A Family Affair: Mike Curuchet and family contribute to future of sheep industry
Mike Curuchet and his family oversee a multigenerational sheep operation 20 miles southwest of Kaycee.
“I was born into this business,” Mike says. “My grandparents on my dad’s side were Basque immigrants and had sheep, and my mother came from an old ranching family in the area.”
Along with his wife Chris and their three kids – Joe, Jamie and Ben – Mike raises sheep on the home place which has been in the Curuchet family since 1962.
Management practices
The Curuchets raise Suffolk-Hampshire lambs and white-faced rams, bringing up the animals on the home place and a combination of leased and owned land in the Big Horn Mountains.
“All lambing takes place at our home place,” Mike explains. “We lamb our terminal cross ewes in March, which are out of Suffolk-Hamp cross rams we purchase. The other ewes are lambed in April and sired by white-faced rams we raise ourselves.”
Replacement ewes are also selected, and the whole family helps trail the sheep 55 miles to the mountain after lambing.
“We trail right through the town of Kaycee, down Main Street and then on to the mountain,” Mike says. “We have a lot of local support – the people in town kind of enjoy seeing the sheep go through.”
Sheep are trailed to the Big Horns starting the first or second week of June and stay on the mountain until early October.
Good help
Good help is critical during lambing and throughout the summer, and the Curuchets employ two Peruvian H-2A workers every year who stay on the mountain with the sheep during the summer and return home in the winter.
“We still have to check the fences and the sheep every day to watch for predator problems,” Mike continues. “We have had trouble with coyotes in the past, but we run guard dogs with our sheep to help with predator control.”
The dogs are a mix of Anatolian shepherds and akbash, and the H-2A herders are crucial to protecting and checking on the sheep.
Mike says the family used to custom feed lambs, but in recent years they have shifted to selling lambs to feedlots in Colorado and Wyoming.
“We always try to stay in touch with whoever buys the lambs to see how they do and to know if there’s anything we need to change,” Mike says.
Ewes spend winters outside of Kaycee on a place purchased in 2016, as it is better winter country than the home place and usually stays fairly open.
“We ultrasound ewes at the end of December and the end of January, then shear around the middle of February before trailing back to the home place for lambing,” says Mike. “Then we start the whole thing over again.”
Mike’s sister and brother-in-law Janine and Dave Foley and some of their family help with shearing every season.
Current challenges, future hope
The Curuchets have held strong through shifting conditions in the lamb and wool markets.
“No trade deal with China has really hurt our wool market, but lambs are doing very well right now,” Mike says. “Lamb prices came up quite a lot last fall.”
“The wool market is frustrating because we feel wool is such a quality, versatile product that is often overlooked,” he continues.
Mike feels genetics are a driving force behind the passion of most livestock producers.
“All of the best livestock people we know have spent their whole lives constantly working toward producing a better animal, be it a cow, sheep or horse,” he says. “I’ve always loved the challenge, but we also realize how blessed we are to get to live our dream along the way.”
Mike is passionate about the future of the sheep and wool industries.
As the immediate past president of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association (WWGA), Mike says he was able to meet great people with good ideas about promoting the industry.
“It was a great experience, and I got to work with a really good board,” Mike says. “One thing we’ve learned is we need to do a better job of showing people what we do.”
After brainstorming with Chris, Mike says they came up with an idea to host a lambing school on the ranch in partnership with WWGA to showcase the sheep industry at work.
Mike says the goal is to show younger people what producers do and to raise awareness of the lamb industry.
“It might inspire some of them to work with sheep or help people realize what it’s all about,” Mike says.
He emphasizes sheep production used to be one of the West’s major industries and laments the fact it’s been shrinking, but he is still holding out hope.
“I see a glimmer of hope for the future,” he says. “There are a lot of things moving in the right direction. We’re very proud of the sheep industry and the people who make it up.”
Their kids are still young, but Mike says there is a possibility of continuing the family legacy for another generation.
“It’s hard to say at this point whether any of the kids will want to continue with the family sheep business,” Mike says. “They all have lots of options, but if any of them want to be here, we will give them the opportunity.”
Heather Smith Thomas is a corresponding writer for the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
