Rit Búvísindadeildar - 15.06.1996, Blaðsíða 43

Out of season marketing of lamb meat
by Sveinn Hallgrímsson.
Summary
In this paper there is given a brief description of the usual sheep husbandry in
Iceland, the way it has been practised through the ages and how it has been up to
recently. In the early eighties the sheep industry in Iceland went through a
difficuit period, looking into declining consumption of lamb meat, greater
difficulties on export markets and accordingly iess income for the farmers.
Therefore, new ways in production were tried out. Experiment on out of season
breeding was carried out, showing that it should be possible, by use of hormones
to get Icelandic sheep to come on heat and breed in late summer instead of
November to January as natural.
An investigation was carried out in 1992 -'93 to slaughter lambs "out of
season", i. e. not in the common period of slaughtering lambs in the autumn. The
investigation was in co-operation with a local slaughterhouse and local Sheep
Breeders Union. The aim of this experiments was:
1. Test the market for fresh meat through winter time.
2. Increase the variety of meat on the Icelandic meat market.
3. Investigate the profitability of winter feeding and slaughtering of lambs.
4. Test out a method of quality control of meat quality on live lambs.
The main results were as follows:
4 The lambs had good growth rate of growth in indoor feeding period, althougii
they were fed mostly hay.
4- Quality control of live lambs, compared to meat quality, was successful.
4 Feed pr. kg meat produced was linear with growth rate of lamb.
4 Greatest profit was achieved with inferior lambs.
The market seemed to like the fresh meat, although only small amount
were marketed and sold. All the meat marketed was sold and marketing of fresh
meat is becoming part of the farmers production habit. The profit becomes lower
later in winter.
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