Weaning and shearing

We started weaning this week.  Due to having two blocks, we have to bring one mob of ewes and lambs up the road.  Luckily things went mostly to plan (about 40 animals didn't make the muster but we will pick them up in following musters).

Coming down the hill about to go on road

Now the lambs are older, they are getting alot easier to move.  Once they got on the road though, they were fairly slow and drawn out.  A few vehicles interupted the flow of things, but generally everything went well.

Heading out on the road

Starting the climb up the hill

Once at home, we let them settle before we start drafting.  Things were a bit slower today as we also clean/dirty them as we drafted.  That means any ewes or lambs with dirty bottoms got drafted to the side, along with any lambs we had marked at weighing about 16 days ago.  Mal then crutched all the dirty ewes and lambs and those that are going to go to the works. 

Whilst Mal was doing that, Fridolin and I weighed all the remaining lambs to give us a weaning weight for the lambs, and also any additional lambs to make the truck.  Our overall weaning weight was 29.6kg, which is up 2 kg for us.  The prime lambs were put back out with their mums, whilst the remainder of the lambs were put in a paddock of prepared lamb feed (cattle only pastures) to settle.  We will then take the bottoms off and move to a separate paddock or sell store in the following weeks.

We managed to get 163 prime lambs on the truck Wednesday morning to Te Kuiti Meats (http://www.tkmeats.co.nz/) for an average of 18.1 kg CW.  This equates to 23% off mum.  With the price at $8.40/kg, the lambs are certainly ahead of our budget.  Despite this being a good year for product prices and also for lamb survival and growth, the extra funds in the farmers pocket are used for catch up to compensate for the last 10 years of poor prices and either survival or growth.  Farmers will be focusing on debt reduction, repairs and maintenance and  fertiliser application which have been sacrificed in times of poor financial performance.

As Tuesday was such a long day, from 7 am - 7.45 pm, we left a handful of ewes in the woolshed for Fridolin to try his had at.  After a bit of tution, he was left to it, and completed the 20-30 sheep, but not speed records were achieved.

The ewes were then yarded to empty out ... this makes them easier to shear with an empty tummy, less struggling on the board, and also when penned close together there is less risk of getting the wool soiled with faeces (this stain causes a down grade in the wool). 

Shearers started 7am on Thursday morning in our 3 stand shed.  We use a local shearing gang.  Our shed only has capacity at present for 400, so some of the sheep had to spend the night outdoors, which would have been fine, if on Thursday morning the weather had turned stormy with rain, wind and sudden drop in temperature.  The shearers only did 2.5 runs due to this.  (For those that don't know a run is a two hour slot, the shearers then take a break for either morning or afternoon tea, or lunch).  A slower shearer will shear 40-50 a run, with the better shearers doing 80+ a run on ewes.  We shear 6-monthly, now and in May/June pre-scanning.

Luckily the weather changed after the shearers left, and we were able to put sheep in the shed for shearing on Friday morning, with only 1.25 runs to finish them all.

Mal and I were left to sort all the ewes out  as Fridolin had left at 6.45 am to catch a ride to Hamilton, and then onto Taupo for the Cycle Challenge (http://www.cyclechallenge.com/)   along with the rest of the AgFirst team. In due course you will be able to see the results and see how well Fridolin did.

Back to the job at hand, Mal and I sorted through all the ewes, taking out anything that was old, in poor condition, bad udder, teeth or sore feet.  These are our culls and will be sold next week along with our next lamb pick.  The 'keepers' were then run down the road back to the block they came from.  Before sorting we also take a sample and Condition Score them and weigh them.  Our condition score was 3.31, up on previous years, as is our weight - only 56kg, but is heavier than our tupping weight in the same year!  These are regarded as our poor or cull ewes and many of them are older than should ideally keep.  Our overall target is a tupping weight of 58kg, and have made huge progress from our initial 50kg with the original ewes.

We now have a few days break before we start on the maternal flock, weaning, weighing, prime lambs, shearing of both ewes and ewe lamb replacements.