Nathan Seitz of the Pulaski FFA is a Wisconsin Star Farmer Winner!
FFA members in Wisconsin have a chance to apply for a Star Award across four categories. One of the categories is Star Farmer. Mid-West Farm Report’s Nate Zimdars speaks to this year’s winner — Nathan Seitz of Pulaski FFA.
Seitz’s supervised agriculture experience was focused on sheep entrepreneurship. He started in 2017 purchasing two market lambs. For the next couple of summers, he would continue to do the same.
“My family has farmed for several generations. No one has ever done sheep in my family,” he says. “I started with sheep because it’s a smaller breed of animal and not quite as much overhead to get into. I plan to continue growing my flock.”
He says he learned about sheep through trial and error, research, and working with a variety of mentors. By the second year, Seitz was making management decisions on his own, such as switching his main feeding practice to pasture grazing.
In 2020, Seitz purchased three ewes and a ram to start his breeding flock. He says the experience has allowed him to gain an even greater depth of knowledge on when to breed, how to assist in lambing, and what to feed through each stage of pregnancy. Seitz says today, he has nine ewes, a ram and 13 lambs.
He plans to attend UW-River Falls to pursue a degree in agricultural business, and says he sees raising sheep in his future.
Seitz’s parents are Cindy and Mark Seitz. His advisors are Erin Montgomery, Cedric Pettis and Kaleb Santy.
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