l have added a poll to my blog. l have recently purchased 3 stud dorper ewes and now have the foundation stock for my dorper stud. Only problem is a name. l have 2 names in mind but cant choose between the two. There is Dasher River Dorpers because our new property overlooks Dasher River here in Tassie, the second is Truro Farm Dorpers. So please take a minute and vote in my poll and help to make up my mind.
Ever felt like the world was spinning at 100 mile an hour and all you want to do is get off? l have been feeling like that for a while now. l want to stop and watch everything go by. Is it possible to slow things down once they have reached such a frenetic pace? Will things reach their crescendo then slow to a less hectic pace? What has caused this you may ask? Life in general l think. Maybe my brain reached it's maximum input limit and has gone into a frenzy where l cant think straight or sometimes rationally. Maybe its that tiime of year, who know's.
Milking cows is enjoyable and l have been milking alot more than originally intended. lm definitely not complaining, it can be relaxing at times. The dairy is rather basic and very easy to run. The sheep and lambs are all doing well, though we do have a small problem with a couple with footrot. We are currently fattening to ugly mingers for the freezer. l get hungry every time l look at them... The lambs have all lost their tails and any other unnecessary things hanging, though we have kept one F1 ram to use. He is very well put together and we are hoping he will help us breed the same type that we had in Victoria. There has been an ongoing battle here in Tasmania by several of the biggest registered Dorper breeders. There has been severe restrictions on the Dorper by the DPI and the TGFA because of fear that the 'hair' from the Dorper will contaminate the wool flocks. This is the ONLY state in Australia who has these ridiculous restrictions. Thanks to the hard work of the big studs these restrictions look like they will be lifted in the next few weeks.
Josey has grown so much and is now just over 5 months old. She is such a terror. We have put her on the sheep a couple of times. In my mind she is very, very similar to Aled Owens Spot when he was young. Grip those sheep and hang on type of pup. l will be working more with her over the coming months before she meets the sheep again. We have also bought home the dogged sheep who are not terrified by Josey and her 'let me at em' attitude. She is very spoilt though and sleeps beside my bed at night.
l have sold and bought a horse. My lovely morab mare Flick has gone to live with my sister in Alice Springs and l have bought Flicks sister off my sister. Confused?? l hope to start doing endurance with Sigh or Paddy as l like to call her. She is a fantastic horse to ride. Now if l can only find the time............
Boy the past few weeks has been hectic to say the least. l have taken on another job milking cows at the local school farm. Its only a few milkings a week and every second weekend, but l seem to be milking there more and more. l dont mind though. The extra cash is a real bonus and will bring us ever closer to our dream. Most of the time l have milked over there it has been pouring rain. This winter in Tasmania bring a whole new meaning to the word rain. Even one of my bosses said that in the 27 years he has been on his farm, it has never rained like it has this winter. l have heard that the past 14 weekends has been wet over Launceston way, another said that locally its been 19 weekends. Most weekdays are wet too. But l am thankful, today is a glorious day, sun shining brightly. Hopefully some of our mud will dry up and Maddy can work the dogs. lm also hoping that the finer weather will bring more inspections to the property. We have had a few but have not had any offers. lm optimistic. It will happen.
We only have one more wiltshire to lamb. We have had 2 that needed assistance but the others have lambed on their own. The lambs are better than we could have hoped for. Super stong, up within minutes of being born. They are all peas in a pod. Black with white on their heads and speckles down their sides. Very uniform. Last weekend coming in the drive from work in the morning, we noticed one ewe with a lamb stuck. We jumped the fence caught the ewe and hellped her lamb. The poor little fellow was at deaths door and though his heart seemed to be beating, he would stop breathing. Now l absolutely hate for any of my animals to die, so while his mother watched l kept rubbing his chest, but when l would stop, he would stop breathing. So l gave him mouth to mouth. l must have done something right because he is out running around the paddock with his brothers and sisters, strong as ever. Enough cant be said about the mothering instincts of the wiltshires. Fantastic mothers. They have all been taken out of the lambing paddock and are out in one of the bigger paddocks.
Well lm off to enjoy the sunshine for the day. Go walking and spend time with my beautiful kids and dogs. Hope everyone enjoys their day...
One of the older lambs
Jackson- the little lamb who lived..
l have added a few pics of the lambs that l took a few weeks ago. They are growing so well. Just waiting on the wiltshires to start lambing which will be any day now.
Maddy has been training Brynn on the sheep every couple of days even when the weather is bad, though we did get 3 very sunny days before the rains hit again. The progress that Brynn is making is remarkable. Maddy is using Derek Scrimgeour's method for training her and it is working wonders. Brynn is showing that she is a powerful, upright worker with a good amount of eye though as time goes she is developing more eye. She is not sticky at all and is very confident when working. l feel that she will be ready to trial when they restart for the year here in Tasmania. So that will give Maddy two dogs to trial, though l may give Floss a run or two myself (when l can pull myself away from the camera, just love those action shots.
