The Rural Voice, 1997-12, Page 28Lamb for Christmas
Traditions imported from Italy and Greece
create a lucrative market for lamb producers
Imagine paying $195 for the meat
for your Christmas dinner. That's
the prediction of Russell Dow,
chairman of the Ontario Sheep
Marketing Agency made at the
agency's annual meeting, about the
retail price for a whole lamb this
Christmas. And despite the steep
price, Ontario's Greek and Italian
communities are expected to snap up
the limited supply of lambs on the
market.
Demand for Christmas lamb is so
high, says Kathy Velocci, Bruce
County lamb producer (and tireless
promoter of lamb), that some
butchers are asking for a $50 deposit
with each order.
Velocci wonders at the price
people are willing to pay. Then she
thinks, "if I was in someplace like
Iran and somebody offered to get me
a turkey for Christmas for $200, I
might be willing to pay that much."
According to information supplied
by Agriculture Canada, a traditional
Greek Christmas dinner might start
with appetizers of feta cheese and
olives, sardines or squid. There could
be avegolemono soup, a fragrant
chicken broth flavoured with lemon.
The main course would be lamb or
goose. Roast potatoes and salads
would accompany the meal, with
24 THE RURAL VOICE
fruits, figs and nuts following. A
special Christmas bread, very rich
with the fragrance of pine trees and
topped with sesame seeds, is served
Christmas day.
To be fit for the Christmas table,
the lamb must be a young, milk -fed
lamb. In Canada's northern climate,
that requires top management and
some hormonal trickery to produce
lamb for the Christmas market.
Breeders aiming at the Christmas
market generally select breeds of
sheep that can more easily be tricked
into breeding out of their normal
season. Even with good management
the conception rate isn't always high.
The ewes arp "sponged" with
hormone to make them come into
heat, are serviced by the ram and
drop their lambs in September or
early October.
These lambs aren't on the farm
very long. By mid-December, the
lambs will be off to market, generally
in the 40 to 60 pound range.
There are two main centres for
lamb marketing for the Christmas
market, the Ontario Stock Yards at
Cookstown and Ontario Livestock
Exchange in Waterloo, with smaller
numbers sold through Brussels
Livestock and the Keady auction.
Last year there were 1710 lambs
Kathy Velocci feeds sheep at her
Paisley -area farm. She's aiming
some of her production for the
Christmas market.
sold at markets in December, with
the peak being 1301 on December
16. OLEX sold 825 in the same
period, peaking with 400 on
December 17. But it's a fickle
market, as Velocci found out last
year. Because there are a small
number of relatively small packers,
the market can dry up quickly. Last
year she had 28 Iambs in the
December 17 sale and ended up
bringing them home after prices
suddenly collapsed. Anyone who
targeted their crop for that last day's
market, she said, would have been
hurt badly. (She fed her lambs to a
larger size and sold them in January.)
Last year lamb hit a top price of
$245.85 per hundred at Cookstown at
the height of the market, yielding
about $123 for a 50 pound lamb. It's
an inviting target. Velocci last year
produced 50 lambs for the Christmas
market.
Velocci admits to being surprised
that the Christmas Iamb market
continues to grow. Ten years ago, she
says, she predicted the market would
decline as people of southern
European heritage were assimilated
more and more into Canadian
culture. It hasn't happened, and she
and other lamb producers are happy
about that. Instead, there was a huge
increase in demand last year.
"We're very grateful that the
tradition continues here in Canada,"
she says.0