Meet SuDan Farm, “the rock stars of lamb!” A local direct marketing farm for grass-fed lamb for over 22 years, SuDan Farm cut meats can be found at the farmstead, the local farmers markets or on the menu at some of your favorite local restaurants. They sell wool products, breed sheep and also have eggs available. If you love lamb or haven’t tried it yet, but would like to, get in touch with SuDan Farm and they’ll fix you right up!

Located just south of Canby in the Yoder area, the land for SuDan Farm was purchased in 1996 by Susie and Dan Wilson who immediately began pasturing sheep on the property. “We started the farm with a few sheep and the idea to do some direct marketing,” Susie explains. Beginning January 2000, they took some of their locally butchered lambs, a bag of wool and a spinning wheel to the year-round Farmers Market in Salem. Not long after, Lake Oswego started their own Farmers Market and Susie landed a spot at the market with the help of a coworker. “Everything just took off from there,” she recalls.

At one point, SuDan Farm was participating in five markets a week. They sold lamb by the piece under their newly acquired USDA label, as well as wool products and chicken and duck eggs. In addition to selling retail, they also began wholesaling lamb to restaurants. For a time, pastured poultry was included in the farm’s repertoire, but the Wilsons have since backed off that endeavor. Focusing on their flock of sheep (Border Leicester and Coopworth), Susie and Dan are set up to direct market everything the sheep produce. Grass-fed and raised without the use of hormones, growth enhancers or antibiotics, SuDan Farm proudly offers some of the best-quality lamb to be found. They also sell breed stock all across the U.S. and Canada.

Susie grew up in eastern Iowa and remembers that she always wanted to have a farm from the time she was very young. She shares, “I’ve been a knitter since I was five and learned how to spin in 1980 and was very interested in some day having my own flock of sheep.” Around 1990, when she was in her 40s, Susie went to sheep shearing school at Oregon State. “I had no animals; I was single at the time and my flock of sheep was basically fleeces in black plastic bags in my spare bedroom,” she says. Susie had become a nurse in 1978 and in 1986 she went to an advanced nurse practitioner school to become neonatal qualified. During the week she worked at Emanuel Randall Children’s Hospital in Portland and on the weekends, she was out shearing sheep. “I always won the contest for the most unusual hobby,” she declares.

Dan grew up on a big ranch in northern California where they raised every kind of livestock and had many hundreds of sheep. “They had beef and dairy and pigs and hundreds and hundreds of ewes,” Susie relates. Dan hunted as well; he learned how to dress game and was very interested in that process. Wanting to learn more, he took butchering classes while attending college at Oregon State. He joined the Marines during the Vietnam War and flew F-4s for four years. Susie confides, “He was at heart a farmer.”

Today, SuDan Farm butchers lamb year-round, providing about 30 different cuts. Dan helps with the cutting every Monday at Century Oak Packing, filling orders and getting ready for Tuesday deliveries of fresh product to chefs, caterers and the like, such as OHSU and the Portland Greek Festival. Every Saturday throughout the year, the couple can be found at the Portland Farmers Market at PSU, “the biggest, baddest Farmers Market in Oregon!” Susie says. And if you’re interested in buying directly from the farm, Susie just asks that you call first.

SuDan Farm is located at 32285 S Kropf Road in Canby. Call (503) 651-Lamb/5262 or (971)219-3884 or email susdan@web-ster.com for all inquiries. Visit their website sudanfarmoregon.com and watch for additional new pages, photos and interesting information.