SHEEP RAISERS since 1926, three generations of the Theos family operate on Colorado's Western Slope. Grandson Tony Theos, from left, grandfather Tom and father Butch face competition from imports, conflicting land uses and predators, but they still run sheep on a combination of private and government land. Young Tony insists he'll keep up the tradition as long as he can.

Sheep Have Been Mainstay For
Theos Family Since Twenties

MEEKER, Colo. — Tony Theos is only 22. He's one of a rare few who at that age know exactly what they want to do with their lives. He wants to continue what his great grandfather started in the early 1900s. He wants to raise sheep.

Tony Theos truly seems to get it. He understands the importance of hard work and determination and he doesn't take the opportunity that he's been given lightly. He has an abiding love for the land and the animals on that land.

"This is all I've ever known since I was a kid," Tony says. "It's all I've ever wanted to do. It's what I enjoy."

Theos is working toward a degree in business administration while working part-time on the family operation.

"This ranch has taught me a lot of things," the young Theos says. "I learned more in one spring of lambing than I did in a whole year of college. Many of my friends work for the weekend. They work to have a good time, to have their toys. My thinking is this work is my good time."

Tony attributes much of his attitudes, his way of thinking, particularly his work ethics to his father, Angelo, "Butch" Theos, and his grandfather, Tom. All three work side by side day in and day out.

Like his son, Butch says it never really entered his mind to do anything else. He tried other things. He went to Colorado State University and graduated with a degree in animal production. He traveled some in Europe and back east. He wanted to see if maybe there was something else out there. There wasn't.

"I guess you almost have to be born into this life," Butch Theos says.

Butch's grandfather, Angelo, came from Greece to Price, Utah, where he took a job digging coal. He missed his love, however — his sheep. So in 1926 Angelo Theos began putting his own ranch together. In total he bought 15,000 acres for $5 to $25 an acre.

Tom started working with the sheep when he was just six. He was responsible for caring for the bum lambs. Numerous times he trailed sheep to the Flat Tops, the Continental Divide, a trip that took 12 days.

"Back then you could find men who were interested in work. They'd take a biscuit and a piece of cheese and a dog and off they'd go," Tom says.

Theos Swallowfork Ranch is located in semi-arid western Colorado where annual precipitation runs eight to 12 inches. Here the Theos family runs 4000 ewes on about 100,000 acres, a combination of private and public lands.

Lambing begins the first part of May. In July the sheep are trailed to their summer permits, most of which are just above their private ranchland. They run four summer herds on two different permits encompassing about 30,000 acres at an elevation of about 10,000 feet. Each herd is made up of 1200 ewes and more than 1700 lambs. They move camp about every 10 days.

Their herds stay on the forest until about the 15th of September and then they drift back onto the ranch. Lambs are shipped out the first of October. The ewes are worked in November. They're tagged, drenched, and vaccinated, and by the middle of November they're on the move again, this time to their winter range some 80 miles to the west at Rangely near the Colorado-Utah border.

Their winter range is partially BLM land and another permit is on private ground they lease.

Swallowfork Ranch runs a crossbred sheep, a CormoRambouillet, a combination of Columbia, Merino and Rambouillet bloodlines.

"We don't supplement, so it's important for us to take a young herd to the winter range because if we get a harsh winter the older ewes will die," Butch says.

They also raise all their own replacements, and those animals that return to this same winter range year after year are raised to be hardy animals, to fend for themselves. Though there are extra costs in raising their own replacements, it pays in the end, Butch says.

"If we brought sheep in, it would take a couple of years for them to adjust to the climate, the different area, the different sheep," he notes.

Shearing is done the first of April on the winter range.

"We want the sheep to have a little wool on them before they get back home because we can get a bad storm at that elevation that time of the year.

Once shearing is complete the sheep are trailed back to their private ground where the whole process starts again.

The ewes begin lambing the first part of May on the lower end of the ranch as they arrive back from the winter range. Lambing on the open range is no easy task, and Butch and Tony work particularly hard grafting lambs onto their mothers or other ewes when necessary.

"Some ewes will have one lamb but enough milk for two so we'll graft another lamb onto her. Some have dead lambs so we graft an orphan lamb onto that ewe. We try to take the triplets away because it's hard for that ewe to raise triplets the way we run. It's intensive work, but in the end it pays," Butch says.

At the height of lambing, it's not unusual to have 150 ewes lambing every 24 hours. And out of that total, they'll probably handle 20 to 30 ewes a day that need extra care.

They have 16 pastures for lambing, and they ride through the herd at least twice a day, sometimes more. As the ewes lamb, they're cut back from the rest of the herd. Last winter 3250 ewes were exposed and this spring they docked 4350 lambs.

"If we don't get at least 130 percent, then we really haven't done our job," Butch says, "but there is a cost to get that 130 percent."

