I shot a couple small videos at our ram sale last week.

I talk about a ram sale in Blue Skies and I thought, if you haven’t been to one before, it would help you visualise the atmosphere and excitement that runs around a shed as the auction starts.

You may have to watch it a couple of times to get you ‘ear in’. Auctioneers talk so fast, often it’s hard to understand what they’re saying!

Neil Brindley from Landmark was our auctioneer and once he called the shed to order, there wasn’t a sound – everyone was listening to him and prices. The two other blokes on the rails with him, are Greg Prosser, Landmark Manager and Simon Norsworthy, stock agent. They were spotting for bids, as was Peter Gale, stock agent, who was on the floor with a buyer.

The bids flew thick and fast, which was fantastic and at the end of the day, we had sold all the rams! That was a fantastic result! The ram that Anthony is holding, was our highest priced ram and is pictured with Peter Gale, Simon Norsworthy, Anthony and me!

Our annual sale – Tomorrow!

For many years now, we’ve held an annual ram sale in Esperance.

We gather up the best of our rams, truck them to town, wrestle them into pens and let farmers pass judgement on them! Tomorrow is the big day (18th Sept 09).

At the moment, I’m snatching five minutes away from washing cars, gathering up the BBQ and eskies and packing the ute in preparation for an early start.

The truck arrives at about 6:30am and they’re in town by 9am. That gives us heaps of time to get them penned the way the need to be and for them to settle down. It can be quite upsetting and tiring for a ram to be taken out of his usual paddock setting and tossed into a noisy shed, with people feeling his rump, looking at his structure and testicles! We try to be as kind as possible to the animals, so giving them time to adjust to their new environment is important.

The kids love ram sale day, as they get out of school and have a great time mingling amongst the crowd and feeling the atmosphere of the day. It’s a great learning experience for them as well.

So, if you’re in need of a good ram, tomorrow, our White Suffolks will be penned from 12pm, sale starting at 2pm, with a BBQ and refreshments provided. We’d love to see you there (with a crate on behind your ute, to take a couple home!)

Sexy legs hey? You only get legs like these when you’re sloshing through ankle deep muddy cattle yards like Anthony and I have been this week!

Mud-encrusted legs feel really weird when it’s dry, although I have heard that mud is good for the complexion … I wonder if that includes cattle poo and wee all mixed in?
 
Anyway, we were tagging our stud calves. As a registered Angus Stud we need to be able to identify the dam (mum) and sire (dad) of each calf.

Those yellow tags help with that as every animal has its own number that is recorded on a computer program.
 
I’ve written about this process in Red Dust so hopefully now you’ll be able to visualise it when you read about it!