Engebretson to speak at 5th Annual Small Scale Sustainable Sheep Farming Event in February

Dennis Engebretson will be speaking at the Small Scale Sustainable Sheep Farming Event February 16, 2019 at Clearbrook City Hall, Clearbrook MN. More information about the event at sheepcommunity or email sustainablesheep@gmail.com or 218-657-2502. 

Alethea Kenney had the opportunity to interview Dennis.

1. Tell me a little about yourself and your family?

Jackie, my wife, and I have been married since 1979. Jackie grew up in Cavalier/Grasston area, ND in her younger years but moved to the Bagley area in her teen years. We met at church, married in 1979, been married close to 40 years. We have a daughter Maria who is 38, Philip, our son just turned 36. Maria is home with us and Philip is doing carpentry work and part time employment on a farm in North Dakota in spring and fall for planting and harvesting. He’s been doing the carpentry this past year full time. 

We’ve been very involved in church activities over the years, youth group activities, Sunday school. Jackie plays the violin at church regularly. I have a sister Judy who teaches at Clearbrook-Gonvick School Community Ed program summer rec. My brother Gordie and his wife, Roxanne and 4 children served in Gambia, Africa for 26 years. They are now home farming, Roxanne is an RN. 

2. How long have you been farming and how long has your farm been in your family?

Farming all our lives. The farm was homesteaded in 1903.

3. What livestock were originally raised on your farm?

Beef cattle, dairy, small dairy operation, sheep, chickens, pigs. Those were the early ones. And then kind of the same now only the elk were added in 1995. 

Back then, almost all people had the dairy. When I was young, pre-teen, there were six to seven milking cows, using milking machines then, but early on I’m sure they milked by hand. 

We’d put the milk in cream cans, then hauled it to Clearbrook to the Creamery. Later we started using a separator to separate milk from cream and hauled cream to the Creamery. That’s when we started getting back into feeder pigs, fed the skim milk to the feeder pigs and sold the cream. 

Bagley had a creamery, as did Clearbrook and Leonard. Leonard’s is Reichert Saddlery now, Gonvick also had a creamery. Within eight miles of us there was three creameries. McIntosh had a creamery and Fosston had one. 

Used to make butter at the creameries, my Grandpa was on the creamery board there in Clearbrook. Grandpa, back when he was raised, they started the farm, he was into sheep. Had a couple hundred sheep back then, had sheep tours on the farm. Pictures show crowds [at these events], county agent or state official had tours. We have a picture of Grandpa down in South St. Paul with a trucker, David Nordlund, and Bob Moore, sales manager. That was in 1953, selling sheep at the sales barn in St. Paul.

4. How did you first get interested in elk?

They had these events around the state on diversified farming options. Different people talked about what they’d started, raising sheep for wool, or raising trout or some kind of craft thing they were getting into and making things. I went to several of those, there were some on raising different kinds of puppies. I was looking for another option for income for the farm and so looked at several. I had looked at elk but I had ostriches for four years before I got into elk. When I went into it [ostriches], a lot of people were excited about ostriches and I was looking for something to diversify but also something that provide more diversified income from the animal. After three years, I realized it was a fad. They were not as diversified at that time with products that could be marketed. After that I started thinking about the elk. Elk are much more adapted to our weather. I’ve raised a variety of animals over the years and visited three to four different elk farms. I bought my first bred cows in 1995 from a man near Sauk Centre. From there I have been adding to the numbers, doing artificial breeding, selling some breeding stock, mainly trophy bulls, meat, velvet antler. 

5. What were your original goals for your farm and how has that changed (or not)?

My father, I remember him talking about keeping somewhat diversified with several income options on the same farm. He, when I graduated from high school, recommended I seek a trade so I took two years of carpentry which would work along with farming as an option for extra income. So that was the longer term goal, diversifying income on the farm. One way to do that was by taking carpentry schooling after high school, which worked out in the late 1980s and 1990s to 2000s, doing some carpentry work along with farming. Now that I’ve gotten into the elk numbers and my age, I’ve been sticking with farming the last few years. 

Birdsfoot trefoil was a big part of the farm and is part of the diversification. That was a major part of our farming for years in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. 

6. What products do you get from your livestock?

Beef cattle are mainly raised for cow/calf operation and selling feeder calves. With the sheep, I sell feeder lambs and a smaller amount of butcher lambs. Now I’m considering wool off my sheep as well, since being in contact with what was Northern Woolen Mills in Fosston. Raising the wool and one of the reasons for doing that is trying to develop interest in other producers, including 4H kids, that there are other products besides just meat lamb. The wool has good value to it. That’s been one of my goals the last five to six years. 