Lambing percent, per se, is not really what's important. The critical figure is the number of lambs that go on the trucks in the fall. And rather than talk percentages, Butch prefers to keep track of the number of pounds of lamb produced per ewe exposed. That figure has been as high as 120 pounds per ewe exposed.

This past year was a tough year, in fact, the lowest ever — 105 pounds of lamb per ewe exposed. Predator losses were particularly high and a dry year resulted in lighter lambs.

Because they lamb on the range rather than in confinement, predators can be a big problem. Butch says he expects a five to six percent death loss from the time of docking to shipping, and 80 percent of the losses are attributed to predators. Last year they had a 14 percent death loss, 12 percent due to predators.

"We do get compensated if it was a bear or lion that killed the animal," Butch says. "We don't get any compensation for coyotes."

The herders have guard dogs, which help with the coyote problem, but the dogs are essentially ineffective against bears and lions. Colorado’s Amendment 14, passed about three years ago, has made their job of controlling predators even more difficult. That law eliminated trapping on public lands and limited trapping on private lands to 30 days out of the year.

Lambs coming off the first part of October at five months of age average right at 100 pounds. In years past the heavy end of the lambs went straight to the packer, but that rarely happens anymore, if ever. It's certainly not going to happen this year. There is simply no market for grass fat lambs — at least according to packers.

For all practical purposes, imports have the light market cornered. The Australians and New Zealanders can raise lambs more cheaply, and the strong American dollar works in their favor as well.

Packers have cut their kills back and the backlog in the feedlots which has been accumulating for some months now isn't improving much. Now the fall run is here.

"We're being forced to send all our lambs to the feedlot. Some of these lambs will weigh 180 to 200 pounds before they're killed. That's not a lamb," Butch says. "That's a mutton. What the packer is doing is ruining the product to save a few dollars," he opines.

As delivery time nears, many of Butch's thoughts are on what he needs to break even. Eighty cents is a reasonable figure, he says, but not a realistic one, at least not this year. All indications are that Slope lambs will only be worth 60 cents - maybe.

Retained ownership is a consideration, but Butch knows that, too, is a gamble.

"If you figure a 100 pound lamb at 60 cents a pound —that's $60. Put another $25 worth of corn in him; that will give you an $85 lamb. The breakeven on an $85 lamb which, at that point, will weigh 140 pounds, would be about 57 cents. That's the gamble. Will we be able to get 57 cents live in January or February? I'm thinking we can, and then again I have to wonder what's going to change."

The wool market isn't adding much to the bottom line, either.

"In 1970 we sold wool clean for $2.25. Today we're lucky to get $1.20 a pound."

Cattle once contributed to Swallowfork Ranch's bottom line, but no more. The ranch, Butch says, is really geared more for sheep.

"We could probably run 100 pairs, but we couldn't make a living with cattle alone. Plus, we can't run cattle in our high country because of larkspur."

Currently they're supplementing their livestock income by leasing their private land for hunting. They began doing this on a small scale in the 1970s. They built a hunting lodge in 1987.

"We're fortunate to have private ground. A lot of people don't have that," Butch notes.

Tony admits, and rightly so, that he's worried about the future of his industry.

"I'll run the sheep as long as I can, but survival is about change, too," the younger Theos says. "You can't be hard-headed. You have to be able to change. I might have to go towards recreation — four-wheeling, snowmobiling, crosscountry skiing, etc. I hope we won't have to, but it's hard to get by anymore on sheep alone."

The last to go, Butch says, will be their land.

"Our borrowing power goes up every day because the value of land goes up every day, but it's a shame that you have to sell something to make it."

Real estate development has changed everything.

"Look at Vail. At one time that all used to be sheep ground. Now they're selling that land by the square inch."

Yet, those same people also want their open space.

"They say they want us to stay in business, yet they don't do anything to help us. Instead they vote in an amendment that limits predator control."

They also deal on a regular basis with those whose mission is to remove all livestock from public lands.

"We've been on the forest now for three generations and that country looks as good as it ever has," Butch insists. "Lewis and Clark almost starved to death because there was no game here. The farmers and ranchers have developed these lands with water, etc., and now we have one of the biggest elk populations in the country."

Theos says their most immediate challenge is finding a way to deal with imports.

"People are eating just as much lamb as they always have, but they're eating foreign lamb rather then domestic lamb."

Colorado sheepmen along with their state association, the Colorado Wool Growers Assn., are trying once again to initiate some kind of promotional program for their grass fat lambs that will be coming off the Western Slope in the next couple of weeks. At least, he says, it would be a start.

He has tough words for his own industry for not passing the referendum a few years back.

"We're our own worst enemy, especially when we don't work together."

Tom, Butch and Tony Theos understand all too well the challenges that lie ahead for the sheep industry, but together they're willing to push ahead — to make things better.

"We're tough, but we've got to figure out a way to turn this market around. The marginal producers are gone. The good ones are still here. We'll figure something out. I have confidence in that," Butch concludes.