MAPLETON – Romy and Ryan Schill of Circle R Livestock and Revolution Wool have been named winners of Ontario’s Outstanding Young Farmers Program for 2025, and will go on to represent the province at the national level.
The program was designed to recognize young farmers, aged 18 to 39, who exemplify excellence in their profession.
Ryan said it’s an honour to receive the award and be recognized in the agricultural community.
Romy said the win is a great opportunity for them to continue sharing their farming story and offering encouragement to others.
“Telling our story, connecting with other producers and encouraging other people to get into sheep farming has always been really important to us,” she said. “People need to see that someone else has done it, and maybe they can do it too.”
The Schills share their story on social media, including the ups and downs of daily life on a farm, posting about highlights such as lamb births, videos of sheep sheering and “day-to-day chores of what it takes to raise sheep, feed them, grow crops – things like that,” Romy said.
“I share the bad stuff, too, the heartbreaks, things that don’t work as well.”
Their social media presence means they have a group of people cheering them on and expressing appreciation for the work they’re doing behind the scenes, Romy said, and “if we lose an animal or something goes wrong, they feel that as well and they’re there for us.”
Not all farmers want to tell stories publicly, Romy noted, “so that’s one of our things.”
And it’s something she said is important for “producers to keep trust in the public.”
Their audience includes farmers and non-farmers alike, Romy noted.
“Farmers love to learn tips and tricks from other farmers, and the general public loves to learn about what happens on the farm.”
Romy said when she and Ryan were new to sheep farming, they “definitely counted on different mentors and other producers to ask questions [of], so we try to do the same thing.
“It helps everyone grow when you share that information,” she said.
And the general public wants “to know where their textiles and things are coming from,” she added.
The Schills also host tours of their farm, which is located just north of Wallenstein, between Floradale and Drayton.
“Ryan grew up across the road, and I grew up over by Moorefield,” Romy said.
Romy said when she and Ryan took over the farm from his grandparents 17 years ago, they started out with 25 sheep as “a little bit of an experiment.”
“We took a leap of faith,” Ryan added, and “a lot of people questioned us – ‘Why sheep? Is it even viable?’
“But we saw an opportunity and stuck with it, and it turned into something bigger than we ever thought it would be.”
They quickly found they loved working with the animals and that there was good demand for lamb and wool, so they started joking that one day there would be 1,000 sheep on the farm, Romy said.
Now, there really are “a thousand sheep running around here,” she chuckled.
Ryan’s grandparents were beef, hog and chicken farmers, and Romy said when she and Ryan took it over they “had an opportunity to really think through everything and figure out what we wanted to do.”
She said “we didn’t have to keep doing anything – we were able to make it our own, so that was a really cool opportunity.”
It’s mostly Romy and Ryan doing the work on the farm, though their kids, aged 10, 12 and 14, are a great help and the Schills hire a student during the summer.
Sheep are the farmers’ primary focus, including selling commercial meat lambs to local processors and butchers, selling breeding stock to local producers, and selling wool and wool products through their website revolutionwoolco.ca.
Their meat is available from Parker Meats and in Alma.
To follow the Schills, visit facebook.com/circlerlamb and facebook.com/revolutionwoolco.