We have been keeping an eye on the trial results in the UK with the Irish Scottish and Welsh Nationals being run. The Welsh Nationals finished overnight.
Results are
Irish Nationals 30th July - 01 August
1: 204 Simon Mosse DARK
2: 202 Toddy Lambe SAM
3: 200 Allistair Lyttle MOSS
4: 198 Eugene McLaughlin RULE BOB
5: 196 Thomas Doherty SNIP
6: 192 James McGee KILLIEBRAE NELL
7: 191 Allistair Lyttle SPOT
8: 190 James Diamond TAFF
9: 190 Patrick McGoldrick GLEN
10: 190 Con McGarry DAN
11: 190 James McGee BECCA
12: 190 Michael Gallagher CAP
13: 190 Stephen O'Donnell BLACK
14: 188 Brian Casey CLOVERHILL TWEED
15: 188 Michael Kelly TESS
Res: 188 Michael Hopkins DON
(J J Brennan, also on 188, was 17th)
Brace 1: 244 Sammy Long with MOSS & SAM
Brace 2: 234 Dennis Birchall with FLASH & MOSSIE
Young Handler: Kieran Doherty with BOB
Scottish Nationals 06 - 08 August
1: 197 Bobby Dalziel JOE
2: 195 Michael Shearer CAP
3: 194 Bill Elliot ROD
4: 194 Andy Carnegie LARK
5: 194 John Casey BEN
6: 188 Stuart McCrindle BILL
7: 188 Ewen Mackinnon NAN
8: 185 David Mullan TAM
9: 185 Alex Watson JAKE
10: 185 Andrew Dickman RULE SKYE II
11: 185 Willie Cormack JEN
12: 184 Peter Hetherington LYNMAR HEMP
13: 182 Craig Davidson TWEED
14: 182 Scott Renwick QUEEN
15: 181 Neil Campbell MOSS
Res: 181 David Wallace ROB
Brace 1: 235 Ewen Mackinnon with NAN & GLEN 235
Brace 2: 201 Peter Martin with MAID & TESS
Young handler: W J Welsh with FLY
Welsh National 13 - 15 August
1: Gwyn Jones CLWYD NELL
2: Aled Owen MAC
3: Aled Owen ROY
The English Nationals will be held 21 - 23 August and then the International will be held 11 - 13 Sept at Thrimby, Lowther Estate, Penrith, Cumbria. What an experience it would be to attend any one of these trials. Perhaps if we keep saving our pennies our dream could become a reality. Aled Owen would have to be my favourite handler, with H Glynn Jones and Derek coming in a very close second. Then in third place would have to be Kevin Evans. As l said perhaps one day..........
Oh boy have we had some rain. We may get the odd day when the sun is shining but only 12 degrees then the rains come again and we can get an inch over night. Dont get me wrong, lm not complaining, dont think l could, but a few days without rain would be nice.
We are handfeeding everything here. The old girls with their lambs are being fed lucerne chaff and pasture hay. They can be so fussy about what hay they eat and the quality of some available leaves alot to be desired. The safest thing is to feed the lucerne. A bit on the expensive side but at least they are happy. The horses are being fed the same. We have one ram home who has crook feet. Hopefully his problem will clear up when the weather does. Doesnt do them much good standing in water and mud. He is currently in the lambing paddock which has excellent drainage so no mud, and he also has a nice warm shed with hay to lay on.
The wiltshires are also near the house. They were bought up from the front paddock because they are due to lamb any day now. We are very excited about these lambs. We had wiltshire/dorpers when in Victoria and they always did so well. It will be very interesting to see how these new ones do.
The mingers or ugly ones in the top paddock who are used for the dogs training are doing very well. They are actually putting on weight at a time of the year when most other stock is struggling. We are trying to decide whether to put them in the freezer or sell them on. Tough decision but we will have the young dorper cross wethers coming on and if l had to chose which meat l prefer the dorpers will win every time. There is just no comparisson.
Josey is getting to be a big girl. She went to the vet this week for her first vaccination. It is a little late but we had to put it off because of the cortisone injection she had. She was a very well behaved little girl. She went for her first walk down the street, saw lots of people and cars and even crossed the street on her lead. l was very pleased with her. And to top it off, she has put on quite a bit of weight.
l have spent the last couple of days trying a couple of different lenses on the camera taking photos of the dogs. l have actually learnt a few things and hope that my pics are slowly getting better.
We also bought the ewes and their lambs home from their holiday paddock. l found a dead lamb who after much discussion was discovered to be an undiscovered twin. It has been dead for a while so it is hard to see why it died. The other lambs are doing really well and are going well.
Maddy has been working Brynn on the sheep. Maddy can update about that on her blog, lm just the photo taker. Josey is a little devil. She is currently in her pen learning that she cant always do what SHE wants. l can see that the coming months are going to be exciting ones.
© Blogger template 'Totally Lost' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP