The Fourth Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium will be held at the Badgerland Area Civic Center in Spooner, Wis., June 26-27, 1998.

The two-day program will include one day of presentations by U.S. and international scientists and producers on the topics of nutrition of the dairy ewe, performance of East Friesian crosses, milking parlor designs and milking systems, farmstead cheese production and marketing, economics of dairy sheep production, production of quality milk, and current research results on sheep milk processing.

A late afternoon and evening will be spent viewing the facilities and observing the milking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison”s Spooner Agricultural Research Station, which has the only university dairy sheep research unit in North America.

The remaining day will be spent visiting two commercial dairy sheep farms – one with a new double-16 parlor and the other with its own on-farm processing plant for yogurt and cheese.

The three previous Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposia were held in late March or early April in Madison, Wis., in connection with the Wisconsin Sheep Industry Conference. These popular symposia attracted participants from throughout the United States and Canada.

The move to Spooner and change to the June date for 1998 will allow symposium participants to visit operating dairy sheep farms and the Spooner dairy sheep research farm during the height of the milking season, as well as hear educational presentations by international and U.S. experts.

The city of Spooner is located in northwestern Wisconsin, in the heart of the state”s lake and forest country. The area also has the greatest concentration of commercial sheep dairies in the United States.

The Wisconsin Sheep Industry Conference will be held at its usual date in Madison on March 26-28, and also will include some presentations on dairy sheep production.

Registration fee for the two-day symposium is $60 for an individual. For families, the registration fee is $60 for the first family member and $30 for each additional immediate family member. Children under 12 are free. Registration includes entrance to all educational sessions, tour of the dairy sheep research unit, tour of two commercial dairy sheep farms, one lunch, and two dinners. Symposium proceedings will be available for $10 each.

Complete program, registration forms, and additional information will be available after Feb. 15, 1998 from Lorraine Toman, Spooner Agricultural Research Station, W6646 Highway 70, Spooner, WI 54801 (phone: 715-635-3735, fax: 715-635-6741, email: lltoman@facstaff.wisc.edu or ymberger@facstaff.wisc.edu).

The Fourth Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium is sponsored by the Division of Agricultural Research Stations, Babcock Institute for International Dairy Research and Development, and Department of Animal Sciences – all part of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at UW-Madison; the dairy sheep producers of Wisconsin; and the Spooner Chamber of Commerce.