Jondaryan Station is the home of the Morvik family. Our ranch is located in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan, near the small town of Eastend.
A T.rex dinosaur was found down the valley from us just over 10 years ago and has brought much attention to the area in the field of paleontology.

The name of our property comes from Jondaryan, Queensland in Australia where I worked on the A.& J. Gentner  grain and cattle farm during an International Agricultural Exchange Program (I.A.E.A.) from October 1983 to April 1984.

Throughout the whole property water is available to the sheep from the Frenchman River which originates in the Cypress Hills and winds through the valley ending up in Montana as the Milk River. This river empties into the Missouri and eventually finds it's way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Riparian habitat is important to us and because of this we have installed 2 underground water systems that deliver water up from the valley floor to the grazing paddocks above. Program assistance provided by Sask Watershed Authority.

The grassland on our property is mix of native grass and seeded tame pasture on the table lands. Flood irrigated alfalfa/brome supplies all of our winter feed and allows us a surplus that we sell. Our seeded pasture consists of crested wheat grass, alfalfa and meadow brome grass. The ranch supports a flock of 400 ewes, consisting of 350 breeding ewes and 50 replacement ewe lambs through careful rotational grazing.

Dry conditions prevailed thoughout all of 2006. This photo taken in September '06

We began raising sheep in 1985, starting with 50 Columbia ewes learning as we went until we eventually ended up with our current size flock. When wool was worth something in the late 80's we started an A.I. program using Australian and New Zealand Merino genetics to increase the quantity and quality of the wool we were producing. This was the fast track to improving wool but it also tended to lower our lambing percentage, so we held the Merino blood in our crossbred ewes to 1/4 blood.

In the early 90's we then added some good Montana bred Rambouillets to the flock to maintain the wool quality obtained from the Merinos. Over the past 10 years we have bred towards a Targhee type ewe using Targhee rams while keeping a close eye on maintaining the quality in the wool we bred for. 

Since 1996 we have been using mainlyTarghee rams and the odd Rambouillet ram from Montana that were in the NSIP program. These rams were performance tested and side sampled for micron when purchased from the Montana Ram Sale at Miles City, Montana.

Since BSE arrived in 2003 we have been unable to source rams from Montana due to ridiculous changes in the animal import act. As well as facing road blocks from CFIA in Canada, some Montana producers seem reluctant to lobby Canada for export ram sales because most sheep producers in that state value the cattle industry more than their sheep industry. This is in relation to the previous Blue Tongue and Anaplasmosis regulation CFIA placed on all feeder cattle imports coming into Canada from the USA. Most of which will be redundant when new regulations come into effect in 2007 which allow for year round imports of sheep and cattle without Blue Tongue testing.

TARGHEE sheep are an American produced breed. They were developed by the Duboise, Idaho Research Station, beginning in 1926. Their name comes from the Targhee National Forest, as they were developed under range conditions, with rigid standards based on range performance. Their original breeding stock came from breeding Rambouillet rams to ewes of Corriedale x Lincoln-Rambouillet bloodlines.

Pictured below is a scene from our barn when all of our ewes were shed lambed or lambed outside and then bonded to the ewes in these small pens indoors.

We now pasture lamb in early May. While this does reduce the barn labour associated with shed lambing it does have its drawbacks if the property you own does not have good shelter to protect the flock and young lambs from late spring storms.

Once lambing is done in May the ewes and lambs remain on tame pasture and native grass until winter feeding begins, usually in November or December. Our lambs typically are weaned in late August or early September.

Most of our lambs are sold direct off the ranch to the feedlot. Some of the lambs are market weight at that time but most are feeder lamb size, approx. 80 to 90 pounds. These lambs that aren't slaughter weight go to feedlots in Alberta or head east to feedlots at Regina or Brandon, Manitoba.

May born Targhee and Targhee X Suffolk lambs being sold in mid September 2006. Avg. 80 lbs.

In the past, we had exported to a buyer in Great Falls, Montana. Since 2003 and a change in regulations by USDA due to sheep and their relation to BSE we have been unable to use this export route. In dry years we graze weaned lambs on irrigated hay land to put on more weight.

Shearing is usually completed in late March or early April in order to be finished a couple of weeks before lambing.

This looks after a couple of things like keeping the wool in good shape when the ewes are confined and fed prior to lambing, and makes it easier for the newborn lambs to find their first drink of milk. The wool is all skirted on the table and then taken outside to be packed in the hydraulic packer. We select our finest fleeces when shearing to be sold to handspinners and weavers through eBay and other channels.

Irrigation water flows onto the hay fields as the Frenchman River flows below it. This water comes from a PFRA reservoir west of town that was built in the 1930's.