The property has seemed really empty since we sold our first lot of Dorper sheep at the end of last year due to the drought. It was lucky that we did as we certainly would not have had enough feed for them and the horses through summer, especially as we are still hand feeding with no end in sight. Thats also the reason that the shetland pony and my TB gelding will need to go to new homes as soon as possible.
Its hard to imagine that most of the country is flooding while we are in drought. The little bit of rain that we had early in the month has started the spread of green on the paddocks, but a few nights of frosts has caused some damage, it certainly makes you realize how dependant our farmers are on our fickle weather – I can’t imagine what it would be like to gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of seed and fertilizer on the hope that the weather plays nice for the season.
After getting the horse float back after being fixed (from the broken draw bar which is another story), we were able to collect ten new dorper ewes, one had twin boys at foot, and several more are ready to drop in the next 4 weeks or so. They were all running with a white dorper ram, so the lambs will be mis-marked, but still self shedding. The plan for this lot then is to wether the boys and grow them on for the freezer, the girls from this lambing will either be sold or used for breeding our own meat lambs.
We also came home with an Inky. With his perfect Border Collie markings, how could we resist? He has absolutely no idea that he is a sheep. As far as he is concerned he is a dog – and an inside dog at that! He will also be wethered and the plan for him is to be companion to our ram when he is separated from the ewes.
