A little while ago, Anthony and I made a journey across the Nullarbor to Adelaide. We were going to look for good stud rams, to help advance our White Suffolk Stud.
After a day in the airports we went straight from there to the show! It was wonderful to walk in and be greeted by old friends. We had been feeling tired, after a four thirty start in the morning, but the energy that ran around the ram shed, soon got us pumped again!
The quality of the rams were amazing and we did find a couple of fella’s that we think are good enough for our ewes! They’ll make the trip across the two states, by truck and after being checked over for all the stringent quarantine conditions, we’ll drive the five hours to Kalgoorlie and pick them up.
Both Anthony and I find the city really noisy, after the farm – it doesn’t take long to adjust though, but I loved to be able to look out my hotel window and see space.
We only had forty eight hours in Adelaide, but it was wonderful. We had our little piece of farming and then the family time. That was all there time for, before we legged it back across the bite, to start some more shearing on Tuesday.
This is what our first day of shearing looked like at 6:00am!
Sheep all ready and waiting in the yards, clear skies and a wonderful sunrise, sending a message that it was going to be a special day!
We tested our new shearing shed well and truly, with 450 ewes being shorn.
It worked really well, although the shed doesn’t have a lot of storage for keeping sheep dry, so when an unexpected rain shower came through in the afternoon, we got wet sheep and had to stop!
So, only one day of shearing down, with another two and a half to go … but only when the sheep are dry, who knows when that will be!
Coming up on September 18, we’re holding our annual ram sale. To do that, we need to blood test all our sale rams, to make sure they don’t have any nasty diseases that they can pass on to the ewes that they will mate with.
It’s a regular practise with most studs – we feel it would be unethical to sell rams that weren’t tested negative to many diseases that could affect fertility.
Dave Swan, our vet, comes to do this and while Anthony or Jayden (the bloke that gives us a hand) man-handles each ram (only about 120 kilo’s each!), Dave takes their blood and I run around setting up new syringes and labelling the blood vials.
It’s always a fun day – we get to see our rams at close quarters and have a yarn with Dave!
These beautiful looking sheep are our stud ewes, complete with their long, lean and muscular lambs!
As part of our farming program we run a White Suffolk Stud – something that my main character in Blue Skies, Amanda, does.
These girls are just about to be run through the jetting race – to make sure the flies can’t get into them when the sun comes out and the buzz of flies hit the air. We’ve also just marked their lambs and used special tags, so we know who belongs to which ewe – much like we do with the stud bulls.
Anthony is going to the Adelaide show in September, to source more ram semen, as we try and do and artificial insemination program each year. It allows us to source genetics outside of the genetic pool we have already used.
South Australia is the home of the ‘Great White’ and that’s often where the best genetics are found (in our opinion!).
This is what you get, when you’re shifting sheep, yabbering on the phone and not concentrating!
Sent to bring some sheep into the yards, I used the time to call a friend – when I’m busy writing, I don’t always stay in contact with my mates as much as I should.
I was quite happily moving the sheep and catching up on all her news, when suddenly I realised I had driven into muddy patch… and I’d sunk!
I decided then, it was time to finish my conversation and after some swearing, cursing and lots of branches, little mallee roots and rocks stuffed under the wheel for traction, plus the four wheel drive oomph, I managed to get out!
I was really pleased about this, because Anthony wasn’t on the farm and I had to pick the kids up off the school bus in half an hour – and I wouldn’t have been able to, if I had had to walk back to the shed for the tractor!
We were lucky enough to be able to buy the inside of a shearing shed, complete with catching pens, grating, gates… the works.
Having two farms 18 kilometres apart and only a shearing shed on one of them, makes life quite difficult at times and involves stock trucks carting sheep backwards and forwards at shearing and crutching time. Time consuming, not to mention expensive!
We’re really pleased to be having this four-stand board put up on the inside of our machinery shed… so we’ll have a shearing shed on both places soon.
It’s a raised board shed so where Hayden and Rocket are standing, will be cemented and used as the floor where the rousies, classer work and the press stands.
It won’t be long before it’s put to use, with ewes needing crutching as soon as it’s finished.
Check out this cheeky little fella!
I fed some hay out for the bulls who live in this paddock, but they were busy sunning themselves way down the other end and obviously didn’t hear the tractor with the wind that was blowing.
The sheep took full advantage of not having to muscle their way in around the big guys, risk being stepped on, or bunted out of the way!
They hooked into to the hay before the bulls realised what was going on.
Dogs work really hard at shearing time. They make the job much easier by packing sheep into races, getting them into the shed, penning up and of course helping muster the paddocks to bring the sheep into the yards.
That’s of course if you’re a work dog. Rocket’s not. But because his legs are so little he gets tired just watching the working dogs do their job! As you can see. He also gets very sad that he’s not allowed to help.
Well I’ve been working in the shed, while these dogs of ours have been working hard.
I can tell you, it’s been a while since I’ve done a full day of shed hand work, but a mate of ours needed a hand so I volunteered.
Tonight, I’m aching in spots I had forgotten I had, so I think a glass of wine and a quiet night is in order!
But it’s this guy (the shearer) that does the really hard yards.
Every year we scan our ewes to see if they’re pregnant.
There’s a couple of reasons we do this, one is so we can pull out all the dry ewes (one’s that aren’t going to lamb) to sell and so we can feed the wet (pregnant) ewes better and two, to know what we can expect from lambing.
You don’t want to get to lambing time after budgeting at the beginning of the year, say, 5000 lambs and only marketing 2000.
That’s a fair drop in your income and needs to be fixed fairly pronto. It also may indicate you have a fertility problems with the rams you’re using.
Swany, our vet, comes to scan the sheep for us. He brings an ultrasound machine (pretty much the same that is used for women) that scans the ewe.
If they’re dry, they’re drafted off from the main mob as they run through the crate. The wet ewes head straight back out in the paddock.
Our pregnant girls will be well looked after from now on, while the dries will probably be re-mated this year instead of sold.
I talk about preg-scanning in Blue Skies, so if you remember this blog when you read it and you’ll know what I’m yabbering about!
I love shifting stock. It’s great fun just slowly wondering them down the laneway to the paddock or yards. It’s where I do a lot of my planning for writing and because I’m outside, right in middle of my inspiration.
It’s where I get most of my ‘light bulbs’ ideas. I never leave home without my scribble pad and pen and sometimes I find myself writing whole chapters in longhand.
The best thing about these laneways, is that I don’t really have to watch the stock.
They make there own way and because they are guided by the fences on either side of them, they keep walking, and I keep scribbling, until they reach an open gate and in they go!
Of course, the boss, (woof on wheels) Rex keeps an eye on me and lets me know if I’m not noticing something I should. Oh and by the way, Rexy is wearing a muzzle because we produce prime lambs.
If a dog accidentally bites the sheep on the hock, it downgrades the quality of the carcase. It’s not nice for sheep either!
Our dogs don’t bite anything (sheep, cattle or humans, in fact they’re more likely to lick you death than anything!) but they all wear muzzles so there’s no chance that they could slip up.
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