Our Farm

Grandview Polypay is located on a farm west of Marshall in southwestern Minnesota. It all started when we purchased our acreage – weeds and all. Taking someone’s advice “sheep will eat anything” we purchased 50-bred ewes. They cleaned up the place and we were hooked. We both were employed at Schwan’s, that's where we met. Based on our value of family - Lila quit her job to be ‘Mom” and farmer.

Sheep seemed like a reasonable animal to work with. Through some research we learned that Reed Hulet developed the Polypay based on a dream of a more prolific, better milking and mothering breed of sheep. Sounds good – Polypay it is! Enrolling in the Pipestone Lamb and Wool Management Program provides us with a wealth of knowledge and support in managing our flock. Acquired office and computer skills were applied to the sheep. With weaning weights and ewe history we knew where our flock was at and what to look for from other flocks to improve our performance.

At an American Polypay Sheep Association Annual Membership meeting someone mentioned NSIP and an opportunity to enroll our flock, which seemed like the next step to tracking our production and in 1992 we enrolled in NSIP. We discovered that NSIP really validated our farm records and pretty much told us what we knew. However, the advantage of NSIP data over barn records is the large database that tracks not only the dam and sire but also includes all the performance information from any and all sheep linked to them by blood. We make decisions based on NSIP along with barn data that point out ewes that will breed in the first heat, carry condition and lamb out of season.

Building the Foundation

In 1991 we purchased registered ewes from Northfork Polypays. Ewe 621/W178 is the foundation of our flock with 22 lambs born, 20 raised in 8 lambings.

To help meet our goals of pounds of lamb weaned, longevity, and out-of-season lambing we purchased a ram from Diamond S. W1978 is a fall born ram whose dam had and raised 19 lambs in 9 lambings including two fall lambings.

We purchased GY213 - HULK at the National Polypay Show and Sale in Springfield, Illinois in 2003 to compliment and strengthen our foundation. He turned out to be a prize! He was born and raised a fall twin. His dam had 19 lambs and raised 19 lambs in 7 lambings including two in fall. HULK sired GV408 the 2005 Grand Champion NSIP Ewe and GVW452 a young sire who is a trait leader in ALL five traits.