Bye, Bye Baby!

Always work to do.....we are still trying to wean all the lambs from their mothers. The weather turned a little too wintery, and we have had to wait for both the sheep and the yards to dry out.

After a very frosty morning, back in the sheep yards. A beautiful sunny day!

Today we finished weaning all the meat lambs from their mums. They will all be taken down to the crops Dad sowed in the summer, and grow big and fat, ready for sale!

Bye baby.....be good!

Another exciting time on the farm..........MORE BABIES being born!

The ewes that had empty tummies in the summer were put back with the rams, and now they are having babies. AND even better all the cows have started calving. I think the baby lambs and the baby calves are the best thing about living on a farm, they are so cute!

Dad and PopPop are feeding the cows hay, the grass left in the paddocks is not much good anymore. Dad says it will make the cows a bit quieter too.

Farwell, Goodbye

At last the sun has come back. Time to get some jobs done!

It is always good to have rain BUT some jobs we just cannot do in the rain.

The baby lambs have all grown up, most of them are 12 weeks old. They are big enough to leave their mums and look after themselves. They can drink water, eat grass and grow big!

When they are taken from their mums, they cry alot. I think mostly about missing the milk. Dad and PopPop will put them in beautiful paddocks where they will have all the green feed they like.

The lambs are drafted from their Mums, I am good at helping do this. I clap my hands and call out "WOOP WHOO!" and off they race.

The Mums are very tired, their baby lambs have taken a lot out of them. Dad drenches them with some medicine. The lambs also have medicine, this medicine will kill any bad worms they have in their tummies. They also get another needle to help them fight diseases.

Mum puts their eartag in....this year they all get green ones.

and then off they go to greener grass.......it is up to their tummies!

Meet the Sheep Daddies

Last week we had all the sheep daddies shorn. We have two different types of sheep Dads.

Merino Dads, they go with all the good ewes on the farm to breed wool.

Most of the Merino Dads have horns, they are very hard. Sometimes the Dads fight amongst themselves, their heads make loud noises when they hit each other. I have no idea why they do that, it might be just because they are boys!

We also have White Suffolk or Poll Dorset Dads.

These ones go with the bad ewes to breed meat. They are very big and very strong which makes them very hard to handle. The shearers give them a needle with some medicine before they are shorn to make them quieter. It makes it much easier for the shearers.

The weather is very cold outside, so we will keep the rams close. If it turns too cold we will put them back in the shed to keep warm. The sheep daddies are worth too much money to have them die!

AMEN

It is the middle of winter and it certainly feels like it. At last......... the sun pokes through the clouds today. I hope it can stay for a while. Mum and I have not been outside much it has been TOO cold, the wind is like ice!

Winter is a hard time for the animals too. They use lots of energy to keep warm.

Very sad news.....Skippety died....and we have no idea WHY? He had been going great, he was really starting to grow. He was always first to the milk bar and loved to munch on hay. I wonder whether he was a bit too greedy and got a really big tummy ache!

We buried Skippety out in the paddock next to Princess Fiona, they will be together now.

Sometimes animals get sick or hurt, most of the time they get better again, BUT sometimes they are so hurt or so sick that they die, they can no longer stay alive. Mum says this can happen when they are young or old or anywhere in between. It is sad but it is the way things are and it is true for everything that is alive.

Good, Bad and Beautiful

A very busy couple of days. Back in the sheep yards.

More sheep need to be crutched!

The one year old ewes that were shorn in January have to be sorted out, drenched with medicine and crutched. On Sunday Mum, Dad and I sorted the good ones from the bad ones. We have to look at every sheep in the mob. There are lots of things we look for in a good sheep.

They must be - big, have soft, long white wool, and lots of it!

I think they also need to look pretty!

The good sheep will have babies next year. They will breed more sheep for wool. The bad sheep will also have babies next year but they will be for meat.

The weatherman says it is going to rain, so all the sheep need to be put in the shed for the night so they do not get wet. The men cannot crutch them if they are wet!

Bella's baby Sparkles from last year, is in this mob, she is growing up big and has lovely wool.

Hello Sparkles!

Beau and Bear love working in the shearing shed. Dad uses them to get all the sheep in the pens ready to be crutched.

While Dad pens up the sheep Mum and I sort through the wool, we make sure it is nice and clean. There are a few of those bad burrs in the wool that comes off their heads. 

I love working in the shearing shed, I like sweeping up the wool and sorting it out. The men play music while they work, and sometimes I like to dance. I asked the men what they like best about crutching and they said the the money!

Falling Down Fences

There are always jobs to do on the farm and they are always different. Dad says

 "that is one of the best things about being a farmer. Some days you work with animals, other days you work on machinery, and sometimes you can build things."

One of the fences between our farm and another farm is falling down. Sometimes the neighbour's sheep and cows get in our paddocks. So this week Dad has built a new fence!

Dad and PopPop spent one day pulling down the old fence.

The next day a man that works on lots of farms, helping people build fences came to help put up the new one. It didn't take them long at all. He has lots of tools that makes the job much easier.

Dad and I even got to have a drive!

The new fence looks great, those 'rascally' sheep and cows won't get through NOW!

 

TALL and STRAIGHT!

AND look what we saw on the way home!