I don’t have poultry anymore. When I was 8 years old to 30 yrs old, I raised laying hens. Worked up to 200 hens, started out small and then sold meat birds and sold eggs for about 20 years. That was a training period in my life to take on a task, a project as a young kid, teenager and up through my 20s, selling eggs and butcher chickens. 

The elk provide velvet antler that is harvested off the bulls in late May/June and it’s harvested and frozen and then marketed to the Oriental market, mainly China. That’s processed into a velvet product for humans. In North America, velvet is made into products for pets, dogs and horses. For human consumption it goes to China and is used as a natural safe, effective pain relief. It also promotes energy and stamina. It has been used for arthritis, pain relief, nutritional supplement for athletes and an ingredient in Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 2000 years, second only to ginseng. 

There are several grades of elk velvet and they even use the hard antler in some oriental teas. It is a high calcium product for anti-inflammatory agents. The hard antler is also cut into four to six inch pieces, splitting the antler down the middle to make dog chews. This is one of the bigger sales, sold by the pound in the U.S. 

Trophy bulls are raised to an age of four to five years or older and sold to hunting preserves for the trophy market. AI [artificial insemination] semen is purchased from other elk producers for use in my breeding program. The breeding is very similar to breeding beef cows.  

“Trophy hard antler sheds” are antlers that are naturally shed or cut off after the velvet is off. Naturally shed antlers are higher in value. These are used in the craft industry for table legs, chandeliers and things like that.  

Elk meat is a big part of the industry but this is a more common use and more well-known. 

Elk hides and capes are sold for mounting purposes on trophy bulls and are tanned for display and for craft use.  Elk undercoat is now being explored for use in wool blend yarns.  

Elk ivory tooth is harvested from skulls for jewelry purposes. One tooth on each side of the upper jaw is ivory. They don’t know what those teeth are used for but elk is one of the only North American animals that have ivory. 

7. What led you to try harvesting elk fiber for yarns?

Probably Stephanie Anderson at Northern Woolen Mills in Fosston, looking at fibers, she mentioned bison. I thought “I’ve got down [fiber] laying around all over the ground at home”. I went home, picked it up and took it back to her. She made some skeins for me, blended with wool and that’s how it got started. Stephanie put it out on her fiber site and it could have been sold within minutes but we only had a few skeins. People from Montana and Wisconsin would have bought it all. That spurred me on another year to gather more. If I had ten pounds, what she got from that, what I got back, did some numbers and it seemed to be worth my time to pick it up. Not that it’s been progressing very fast but I have twenty pounds laying in my grain bin I could put together. The problem is separating the hair from the down. 

For dehairing, I heard a thing on the radio for a mill in Texas that was dehairing bison. Apparently that down is stronger than elk down and some hair is mixed in. You lose a fair amount of the down when you run it through the machines and I’d like to minimize that. In some of the mills, like Old Creamery in Randall, MN, they’d take the time to go through this for me. In Kindred, ND, there is a mill that can do this as well. 

8. Do you sell your sheep wool and if not, do you have plans to start implementing that as part of a diverse marketing program?

I’ve sold a small amount to fiber people and would like to do more of that. 

9. Is it difficult to get started in elk and what would be your answer to someone asking “Why get elk”?

It’s not difficult to find animals to purchase, there is a education part on the regulations that you’d want to familiarize yourself with so you know. Go through that with several elk producers so you know what all is involved in fencing and transportation and all of that. It’s not hard to purchase or find them to purchase. You have to be aware of the regulations, as far as transportation, especially across state lines. 

We raise them as a farm-raised animal under the Department of Agriculture, the regulations have to do with controlling the spread of CWD (chronic wasting disease). Just like regulations on other livestock, what states and what regulations you have to follow change. Moving them from state to state, each state is different with what paperwork you have to have to get them into the state. There are diseases like mad cow, TB and brucellosis that are regulated. Some state regulations are minor and some have more paperwork involved. There is a fair amount of record keeping as far as keeping individuals identified and tagged for annual inventory. 

12. Is there anything else you’d like people to know about the Engebretson Elk Farm? Where can people find out more information about you?

I’m always open for a farm visit and very willing to show the animals. Look under Minnesota Elk Breeders website or the North American Elk Producers site for detailed information. People are more than welcome to come for a farm visit. There are several thousand elk raised in Minnesota and most producers are more than open to a farm visit. I’m also listed on the Sustainable Sheep and Fiber Community of Northern Minnesota Website sheepcommunity.com where I am also a board member. 

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me and to educate people about your century farm and unique outlook on farming diversity.