by the Cooper’s 7L Ranch.
    “Vi Goodrich of Wheatland told us about something I’d never heard of, let alone seen,” says Pinky. “It’s a lamb warmer, and it looks like an oversized mailbox. It’s got a floor in it with holes, and a tray filled with hot charcoal can be slid in the bottom to heat the box and they’d shove the lambs in there.”
    Goodrich told the Ellises that the lamb warmers had become a sort of cottage industry in the Rock River area. “They built them by the hundreds and sold them to local sheep outfits, and they were really quite efficient at keeping animals alive,” says Pinky.
    Earl and Jewell Reed, who live near Bill, invited the Ellises to their place, where they were given a hootenanny, a cured sheep pelt and a sheep bell.
    “The hootenanny has a pointed end that’s jammed into the ground and the other end is held onto and there’s a place to put your shears, one blade at a time, fastened at the right angle to run a sharpening stone across them,” explains Pinky.
    The term “hootenanny” originated in the U.S. in the 1920s, and generally denotes a gadget or “thingamajig.”
    Relating to shipping sheep by rail, the collection gained a railroad pinchbar. “The steel bar is conformed to fit under a railroad car wheel, and you pry it to get the car started rolling,” says Pinky. “Almost all the railroad side rails had a grade built into them so it was easy to move the car, but the curse was most of us weren’t good enough to get the car stopped and then we’d have to pry it back.”
    Pinky also mapped all the dedicated livestock trails in Natrona County. “A law in 1920 withdrew lands from homesteading and blocked up the traditional trading routes,” he says. “Natrona County has the best trails of any place in the state because they were put in place before much land was deeded.”
    Although most of them are no longer used and the land is leased to surrounding landowners by the federal government they’re still a right-of-way for trailing livestock.
    The Ellis family began raising sheep in Wyoming after Pinky’s dad came from Ireland in 1914 to work for his uncle and he and his brother went into business in 1919.
    “When we first got married he used a sheep wagon with no refrigeration and he’d have to buy supplies that would last for a long time,” remembers Jackie, noting the changes from then to when they got out of the sheep business. “When we finally sold they had an Airstream with a TV, a gas stove and a great refrigerator.”
    Including the Ellises seven people contributed to the exhibit. “It’s neat to have the recognition for the sheep industry, because it was very important to this county, far more important than the cattle industry,” says Pinky.
    He says the closing of public lands and homesteading was the end of free range, and after that sheep ranchers had to have some land in ownership to apply for grazing leases. In addition, predators and lack of good help further shrank Wyoming’s sheep industry.
    “There were a lot of interesting people involved with the industry – the characters and the non-characters and the people who just made it work,” says Pinky.
    “Meeting the people has been so much fun, and we wouldn’t have met them without this project,” says Jackie. “It took a long time for people to respond, and we were wondering what we were going to do, but then we started getting phone calls and all of the sudden the collection grew.”
    Information on the Fort Caspar Museum can by found on the City of Casper website. Christy Hemken is assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .