Apr 22, 2026
By Rick McNary
Although Anna Tucker thinks it’s a bit corny, I agree with her: it’s pure joy to watch baby lambs head-butting each other or suddenly busting out in moves like a backup dancer for Taylor Swift
“It’s the part I enjoy most on our ranch,” Anna says. “I was raised around dairy cattle and much of my background is working with cattle, but when Jeremiah and I bought 72 acres, we realized we were limited by how many cattle we could raise to responsibly maintain our pasture ground, so we started exploring smaller livestock when we formed Diamond T Livestock.”
Anna’s grandparents had once owned a dairy in northeast Ohio, but they sold all their cows and her aunt and uncle continued to farm the land. As a child, she often helped them and became involved in 4-H, especially with various livestock projects. She knew she wanted to be in agriculture as a career, so she studied livestock science at Ohio State University.
Along the way she met and married Jeremiah, who also had an interest in farming and ranching. When the opportunity came for them to purchase the 72 acres south of Gypsum, they began to research other options for livestock rather than cattle since the stocking rate of cows-per-acre was so low they could only run a few head.
“We researched various breeds of sheep to determine what worked best for us,” she says. “We settled on Dorpers because they are good for meats and, since they are hair sheep, we don’t have to worry about all the labor that is involved in shearing them for their wool.”
According to Raymond Russel Birch in his 1906 senior thesis at Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University), “The Sheep Industry in Kansas,” at the close of the year 1872, there were 39,773 sheep in Kansas. This number gradually increased until in 1878 there were 243,760, in 1880 426,492, and by 1883, there were 1,154,196 sheep in Kansas.
During that time, there were more than 55 million sheep in the United States. Today, there are only a few more than 5 million. Texas ranks first with 655,000 and Kansas ranks 17th with 82,000. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 destroyed the sheep industry nationwide because it eliminated tariffs on imports of coal, iron, lumber and wool. Sheep ranchers suddenly lost out to a market flooded with foreign and inferior wool at a cheaper price.
“Beef is still king in America when it comes to eating meat, but we know that there is a growing interest in people eating lamb, but there are a couple of challenges for us,” Anna says. “First, some people have had a bad experience with the taste of lamb that they’ve bought from the store. The combination of diet and the lanolin in the wool have the potential to create that 'gamey flavor’ that can be a turn off to folks. Our hair sheep aren’t built to produce wool; they are built to produce meat. They are grass fed and grain finished to produce the best flavors.
“The second challenge is people associate lamb with fancy, gourmet cooking like a rack of lamb and don’t realize you can fix a lamburger just like a hamburger for a weekday meal.”
Anna and Jeremiah have also found the growing popularity of tallow-based skin products as another market for their sheep. Tallow is a nutrient-dense fat rendered from cattle or sheep, primarily derived from suet, the fat surrounding the kidneys. It is a solid, stable cooking fat with a high smoke point, ideal for frying and roasting. Due to its similarity to human skin sebum, it is also used in, or as, natural skincare for intense moisturizing.
Anna and Jeremiah are excited that more people are experimenting, and enjoying, both their lamb meat as well as skin-care products. It’s agricultural entrepreneurs like them who are connecting to growing demand by providing both the product and the education to increase even more consumer satisfaction. The American Lamb Association began the Backyard BaaaBQ campaign, which lists numerous recipes.
Anna and Jeremiah have become popular fixtures at our Market of Farms events, but you can also buy their products online.
Website: www.diamondtlivestockco.com
Facebook: @Diamond T Livestock Co.
Instagram: @diamond_t_livestock
Note: Anna is part of our series celebrating the International Year of Women Farmers and Ranchers, 2026.