A Dream Shared

If you get the Country-wide magazine in the mail, you may have already spotted us on pages 34-38.  If not I have copies of the article down below and in due course you may find it at http://www.country-wide.co.nz/.  In the meantime if you want a sneak preview ...

Last of the shearing



Fridolin crutching away

Since getting back from our Christmas break of two days, it was back into the final of the crutching and preparing for shearing.

Last of the lambs to be crutched



Mal and Fridolin getting through the crutching

The lambs at the end

 Today, the 29th December, it was another early start with the shearers arriving, hoping to get the shearing done and/or the sheep in the shed dry before this predicted wet weather arrives.  First up this morning were the wet hoggets (n=78).

Wet hoggets with their full wool emptying out in the yards

Whilst some had lambed but not reared a lamb, the majority of the hoggets came out of their full wool fleece in good condition.  A hint of fly is sneaking into the flock, and a few of these girls, along with the odd lamb, are now being struck.  The warm, wet, humid weather is ideal conditions for fly.  As all these girls were scanned in lamb, they were identified after shearing with a small age mark near the station mark for future reference.

Then it was onto the black face lambs left (n=296). 

Lambs waiting in the catching pen





Shearers and woolhandlers working at it




Today's shearers



 

Lambs without their coats

This afternoon it was onto the white face lambs.  This took the shearers till the end of the day (sorry don't have the tally book).  Hopefully by lunchtime tomorrow all the shearing will be done.  It has been quite patchy in getting it all complete and seems more day than usual.

Hopefully the wool will be picked up sooner rather than later and a cheque in the bank!

Encouraged that shearers and woolhandlers receive training for several reasons:

1. shearers learn an good efficient technique which helps them achieve their goal (numbers shorn) and remain in reasonable physical condition.
2. shearers don't miss treat the animals or make unneccessary cuts which can be distressing for all.
3. shearers reduce the amount of second cuts which decreases the value in wool
4. woolhandler is confident in moving the wool around the shed without disrupting the shearer
5. that the woolhandler is quick and efficient in separating the wool, at least seconds and main line, and be observant in preparing the main line that it is of similar length and colour (all else is removed).  This enables the farmer to maximise their income from the wool.
6. Presser to be confident in blending wool (especially second shear and lambs) before it enters the press and undertakes a QA job of removing any missed bits.
7. Press capable of pressing a bale of wool and recording it correctly
8. Presser aware of shearers and keeps the pens full of sheep.

To find out more about training see http://www.tectra.co.nz/





Wishing you all the very best for the festive season and 2012

To all readers ... we hope that you have had an enjoyable Christmas with family and friends, and wishing you all the best for 2012.

It has been a busy time on the farm with very little rest, but we did manage to spend 2 days with family over Christmas and did no work!

Fridolin took the week off, cycling to Raglan in the pouring rain on Sunday, and spending 4 nights there experiencing different parts of Raglan (http://www.raglan.net.nz/).  He returned at the end of shearing, and was bundled off to the local cafe for a social evening.

Our pre-Christmas run, saw us send squeezing in a days shearing, with all our dry hoggets completed.  To do this, Mal was part-time on stand 3, and I was woolhandler/presser/cook, with two other shearers and 1 woolhandler.  After lunch we were joined by 3 french and 1 german traveller, with two of them sharing stand 3.  One had reasonable skills, with the other not shearing the Bowen technique and struggled a bit more.

Friday we sent off 287 lambs to Te Kuiti Meats.  Their weights weren't as high as would have liked, averaging 16.5 kg CW.

Saturday, was spent frantically getting everything organised such as stock, food etc before heading away for Christmas.  So it was nice to finally put our feet up Christmas eve.  Below are a selection of photos from Christmas Day.

Boyz at the BBQ

Christmas morn - kids, tree and presents

Opening present time!



Christmas brunch!

See next blog for this weeks activities ...

7 sleeps to go

A bit of a mixed bag week, getting all those odd jobs done rushed through before Xmas.  Only 7 sleeps to go.  Last weekend one of the main tasks was to go in search of a tree and decorate it.  This provided a great opportunity for family time as Mal and the girls headed out in search of the elusive tree.  We were doing the Council a favour by pruning roadside wildlings.

Not sure why comes up on side...tilt your computer instead!

Sarah having a go at sawing!

Once at home then it was time to decorate ... this is the kids job.


Sarah, Alice and Rachael decorating

 

The final tree ... Alice has even resisted the presents



Tuesday, we all had a day off farm.  I went to work, Mal did jobs and Fridolin went to DairyNZ for the day (http://www.dairynz.co.nz/).  Many thanks to Dee and the team who showed him around Scott and Lye Farm, the 2 research farms just outside of Hamilton.  Check out their website for heaps of dairy information.

