Merino News from East of Ewe

Why “East of Ewe”? Well, if you live somewhere in the 50 states and at a longitude less that 59 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, then I am east of you! Hi, my name is Tom Colyer and I have been raising, breeding and showing Merino sheep since 1987 when we purchased our first two sheep from Morehouse Merinos in Milan, New York. I am currently the President of the Massachusetts Federation of Sheep Associations, a Trustee with the Eastern States Exposition (The Big-E), and the Vice Chair of the Wool Council of the American Sheep Industry Association. At our annual meeting in Harrisburg last month, I was appointed as the Publicity Chair for the American and Delaine Merino Association and this page on our website is also my responsibility.

I hope to make this page into something you must check on a regular basis. I cannot do that without the support of all of the membership of the ADMRA. As you read on, you will be receiving a large dose of what I know to be the news and almost nothing of what many of you know to be the news. To make this page a service to all of our members, we need the “Merino” news from across the nation. To make that happen, you need to include me in your circle of people that you keep informed of happenings in your area. I hope to include the results of Merino shows at the larger venues, interesting comments about the shows and the results and information about what your Association is trying to do to increase the number of members and sheep in America. The way to help is to put me in your email file…….. tcolyer@aol.com.

I have included, at the bottom of this article, the results of the Merino classes at the Ohio State Fair, The Big-E and the Keystone International Exposition in Harrisburg, PA. I am sure that most of you do not want to see the results of local county fairs and I have not included them. If you look, you will note an unusual class at KILE. This year we added an “In/Out” class of yearling ewes. This class was patterned after similar classes from the past. The idea was broached by our historian, Jeff Traver, after finding several references to the class in his research. The in/out class was exactly that; we showed a class of yearling ewes in full fleece and they were placed. Then we put them in a pen and while the ram classes were being judged, these in/out ewes were sheared. At the end of the ewe classes, we brought the in/out ewes back to the ring and they were judged again and placed. This year we used an aggregate point system to arrive at a final placing and next year we will include a score from having the fleece judged as well. We are also going to have three separate judges for the in/out class with our “wool breeds” judge doing the “in” class and a “meat breeds” judge doing the “out” class. After the fleeces are removed, they will be judged by the fair’s fleece judge and all three placing will contribute to the final placing. We did actually have an informal judging of the fleeces this year and it was interesting to note that the sheep were placed almost perfectly the reverse of the fleeces. Are we making the point……..?

A short time after the completion of the Merino show at Harrisburg we conducted our annual meeting of the ADMRA and the minutes of that meeting is in typing and will also be uploaded to the website soon. I was most interested in the discussion about the site (or sites) for National Merino Shows. The ADMRA sponsored National Show was for years held every three years in Harrisburg. Several years ago we decided to hold it every other year to prevent someone with a superior animal from missing the opportunity to show in a “National” when it was only held every third year. Subsequently we also decided to move the National show around a bit in the hopes of generating more widespread interest in the breed. At the time it was decided to rotate the National show between NAILE(Louisville, KY), The Big-E(West Springfield, MA) and KILE(Harrisburg, PA. The thought was that a bit of “home and home” sprit would help with participation. Unfortunately, after just a few years, we lost the Louisville show due to lack of sufficient participation and we were left with just KILE and the Big-E as sites. For the last couple of years we have been looking into possible sites to add to the rotation. The issue is the willingness of a host venue to increase premiums to help attract exhibitors. As the guy charged with publicity, I am the one who is charged at helping get the word out about upcoming National shows. With our big Centennial Show last year at the Big-E, I found that our national sheep oriented press was most helpful in keeping the opportunity before breeders and as a result we had a great turnout. If any of you have suggestions, just send them to me and I will do a bit of research and then send it off to the board.

Enough for now! Below are several pages of 2007 results. I will look into setting up a separate page for results for next year. Remember, I need you input to make this worthwhile.

Show Results

Ohio State Fair