Farmyard Friends

Once upon a time I introduced my girls to you....sadly my first chooks are no longer with us, Treefox and Bundle, died in the chookpen. And even worse we think Silky met her match with a FOX!

The chickens that arrived in the summer, Snow White and Frosty are still here and laying lots of eggs. I have another 4 chooks now, so that makes 6. My new girls are Speckles, Ginger, Charcoal and Sooty. Now I collect up to 6 eggs a day! They are very good layers.

Each week I sell one or two dozen eggs. I get $3.50 for one dozen eggs, so far I have sold 9 dozen!

I wish I had more chooks so I could collect more eggs, sell more eggs and make more money. I am saving up to buy a horse!

Frosty....just popped an egg out!

Front to back: Ginger, Charcoal, Sooty, Frosty and Snow White.
Speckles is missing?

The chooks love their vegetable scraps and the grain BUT not as much as getting out and pecking green grass and scratching in the dirt. The green grass makes the egg yolks really orange. Perfect for pancakes on Sunday morning!

My calves have grown so much, only Curly has milk now. Stella, Freckles, Queenie, Stinky, and Clover are all weaned. They get a trough full of clover hay and oats. They love it!

OHhhh POO!

WARNING! WARNING!

The merino lambs have dirty bottoms......what does this mean?

The lambs are living in a lovely paddock of grass, but they are not really looking as good as they should. A few have dirty bottoms, maybe just maybe they have worms...they were all given medicine about 2 months ago, but maybe the worms are BACK! Alot of worms in the lambs will stop them growing well and if they get heaps they can kill them.

Mum and Dad have collected poo samples from the lambs. They muster the lambs into a group and wait for them to poo, then they collect 10 samples.

The samples are bottled and bagged up. We will take them the post office, then the mailman will take them to a science lab where they will look through a microscope to see if and what worm eggs are in the poo.

Maybe they will need more medicine. We will have to wait and see?

We have had more rain, so the grass is still green.The weatherman says there will be rain everyday this week.

Last night after I had gone to bed Dad saw the prettiest pink sky at sunset.

I wish I was up to see it!

Boy Meets Girl.....Girl likes Boy.

A lovely overcast day, the weatherlady says a chance or rain....that will cool things down a bit!

The rams are all off to meet the girls today. They will spend 5 weeks visiting 2425 girls and hopefully make lots of baby lambs.

The rams are delivered to the girls in their paddocks. First the merino rams....

Off they GO!

The merino rams are joined to all the best woolled sheep on the farm.

Then the poll dorset and white suffolk rams, they will make the meat lambs.

Look at that butt!

"I think there are a few girls checking out the boys!"

HELLO girls...nice to meet you!

What an exhausting morning.... all the rams delivered to the girls.

Testing Time

Our first load of wool is ready to be tested for sale, at the wool store.

 

After unloading all the bales from the truck the wool is put in the big shed. It is all sorted into lots ready for testing. They are very good at stacking it up high, I hope it doesn't fall over. I think it would squash me if it did!

The wool is moved around the store on forklifts, the bales are very heavy. The bales are put on special rollers that deliver them to the testing machine.

A small sample of wool is taken from every bale, with some really big claws. They look a bit like a crocodiles' mouth...I wouldn't like my hand in there. This is the sample that will be tested to see how long and strong it is.

It is also the sample the wool buyers get to look at. I hope they like it!

 The bales are then put on really big scales, to see how much wool is inside.

The bale is then tipped upside down off the scales and squashed up really tight for another test. This time a really long tube is sent right through the bale. It goes through a few times and takes another sample of wool. This wool is tested to see how clean the wool is and how soft it is. I would not like to get squashed in there! OUCH!

The wool is now ready to store in the shed until it is sold, down another roller and into a big stack!

 Maybe we will go to Sydney to see the wool sold.

Jackpot Lottery!

Lamb sale today...Mum and Dad say it is a like a lottery!

You never know what the market holds for you.....

 Mum and I went into the sale this morning, to watch the meat lambs sell.

Good luck guys.....I have my fingers crossed!

We had all our fingers and toes crossed hoping that they would sell well.

There were lots of good looking lambs at the sale, some made alot of money and others we thought might have made more. The meat buyers feel the lambs across their backs to make sure they handle well, and they have good fat cover.

Our lambs sold well, they are the last pen in the video. We are very happy with $124.00.

Good work guys.........

Now we have to wait for the shearers to come and shear the meat lambs that are left, the buyers do not like them with too much wool, the lambs start to look dry. I am not sure what difference that makes to the chops!

When the grass dries out the lambs wool will catch all the grass seeds that will annoy them. The meat buyers do not like seed either, so before the flies and grass seeds get to them we will take the wool off!

I even wear special sock covers to keep the seeds out of my socks!

I Hear Thunder!

Springtime brings stormy weather, thunder, lightning, wind and rains.

Overnight a storm blew in and we had a good fall of rain. We are very happy to get rain on our farm at this time of year, the grass is still green and the spring will last a little bit longer. Lots of other farmers are not so happy about rain now.....my cousins have all started harvesting thir crops.....and they do not want rain....no, no, no!

Rain can still create headaches on our farm too, stormy weather makes it really steamy and WOW do the blowflies like that. Some of the meat lambs' bottoms have become dirty and a bit smelly. The perfect home for flies! It is really 'gross'! Flies are really cruel if we do not treat these animals the flies would kill them.

'GROSS'!

Another small draft of lambs are ready for sale....the meat lambs have not got as fat as quickly as we would have liked. The meat buyers say they are too woolly now and they need to be shorn....Mum makes a phone call to see if the shearers can come back. More work!

Mum and Dad are disappointed that all the meat lambs need to be shorn, Mum says:

" it takes the icing off the cake"

 I am not sure what she means by that?

The rain has kept Dad in the workshop this morning, he is busy building some new sheep yards. Mum and Beau have been moving some sheep to new paddocks, and checking stock to make sure they are all happy.

'Goin' Truckin'

Time to load up the wool bales and truck them to the wool store.

Dad will have to make two trips as they will not all fit on one load. At the wool store they will sample the wool to test how good it is and use the sample to show the wool buyers.

As Dad loads the wool onto the truck I check off the bales, Dad calls out the number and I tick it off in the book, then I call out the letters that should be branded on the bales and Dad checks them. We are a good team!

Number 22.....Check!

Once the truck is loaded, all the bales need to be tied down.

It is a BIG load, it would be very dangerous if the bales fell off.

I can help with this job, roll up the tie down straps.

AND IT IS READY TO GO!

Dad will leave very early in the morning, it will take him 2 hours to get to the wool store.

Wakey, Wakey, Rise and Shine!

Dad was off to the sale yards again today, another load of meat lambs. I really wanted to help Dad out this morning so I set the alarm. It seems I didn't need to worry about the alarm clock, the tweeting birds woke me up at 6.30am.

A quick bowl of weet-bix, dressed and I disappeared with Dad.

I love working in the sheepyards, I am getting good at moving the sheep about on my own, without anyone's help BUT my mate Beau.

 

 

 

 

BUT there are some things....that I am not quite big enough for...

 

I can only just reach the gate latches...

 

 

and I can only just get in and out of the truck on my own.

 

 

BUT I can tie Beau up and look after him!

 

 

Mum and Dad are a little disappointed today, the lambs made $116.50. The market must be cheaper than Friday, because the lambs were nearly as good but made a lot less money. Alot of work went into the lambs so we would like to get the best money we can.

 

Remember pulling the lambs as they were born, marking the lambs for diseases, crutching the lambs to keep their bottoms clean. WE really looked after them well!