Loyal FFA president takes on ambitious sheep program

Hi, my name is Brianna Hederer. Two years ago, I started my Supervised Agricultural Experience.

In the beginning, my SAE was focused primarily on breeding, raising, and selling Babydoll Southdown Sheep. While this is still a focus, as my flock grew, so did my intentions for where my breeding program was going and how I would expand. I was introduced to the idea of beginning a “Valais Breed Up Program” and I knew it was an endeavor that I wanted to pursue.

The USDA has restrictions on importing live sheep into the U.S. so because of this, bringing new breeds to the states can be a lengthy, complicated process. Breed Up Programs use semen from a purebred animal to breed a similar breed, and then over multiple generations the resulting lambs are nearly 100 percent of the desired breed. However, since the Valais is dubbed as the “Cutest breed in the world,” I knew it would be a process worth the effort.

Starting this process was intimidating. Synchronizing my ewes’ reproduction cycle, coordinating intercontinental shipment dates, finding an AI technician that was familiar with the process for sheep, and communicating with Valais breeders around the world to find a suitable ram to purchase straws from were all on my to-do list. I quickly realized that waiting for emails from time zones across the world was not an easy thing to do but nonetheless, I persisted.

Since this is my first year taking on this task, I decided to try this procedure on one of my ewes to start. I decided to breed my ewe to Passchendaele Flanders, a ram from the U.K. Once this ram was selected and the shipment dates were arranged, my ewe needed to be taken to a LAI technician. Thankfully, one of the best ones works out of River Falls so the commute with my ewe in the back of the car wasn’t too bad.

In October, I had my ewe laparoscopically artificially inseminated for the first time to officially begin my Valais program. After her AI procedure, I needed to wait a few weeks to have her ultrasound to see if the procedure was successful. On Dec. 27, I found out that my ewe took and will be expecting twin 50 percent Valais lambs in middle to late March.

I am very excited to continue to embark on this journey of bringing more Valais sheep to the United States. Thanks to the FFA grant that I received, I will be able to continue my breed up program on many more ewes next fall.