Providing Education to Western Sheep and Goat Producers
Animal Science
Carmen Willmore
Extension Educator Livestock & Forages
University of Idaho Extension
Shoshone
Abstract
The sheep and goat industry in the West and across the country is on the rise. In the spring of 2020 University of Idaho extension faculty Melinda Ellison and Carmen Willmore had planned two in person workshops to provide hands on education to Idaho sheep and goat producers. Because of the pandemic these in person workshops had to be moved to an online format which began the University of Idaho Sheep and Goat Extension webinar series. The program was very popular from the start and so the program was expanded to include Extension specialist Whit Stewart from Wyoming and Chad Page from Utah State University. Bringing in these additional specialists brought more connections, ideas, and programming outlets for the webinar series. A total of 50 webinars have been offered between April 2020 and March 2022 by 86 speakers to a total of 4,115 live viewers (average 82 individual attendees per webinar). Attendees joined from across the U.S. and Internationally. Each webinar was also uploaded to the YouTube channel for people to view at their leisure and links were shared to the Facebook page and with the email list serve. By March 2022, there have been a total of 55,235 views of the uploaded videos online. Additionally, of 586 post-webinar survey participants, 84% indicated that their knowledge of sheep and goat production had increased and that they would adopt new information or techniques in their operation as a result of the webinar. Non-producers made up 9% of the survey participants. The team also began a quarterly newsletter in 2021 to provide additional educational material to the clientele that was seasonal and related to the current topics of the season. With the success of the program the extension team has plans to continue to provide the webinar series well into the future, bringing in more experts and expanding their audience.
Authors: Carmen Willmore
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Carmen Willmore Extension Educator Livestock & Forages, University of Idaho Extension , Idaho, 83352-0608