Sheep inspire diverse business blend

Nicholasville, KY

The flock of sheep grazing on the pastures of Black Bridge Farm, located in the scenic rolling hills of central Kentucky about 30 miles south of Lexington, play an integral, strategic role in the diverse business mix of this operation. Providing fiber, meat and educational opportunities,co-owners Keith Erny and Sarah Cole aim to blend their agricultural and artistic passions with creating a profitable farm-based business.

Having bought the farm in 1994, Sarah and Keith started with raising sheep in 2000 after researching what business ideas would be best suited for their farm, lifestyle and interests. “Our goal is to make enough money for the farm to pay for itself. Sheep made the most sense for us since we can naturally diversify the products we have for sale between the lamb meat and the fiber,” Sarah explains. “Additionally, we found small animals such as sheep to be more cost effective than other livestock on our small farm. We’d rather raise five to seven sheep per acre instead of just one cow per acre.” The Ernys currently have a flock of about thirty breeding sheep (ewes and rams) and are working at building their numbers to about one hundred ewes on their farms twelve acres and an additional one hundred acres on a neighboring farm. The lambs are processed for meat in the fall at a local USDA processing facility . “We raise Icelandic sheep, a primitive breed unchanged for many hundreds of years. They’re therefore quite hardy and easy to care for. You can even milk Icelandic sheep and we regularly milk a couple ewes in our flock for our own use,” adds Sarah.

The Ernys have found the demand for lamb meat growing to the point that word of mouth sells all their meat and they have not needed to do paid advertising. “There is a growing market of people who want to know where and how their meat was raised and families will often buy a whole lamb,” Sarah explains. “Additionally, we’ve found a strong meat market with the growing number of different cultures moving to our area such as Muslim, Hindu, Oriental and Hispanic that seek to buy a whole lamb and do the processing themselves for religious and cost reasons.” Right now most of the farm’s income comes from the fiber side of the business as the flock is relatively small and should be a more even split between fiber and meet when the flock reaches around 100 ewes.

In addition to lamb meat, sheep fiber provides year-round income for Black Bridge Farm. The sheep are sheared by professional shearers twice a year in the spring and fall. With strong self-taught interest in the fiber arts for years, the wool aspect of the business provides materials for Sarah and a sales outlet for her own creations as well as selling various fiber items. Sarah “skirts” the sheared fiber which means hand-picking out larger debris and then sends the fiber out to be processed into “roving,” clean and carded fiber which Sarah then hand-spins into yarn. “Yarn is a key seller, but I also sell the roving to people interested in doing their own spinning and other fiber crafts,” Sarah comments. “The color of the Icelandic sheep fiber provides a beautiful range of natural hues such as a black-silver and various brown shades. I also naturally dye the fiber with a variety of native herbal plants we grow on the farm, such as indigo for blue and Queen Anne’s lace for yellow.” Sarah’s biggest sellers from her hand-knit collection are shawls and hats, in addition to sweaters, sock and slippers and weavings.

While the lamb meat is sold on-site from the farm, Sarah sells the fiber products at a year-round farmers’ market in Lexington and her store. “Our ‘farm store’ is actually a mile down the road in a century-old country store, where I also have my studio and teach spinning, dyeing and other fiber-related workshops,” Sarah explains. “Nearby families help to run the store on evenings and weekends. We find this works well for sales since people seek us out and like the idea of the country drive experience.” Sarah has started selling her fiber work on-line and is attending handicraft trade shows to break into the wholesale market. Black Bridge Farm also has its home-based processor license, enabling Sarah to sell homemade breads for which she grinds her own wheat and adds in her garden herbs.

Keith and Sarah currently balance off-farm jobs at the University of Kentucky with Black Bridge Farm responsibilities, along with raising their family of five teenagers. Keith, who has family roots in the area, handles more of the animal maintenance. Sarah focuses on marketing and fiber products. Sarah is transitioning to leave her job and work full-time on the farm next year, enabling her to focus more on the farm tour side of the business. “There is an opportunity to provide hands-on field trip experiences for classrooms and groups such as Girl Scouts to come and actively participate in farm chores, taking care of the flock, and learning to appreciate our agricultural heritage,” explains Sarah. Always diversifying, Sarah will also be hosting a natural dyeing workshop for the state herb association and is exploring creating a summer day camp in the fiber arts.