JESSE DUCKETT
WANTS TO TURN
YOUR CHICKEN HOUSE INTO A SHEEP FARM

 Some might call the many outdated chickenhouses scattered across southwest Arkansas worn-out relics of a by-gone era. Jesse Duckett calls them an opportunity.

A Hope native, Duckett and partner Chris Sweat, of McCaskill, are the driving personalities behind Goat and Sheep Producers of Arkansas, an organization dedicated to increasing production of the animals in Hempstead and Howard Counties.

For Duckett, the push is the latest in a long line of agricultural and business ventures, ranging from cattle to real estate to the 38,000 commercial egg layers he once maintained in a partnership with his father.

"When my wife and I got sick, I sold the cows," he explained during a recent interview. "Then Chris Sweat and I started doing goats and show goats for FFA and 4-H kids."

According to Duckett, the response was overwhelming, and after hearing numerous complaints about the lack of a market in the area, the two founded one in Hope.

"We started out at the fairgrounds and we've moved it out to my house," Duckett said. "I fixed my show barn that I had for show cattle and turned it into a buying station where we can weigh and sort the sheep as they come in."

That was six years ago, and the move has paid dividends since, with the market dealing in as many as 1,000 head of livestock in one sale.

But Duckett sees an opportunity for expansion.

"We have the market and all, but we don't have the production," he said. "We've been trying to figure out how to get the production to increase."

It was this drive to grow the market that led Duckett and Sweat to visit Minnesota in September of this year, where the chicken-house-turned-goat-farm idea was born.

"They were keeping ewes from about 30 days before they lamb to the period that the lamb was 12 weeks old in and around this barn or building," he said. "I kept looking at those things and I thought, 'My gosh, how many thousands of old broiler houses or hog houses have we got in the four-states area?'."

The dilapidated chicken houses, Duckett said, are the perfect size to convert into 'semi-confinement' goat operations, which means that animals are circulated through the facility based on age and how soon they can reproduce.

As an added bonus, Duckett said using the facilities cuts down on predators and parasites due to the enhanced environmental controls.

All that remains for the pair is to get the word out, which is why Duckett is seeking a grant to fund educational efforts like those employed by the pioneers of the chicken industry.

"I'm old enough to remember when there were no chicken houses in Howard and Hempstead Counties. There was a lady that came from Quincy, Ill. in 1948-49 to go into the chicken business," he said. "My theory is to do what she did, and that was to hire a fella who went around with the county agents talking about raising chickens."

Except Duckett's field representative will be encouraging farmers to raise goats and sheep, as well as helping those who decide to enter the market buy their initial flock.

"If we could get the money to hire the fella, and he could put together 30 producers at 100 head a piece ... we could add five or six producers over the next four years, we would get it up to enough ewes and lambs sold to pay his salary once the grant ran out," he said. "There's many of them setting that's just rusting down. They're not bringing in any income. The nice thing about this would be, for a few dollars and a little labor, they could be converted."

Duckett Farms
 Located @:
146 Hwy 174 North

Hope, Arkansas

Will be OPEN

We buy all classes of goats and sheep.

2nd Saturday of the Month
9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

You just bring your goats of sheep to the buying station, unload them. We will sort them as to quality and weight.
We buy all classes of goats and sheep and pay per hundred weight (cwt) as to quality and weight; the prices will posted HERE the Thursday prior to the
2^nd Saturday of the month.

www.goatprooducersofarkansas.com

You will be paid immediately for your animals.

Buying Station
will be OPEN

The 2^nd Saturday of the Month,
9:00 a.m. to 2:00p.m.

For more information call:

Chris Sweat 870-845-5993 Cell 479-970-6905

Jesse Duckett 870-777-4041 Cell 870-703-7321