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!

There’s More To Buyer Satisfaction Than “Rock-Bottom Prices”

We can take a lesson from the apes on why consumers will or won’t pay more for the lamb or wool they truly desire and enjoy.  Please bear with me here, because first we need to analyze their motivation for buying or not buying, not just their desire for gratification in its strictest sense.

      In the October 3, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal (online) there was a story titled “Our Kinder, Gentler Ancestors,” by Frans B. M. de Waal, PhD.  The story touched on animals’ reaction to unequal rewards for doing similar jobs.

      In the story, Dr. de Waal mentioned what he observed when monkeys got a substandard wage a job completed:

…If one gives two monkeys hugely different rewards for the same task, the one that gets the short end of the stick refuses to cooperate.

   We hold out a piece of cucumber, which normally entices any monkey to perform.  But with its neighbor munching on grapes, cucumber is simply not good enough anymore.

   They protest the situation, sometimes even flinging those measly cucumber slices away, showing that even monkeys compare what they get with what others are getting.

The point Dr. de Waal makes is that even with an ape’s IQ, cost-vs.-return is not a consumer’s only motivation.

      There is (in addition to practical considerations) an irrational but inborn sense of “fairness” that governs behavior, even in animals.  This “fairness sentiment” can rule out a favorable response to a seemingly good deal.

      Dr. de Waal, who has written a number of books on primate behavior and is a professor of primate behavior in Emory University’s (Atlanta) psychology department, says that also human beings—worldwide—tend to reject a deal if it seems unfair to them, even if they stand to gain heavily by it.

      “They may accept a split of 60 for proposer and 40 for themselves,” he says, “but not an 80-to-20 split.”

      A “60-for-them, 40-for-me split;” what a deal!