Oh Man, Its Cold!!

Winter has arrived and dont we know it. The past couple of weeks has been simply shocking. Gale force winds, pelting rain, hail, snow. You name it, we've had it. And all the while, the ewes have been lambing. Poor buggers. Though I must say, there have only been a few losses which is really hard to believe. I am rearing only 3 lambs who were abandoned by their mothers. Though we still have about 400 ewes still to lamb including over 150 maiden ewes. The young ewes have been running with wiltshire, dorper and wiltipoll rams. It will be very interesting to see what their lambs are like and how they compare in weight at weaning to the merino/border leicester/poll dorset lambs.
We are half way through the milking season. The bulls have been running with the herd and are now back in their own paddocks. Things have been running smoothly except for when fellow work mates take holidays and relief milkers come in to fill in. Just a pain in the arse I reckon. Cant wait for my holidays which are still a while a way at Christmas, though I do have a month or more off. YAY!!
Nothing is happening with the dogs. Really dont have an appropriate area to train Josey, though she remains super keen to work. I am continually teaching her commands though, and luckily she is a quick learner. I feel that by leaving her until she was older has allowed her to develop into her own dog, and she is more willing to listen. And I must say she has such a completely different style of working to both Floss and Brynn. UK bloodlines showing through? Perhaps. I can see her out the office window, sitting in her pen, eyeing off the lambs that Im rearing. Oh wouldnt she love to get out and say hello!

Oh its winter isnt it.

Josey

Floss

Time Flys

Gee, its been so long since I have written here. So much has happened, well not really, just seems like it.
Well the year finished, cows were dried off and I had approx a months holiday with a little weed spraying thrown in for good measure. Mid January and the cows started calving again and it was full on up until a week ago. We had up to 20 cows calving a day, it was crazy. Calves to feed, cows to milk, sort out, cows on test buckets, mastitis, sick calves oh the list goes on. Now we are down to two calving a day, sometimes more, but there is only about 70 left to calve. Thats not bad considering there is about 500 of them.
I have been getting sore hands. They ache so badly. I wake up at night and my hands are numb. Dont really know what to do about it. Maybe I will visit the local doctor for his advice. It appears that I do have a ganglion cyst in my wrist, something that you would see in a gymnast. Everytime i think of it, I can hear Derek Zoolander saying 'Sorry, Maury. But I'm not a gymnast'. Ha ha I shouldnt laugh, its very painful at times. I really need to find out what treatment there is and get it sorted.
I have been on a roller coaster ride with my effort to have a dorper sheep stud. I have decided though, that it is just not worth it emotionally and financially to continue with them. Talk about trouble! The time and effort I have put into getting their feet right is just crazy. Dip, trim, its non stop. One week they will be fine, no sign of limping, the next they can hardly walk. Just so over them. Then just when I thought things had turned around with them, rectal prolapse in an 11 month old ewe. Gahhhh. I did manage to get one of my rams back to his old self. His feet had been shocking so I tried something different with him and it worked, though its not working with the ewes. So I will cut my losses and cull them and stick to the wiltshire horns who are never any trouble. Such wonderful easy care sheep. I currently have them running with a gorgeous wiltshire ram. Cant wait til lambing time to see the results.

this is one of two dorper lambs that have had no problems with their feet. Amazing!

My jersey heifer Poddy finally had her calf, one week early. I am now rearing the calf and poddy is in the herd being milked. Im rather pleased at how well she is milking.

We have been blessed with some glorious sunsets.