Shearing the Rams

The sheep at Wattle Creek have been shorn, and today was time to shear the rams at home. We had managed to keep the rams dry in the shed during the storm yesterday and last night. (We had over an inch of rain, which is most annoying at this time of the year.)

First up the young merino rams were shorn. These are from our breeding nucleus, and their fleeces were weighed so that we can add the data to their body weight and wool micron measurement to calculate an index which we use for selecting the breeding rams.

Next the older merino rams were shorn. I really love the look of the horns on merino rams!

Then the Poll Dorset rams had to be shorn. The nature of these rams with their temperament and size makes them difficult and dangerous to shear, so they are given some drugs to calm them down beforehand. Roger injected them about an hour before they were shorn so that they were not too difficult for the shearers to handle.

 

Hugh loves to help in the shed, and he spent some time helping to sweep up wool off the floor.

Feeding Sheep

Many people think that farmers are always wanting rain, so when two inches (50mm) of rain fell in December we should have been ecstatic. In fact rain in December is disastrous on a farm like ours. We had so much pasture in the paddocks which had dried off, leaving dry feed which could have sustained livestock for many weeks. Rain on dry feed leaches out nutrients leaving little more than fibre, and now, even though the sheep have dry grass to eat to fill their bellies, they cannot maintain body condition on such rations. So The Farmer (Roger) has started to feed out lupins to the sheep to give them protein.  

Yum, yum! Lupins...

Looking for food

All in a row

Following behind the feed trailer

lupins, good food for sheep!

Notice that the sheep have been shorn? And they have yellow on their backs. That is a chemical to kill the lice. Unfortunately lice have become a big problem in recent years, and we have had to treat the sheep after each shearing. If they are not treated they get in a very bad way, constantly scratching and itching, and they become quite unwell. I saw some sheep badly infested with lice last year on another property, and it was not at all pretty.

severely lice-infested sheep - poor animals...

Eureka Gold! The yellow spray kills lice on sheep.

Shearing and a change of schedule

Our shearing contractor had promised us that our shearing would be done in December, leaving January free to get things tidied up and to head off on our annual holiday. I say our annual holiday, and every year we have two weeks on our calendar designated to a holiday by the beach in January. But in reality, we have never had two weeks away for a holiday. Last year shearing finished so late (and we had to come back for my parent's golden wedding anniversary party), which left only five days for our holiday.
So even the best laid plans can be thwarted, and when you are a farmer it is often the weather that does the thwarting!
With so many days of rain and other delays at the end of 2011 our shearing contractors got way behind in their schedule. So instead of being finished in December, shearing at our home farm started on the 3rd of January.
And it is not only shearing which is late. We are still waiting for our harvesting contractor to come to harvest our grain.
This year I will be having a holiday by the sea with the children, while The Farmer keeps working. I hope he can make it to the beach for at least a few days...

Smoke on the horizon

This is a very hastily stitched image showing the smoke that was blocking the sun yesterday afternoon. All fire restrictions have been lifted since the rain so there have been many fires - farmers burning stubble and cleaning up paddocks ready for seeding. This fire yesterday however was a controlled burn to clear the understory in state forest so that there is less risk of wild fires next summer.

June Rain

Through the windscreen in Darkan

Looking out the car window across Burrowes Street in Darkan.

Have I mentioned that it has been raining a lot lately? During the month of June we had inches of rain. Low-lying areas are becoming waterlogged, and most of the dams are nearly full. It is good for the farm, but I have given permission for the rain to stop for a while.

These photos were taken on Monday and show some of the water that was left after the rain stopped.

You probably can't even see the water going across the road in this photo...