Millennium Farms

Our Flock History__________

Thank you for visiting our website, and would love to have you come visit the farm anytime! MillenniumFarms is located in Oxford, Indiana (20 miles Northwest of Lafayette). Millennium Farms was established on January 1, 2000 when Chris & Dawn Schakel were married and merged their two flocks together.

Dawn’s family, Fox Club Lambs, raised and showed sheep since 1978. Originally the flock consisted of Registered Suffolk sheep until the 1980’s when Dawn started 4-H. At that time, they added Club Lambs as a second breed, for Dawn to show at the county fair. During her 4-H years, Dawn won Grand or Reserve Champion Market Lamb 8 years in 4-H, and throughout this time began purchasing and raising Club Lamb ewes to put her own flock together. This brood ewe flock, eventually became part of Millennium Farms in 2000.

Chris’s family, Schakel Suffolks, has produced show quality breeding stock since 1974, raising Registered Suffolk sheep. Chris has raised and shown sheep at county, state, and national levels exhibiting at State Fairs, National Junior Suffolk Shows, and the NAILE. From 1994 - 1998 Chris fit & showed the Honnold Dorset flock owned by Bob & Malia Honnold, Carthage, Indiana. In 1998 he became Flock Consultant and continued to exhibit the Honnold Dorset Flock at many of the major shows & sales in the U.S.

In 2000, Honnold’s offered Chris & Dawn the opportunity to purchase the Honnold Dorset flock, which consisted of 50 Registered Dorset brood ewes & 2 Stud Rams. The original flock traces back to the Green Mountain bloodlines, and the Honnold’s selected 20-25 high performance ewes out of each of the three herd rams each year using their own genetic pool. They continually improved the herd by selecting rams from successful breeders such as Penn State, Saylor’s Twin Oaks, Sunrise Acres, & Dew Drop Farms. While acting as Flock Consultant, Chris made the decision to add a “changer ram” to the flock, and purchased ‘Shug’ DDF 924 the Grand Champion Ram at the 2000 Midwest Stud Ram Sale. The purchase of this Dew Drop ram took the Millennium Farms flock to a level we only dreamed of…we became breeders of the National Champion Ram at the 2002 National Dorset Show & Sale, just 2 years after Chris made the ultimate decision to purchase this stud ram. We were also given the tremendous opportunity to purchase the 2001 National Champion Ram, ‘Spot Free’ Wade Bros. 1316 from Bel-Mar Farms in 2002. We have been extremely successful at the shows & sales and have produced several Champions at County, State, & National shows & sales since adding the Dorset Flock to Millennium Farms.

As the years past, not only had our flock grown but our family as well. Our first child Kylie was born in 2001, followed by our second child Kaleb shortly after in 2002. A few years later, we were blessed with our third child Kassidy in 2006. Each one of our children play an important role to the success of our farm and livestock business, and each child has found their own breed of interest, which has led to many changes over the years within Millennium Farms. At the age of 4, Kylie showed her 1st Dorset, ‘Daisy’ at the 2005 Great Lakes Regional Dorset Show. Kylie enjoys showing her Dorsets at several Junior Shows, State Fairs, and NAILE and has been very successful and earned several awards and honors.
One of the most recent changes happened in 2009 with the establishment of Kaleb Schakels Tunis. Kaleb took an interest in the Tunis, his “redheaded ladies” as he calls them! Kaleb purchased his first (2) ewe lambs in fall of ’09 from Mom’s Tunis to take and exhibit at the NAILE in the fall of 2009. Knowing he wanted to raise Tunis, we began the search for a ‘Stud’ ram in 2010. We are extremely thankful to have been put in contact with Jim and Louise Dunham, Darling Tunis, where we found just what we were looking for…’MAX’. Of course we couldn’t leave the farm with just one…so we purchased a ewe lamb too!! Kaleb looks forward to showing off his ‘redheads” and we wish Kaleb much success in breeding and showing his Tunis sheep in years to come.

Who knows what the future will bring…as Kassidy grows up unless we can convince her to show her sister or brother’s sheep you just might find another breed in the works here at Millennium Farms in a few years! For now, we enjoy watching our kids’ desire and interests develop in the sheep industry. We enjoy seeing old friends, and meeting new friends in the sheep industry, and our diversity in the sheep industry just keeps getting bigger…as you are sure to find the Schakel kids showing club lambs at the Indiana Junior Club Lamb Circuit shows, or perhaps the breeding stock at the All American Jr. Show, or in Louisville at the NAILE each year.

We currently maintain 50 head of ewes, consisting of Registered Dorset, Tunis, and still have a few of our Club lamb ewes we breed. We always place an emphasis on 4 important traits when producing sheep in any breed we raise…1) style 2) frame 3) muscling 4) structural soundness. Our goal is to produce a complete sheep that will perform in the show ring, but more importantly produce in the lambing barn for our flock and breeders who purchase seedstock from us. DNA testing is available on all seedstock you purchase from Millennium Farms.