Josh and Erin Mareth enjoy helping the youth learn new things and create new experiences
NEVADA, MO. – Josh Mareth grew up as the oldest of four kids on a small farm in rural Bates County. His family had a 50 head cow-calf operation and Josh’s dad as well as several uncles were Ag teachers throughout southwest Missouri. I guess you could say that being an Ag teacher was in his blood.
Josh and his wife Erin along with their kids, Paisley, Tyler, Jason and Loren have a 10-acre farm West of Nevada, Mo in Vernon County. Both Josh and Erin teach at the Nevada Regional Technical Center and Josh is one of the FFA advisors and agriculture instructors.
Growing up, his dad gave each of the kids a heifer calf for their sixth birthday with the understanding that the money from the first calf was theirs to keep and the remaining calves were split fifty-fifty. Josh took some of his money from that first calf when he joined 4-H and purchased a couple of bred ewes to start raising show lambs. It did not turn out to be a successful venture as the first year, one ewe ended up being open and the other lost her lamb and then died a few days later.
“I took that open ewe and traded for a lamb that I took to the Bates County Fair and sold for a premium in the sale.”
Josh’s passion for agriculture is fueled by a couple of areas.
“I love being out in the barns working with my kids; there is always something new to be learned or a new challenge to overcome and it’s more rewarding when we do it together.” Josh elaborated, “As an Ag teacher, when students seek to understand why and have those light bulb moments, it gives me the fuel to keep going.”
Josh and his wife raise club lambs for 4-H and FFA projects with the crossbred flock being heavily Hampshire influenced.
“We are currently in a bit of a rebuild with the drought and heat in 2023. We went through and culled our flock back to just twelve of our younger females.” Josh continued, “We used a buck this year out of our most productive ewe family and are working on building back our flock based on those genetics.”
The pastures on the farm use woven wire fences to rotationally graze fescue that gets lespedeza broadcasted into it each year. The last couple of years of drought have made Josh and Erin take a look at sustainability and profitability in their operation.
“I let the pasture get overgrazed in 2023 to save on feeding hay earlier. We would have been way better off having either dry-lotting them with hay or at least supplemented the poor-quality pasture by feeding some small square bales.” Josh continued, “We ended up with a low conception rate and had to invest quite a bit of time and money in establishing desirable plant communities in the over-grazed areas. The kids and I spent a good chunk of time every two weeks walking the pasture and digging and spraying thistles.”
“You always learn more from your mistakes than your successes. We had to go back and look at the way we managed our forage and make adjustments.”
Josh said they have started adding lespedeza in for a quality summer forage to keep body condition scorers at 2.5 when going into breeding season. Rams are started on a feeding program 150 days before turning in with the ewes. Ewes receive 1 pound a day of corn mixed with a protein pellet during breeding season and then the last 20 days of gestation when they are bumped up to 2 pounds. Once lambing has begun and the ewes are lactating, alfalfa hay and a 15% commodity mix is fed to the ewes at 2 pounds per day adding an additional pound for each lamb they are raising.
The breeding program revolves around AI and trying to advance the genetics faster in the herd. The top 25% of the herd are AI’d to a proven FF club buck with fresh semen and the remaining are covered with the herd buck. Josh said they are also looking into adding flushing to the program in the future.
“We shoot to lamb as many as possible over our Christmas break, so Erin and I can be at the house to assist and get the lambs going.”
Ultrasound is another tool the Mareth’s use to help address individual feeding needs at the end of the gestation period.
“We ultrasound our ewes, since one that is carrying twins or triplets needs more in the last 30 days of gestation. If you feed them all together the same, your either pulling huge singles or have ewes with multiple births in too thin of body condition.”
Josh keeps a google sheet for record keeping and it contains the breeding dates, lambing dates, matings and offspring data such as birth type and how they were raised.
“Our students always like it when we have bottle babies because we bring them to school the first few days so we can feed them every few hours. My wife puts diapers on them and lets them run around the preschool and the kids absolutely love it!”
“Lots of the preschool and even the high school students do not have many or any connections to agriculture and the bottle lambs always create some teachable moments.” Josh said.
Show lambs are marketed to local 4-H and FFA members thru word of mouth and Facebook posts. They have built up a pretty strong customer base over the years of repeat customers.
“Part of the reason we raise show lambs is to provide local 4-H and FFA members an affordable project. Most of our county fair wethers will be in the $400 range and we love helping students learn new things and create new experiences.”
Josh also volunteers on the county fair sheep and goat committees and his job as an FFA advisor also takes him to several stock show events which helps with networking and advertising their flock.
Josh and Erin hope to expand their operation in the future and get back into the cattle. The kids have started building up a cow herd at their grandpas so eventually they hope to be able to move that part of the operation closer to the house. The kids have also informed their parents they plan to add goats, pigs and rabbits to the show barn but for now they are content with their show lamb operation.
