By Judy Barnet, Ag Columnist
The week came and went in a blur. I am feeling much better, although still a little tired.
Sunday saw the arrival of Tom and Lottie, just in time to meet our terrific sheep vet Mike Rival as he finished testing our rams for the Brucellosis Accreditation Scheme. Mike is great at his job – there is no fuss and the job is done in no time. The rams testicles are palpated and checked for lumps (a sign of ovine brucellosis) and then blood samples are drawn from each ram and sent away for testing. If you or I tried to find a vein and draw blood from the woolly neck of a ram, I guarantee we wouldn’t succeed but Mike is somehow able to find it within a few seconds and hey presto, the job is done. Ovine brucellosis is carried by rams and causes fertility issues in flocks. Interestingly, the disease is more prevalent in meat breeds than Merinos. I am not sure why this is so. Studs are not allowed to sell rams unless their flock is accredited brucellosis free. Testing is done yearly although after three years you get a free year where you don’t have to test.
After Mike left we drenched the sheep and took the rams back up to their paddock. Tom and Lottie took Dora down to the dam and they went kayaking. There have been over a dozen swans hanging around our end of the dam for a while now. Of course they are always close when I don’t have the camera handy!
Through the week whilst we were at work, Tom and Lottie got to work cleaning out Kermit the bus, including the rooftop, which we weren’t looking forward to doing. We were delighted and grateful that they did this for us.
Of course life is never all beer and skittles. On Wednesday Richie and I had the day off to be on hand when our favourite builder, Craig, came over to replace a few rotten boards on the cottage verandah. The news was not good. Not only were the boards rotten, so too were the joists, and the whole thing had to be pulled up. Now it is a bit of a waiting game for the timber to be milled and for Craig to slot us in again. The verandah is one of the most endearing parts of the cottage so hopefully it will only be a few weeks. I have had to notify upcoming guests of the issue but better now than summer! The same day we also had our good friends out from Blitz Electrical to do some work. They had all met Tom and Lottie previously so we had a good day, if you don’t count the big shock of the verandah!
Richie did some work over at another farm this week and was offered an old Land Rover he couldn’t turn down. The owner said the Landie was a Bugeye and I thought this was a good name as his two popping out headlights looked, well, bug eye like. Upon sighting Bugeye, I immediately claimed him as my own. Luckily I had a bit of cash that I handed over to Richie to pay for Bugeye and seal the deal. He’s a bit noisy but oozes character and I thought would be ideal for showing guests around the farm. Bugeye has had a few alterations in his day and I suspect it would take quite a lot of money to restore him but he is perfectly serviceable as he is for now.
The Mingoola auction finished on Monday and I was outbid on most items except some rather old, large and heavy concrete troughs. I thought I had brought three long broken troughs but when we got them home it turns out they joined together to be one massive long water trough. The other two troughs were big rectangular ones. The LandCruiser could only just carry one so I suspect they were over a ton each. Of course, this did not fare well for unloading them, or for my nerves, as dear Richie tried to lift them off with the old worn out Massey backhoe. We not so long ago replaced the power steering hydraulic hoses at some expense but I guess I had not taken a lot of notice when Richie mentioned there were other things to fix. It was only when Richie brought the mighty machine down to lift off the concrete troughs that I realised how much work it needed. To say it was peeing hydraulic oil from every possible place from front to back would be an understatement. The mighty old machine was able to lift and drag the long troughs off without too many problems but it couldn’t hardly budge the big rectangle ones, the walls of which were nearly a foot wide. In the end the Massey lifted one end and I put some roller logs under it and we repeated the process with the other end. Finally, an hour later, the two troughs were on the ground. I can’t help but wonder how we will ever lift them to put them in place to actually use them one day. Apparently, the six tonne telehandler made easy work lifting them on at Mingoola but I can’t imagine our budget will ever extend to one of those. When all is said and done though, they are lovely old troughs with a lot of character – well I guess about as much character as a concrete trough can have. By golly though, they sure did make things to last when they manufactured these many many years ago.
Do you remember the Merinos that agent Ross brought for me a few weeks ago? I am delighted to say that at least two must have already been in lamb as we have two single Merino lambs in the little flock now. I thought I might take these ewes and lambs to Jumpers and Jazz but, alas, I know they will be near impossible to round up from where they are located. There are seven kids now and I suspect there may have been more, but it is likely eagles, cats and foxes would have got some for sure. We also lost one of our best milkers. We have wormed the goats but still they are not looking the best as the dreaded Barber’s pole worm strikes again.
The chooks are all starting to lay again, as well as last years pullets. It is a bit early for broody hens but if you get some in August, or have an incubator, it is the ideal time to start hatching. The pullets hatched early will be next winter’s layers, ensuring you a continuous supply of eggs. We haven’t had to buy eggs for many years now by following the practice of hatching out some early chickens.
Part of the Rare Breeds Trust’s job is to gather the numbers of livestock breeds for the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation) and to this end I have been gathering the sheep numbers. I was given a list of breeds I had missed, of which there were some I had never heard of. Amongst these was the Booroola Merino, Camden, Camden Park, Coolalee, Cormo, Glenvale, Karakul and Romsworth (I imagine this would be a Romeny x Polworth). A quick web search found that some of these were breeds developed in Australia but I am presuming are now extinct. Australia did a lot of research and development in the 1950s to 1980s. Sadly though, I think all that has come to an end with lack of government support. I did, though, find a final report written by the MLA in 2002 that lists some of these breeds and their introduction to Australia and it is quite interesting reading. If you would like to view it just search ‘MLA Final Report Geoff Duddy.’ I would also be interested to hear from any readers that have information on the above breeds.
Tomorrow is shearing and next week is Jumpers and Jazz, so I look forward to catching up with readers there. If you are passing by, pop in and say hello. The Rare Breeds Trust display will be near the park.
