The minute a sheep rancher’s back is turned, some guy from the city shows up to offer the legally-hired foreign (H2A) herders more pay for easier—though unlawful—hours.  Just as with Dr. de Waal’s enraged monkeys, an agreed deal may no longer seem “fair” to a herder, especially with the allure of more money and fewer hours.  Indignance over “pay injustice” excuses some folks’ conscience into leaving a band of 1500 sheep just anywhere, undefended.  The ranch manager hits the next rendezvous point all stocked up with weekly supplies and mail only to find scattered sheep all over the place.

      It’s odd that a small flockmaster (who has no employees but himself) rarely pays himself a set wage—not even a wage that’s up to par with those foreign sheep herders.  Amusingly, his indignance at “unfair pay” is directed at everyone—the market, the packers, consumers, speculators—except his boss (himself).  Now that’s monkey-level anger for sure.

      But how could he pay himself wages if the folks paying him don’t come up with enough to cover it?

      Dr. de Waal says people everywhere often pass up big, low-investment gains—something he says rational beings wouldn’t do.  But it happens among humans repeatedly anyway, because if they get too small a chunk of the proceeds, it offends their sense of “justice.”

All over the world, people …refuse to play along if the split seems unfair.  …They thus forgo income that they could have taken, which is something no rational being should ever do.  A small income trumps no income at all.

I can’t see any other answer to low pay than to get higher prices.  Every new procedure or discovery allows us to grow our sheep cheaper, and everyone else grows them cheaper too, so the price goes down forever.  The monkey just keeps getting angrier at that.

Prices for sheep of mutton age are low; not quite a third of the price per pound paid for lambs, according to each issue’s “Sale Barn Prices” tables in sheep!  A systematized sheep operation must normally sell at least one cull ewe or ram for every 6 to 12 lambs sold.

      Of course, the best growers always factor a “ewe depreciation deduction” into each year’s lamb crops, on top of wintering expenses, plus summer grazing cost for all of them.  But suppose cull sheep fetched half the money a lamb brought, instead of just a third.  How much more a sheep operation might return if mutton were promoted as the true delicacy that it is!

      If an old ewe sells for $45.00 today, then half again more would make $67.50.  If a grower got $1 profit from an old $45 ewe before, then he’d get $23.50 now.  Over 23 times the profit!

      A plan like that might even justify fattening the old gals up a bit, adding a little “plumpness” to the profit!

      Instead, old ewes today are often just old bags of bones when sold.  Much of this meat goes into pet food and Third World countries at 18 to 40 cents/lb.  Sadly, this can be true of the lesser cuts of top-quality lamb, too.  Ah well, who can begrudge them a cheap gourmet meal (even if at our expense)?  Their poverty was forced on them when past leaders postponed impossible debts onto today’s citizens.  For the same reasons, and the way America is trending nowadays, there may soon be demand again in the U.S. too for those cheap lamb cuts.

So, are sheep operators who sell to the usual “pipeline” or sub-wholesale buyers getting a good deal or a bad deal?

      Looking at the Lamb Carcass Yields table the Nov/Dec 2009 sheep! Price Reports, a few important messages jump out at us even before we get to price.

      First, average lamb carcass weights of between 65 and 70 lbs. are right around half of today’s usual on-the-hoof sale-barn lamb weights of 130 to 140 lbs.  Sale barn prices for the period averaged $99.20

      Second, according to the Nov/Dec 2009 (last) issue, lamb carcasses sold for from $243.29 to $253.52 per 100 lbs..

      The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture worked a $31.50 processing fee into that price range.  Subtracting that amount from the higher figure, we get $222.02.  Cut the result in half for the dressing percentage ($111.01), add a modest pelt value (say, $6) and we see the wholesale value of our lamb is $1.17/lb.

      This means about 15% of the value of that lamb went into refrigeration, hauling costs and sales commissions.  In other words, for labor measured in man-minutes and comparatively easier effort—but a giant investment in equipment and red tape—these good folks got about a sixth what you got as you toiled in the cold at lambing time, hurt your back trimming hooves or shearing, plus castrated, docked, fed, wormed, vaccinated and handled manure for months on end.

      To be fair, I must say we haven’t paid $31.50 for lamb processing since the 1980s.  So the wholesale value of that carcass was likely even less—I’m guessing something like 10 bucks less.

      What a deal!  Let’s see, here’s 10 for me (grower) and 1 for you (packer), and my work’s done when I swing that gate shut!  You still have to get the consumer to buy it before it spoils on you!