Other jobs done for the week include:

• drenched all saleable lambs
• weaner dairy heifers got their lepto vaccination
• all the big bulls got weighed, LWG 1.2 - 1.8 kg/hd/day mob average.  A little disappointed so we have opened up area for rotation, but sped shifts up to daily.
• weaned and weighed hoggets.  We got 94% weaning % to hoggets mated.  The average liveweight of hoggets was 60.5 kg and lambs 27.5 kg, so overall we were pretty happy with this.  Note the number of hoggets to the ram is fairly small.  They have now all been crutched and await shearing next week.
• did a day of wet day jobs, cleaning and cateloging agrichemicals
• stripping a fenceline

End of last week we had a visit from Catherine who won the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society Award as par tof the Nuffield Scholar Programme (http://www.nuffieldscholar.org/scholarships/Scholars.php). 

The precise of Catherine, who is from Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire is as follows:
"Maximising returns through reducing methan emissions - an opportunity for the UK sheep sector"
Cathering farms in partnership with her parents on a 350-acre sheep farm in Carmarthenshire.  She also works as an independent sheep consultant, covering all areas of sheep production.  Catherine is particularly interested in the opportunities for the sheep industry to reduce methane emissions from lamb production without reducing productivity.  Targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been set on a government level and all sectors of agriculture face the challenge of reducing emissions.  For the ruminant sector, reducing methane emissions is a key challenge since this greenhouse gas is a natural byproduct of rumen digestion.  Catherine aims to study how other countries and other livestock sectors are responding to the need to reduce enteric methane emissions without reducing animal numbers or farm productivity.
catherine@knconsulting.co.uk

With the limited time we talked about all things sheep farming here in NZ and in Wales.  Her stop was fairly short, but hopefully January/February we can have another catch up.  To check out things about Nuffield see their website http://www.nuffield.org.nz/. 

Finally to the weather ... its a wet Sunday, but that hasn't stopped us doing a bit of sheep work.  So far for December we have at 93 mls, with about another 5 mls in the guage (as I glance out the office window).  The average for December for us, is 142 mls.  The last 61 mls was since Sunday, with fine weather planned for the rest of the week.  Fingers crossed so can finish shearing!
 

Doing some different things

On Monday, I was heading south for some work, so I took Fridolin for a ride and dropped him off in Otorohanga for the day.  Here he spend most of his time at the Kiwi House, which is a great place to go to see kiwi up close and a huge range of other birds.

Tuesday we had our discussion group meeting on a neighbouring property, and an afternoon session followed by Xmas drinks and pot luck dinner. 

Wednesday Fridolin and I headed to town, for work and Alice's swimming lessons.  We stayed the night at my parents place and checked out the horses.

Ponty

The inquisitive foal

I then had work meeting in Rotorua, so Fridolin tagged along for the day and did some touristy stuff before joining us for the trip home.

Today we have been drenching and weighing out another pick of lambs to go in 10 days.  With another mob todo, we are at 225, so things are looking good.  We then crutched the dirties before putting them away.

The other kids are home for the weekend this weekend, and tonight we are also hosting a UK Nuffield Scholar. 

There is still plenty to do, and whilst a relaxing weekend would be nice, we have plans for more work - mainly to complete the lamb draft and drenching.

We are all tired ...

It has been a busy week down on the farm.  All of the maternal ewes and lambs have been weaned, all the dirty ones crutched, weighed all the lambs, and have shorn all the ewes and ewe lamb replacements.



Fridolin trying his hand at crutching



First day of shearing, one of the shearers hurt his hand about 1/2 hour into the run, so we were down to 2 shearers until about midway of 2nd run, until a relief shearer arrived. 



Shearing snaps



Tally for first day was 206 ewes and 446 replacements.

Tally for second day was 873 ewes, 3 lambs and 18 rams.



presser putting the wool in the press

We sorted through all our ewes and are putting 189 light ewes with our hoggets, and 130 ewes have gone to the terminal mob, with 8 culls.  The average weight of ewes were 58 kg and 2.94 CS. Target is to maintain ewes at this at minimum, with a target of raising at least 0.5 of a CS before tupping in March.

Weaning, the ram lambs averaged 31.15 kg and the ewe lambs 27.93 kg, giving an overall average of 29.56 kg.  For our maternal mob, this is up on previous years. As are the ewe weights and condition. 

Also this week, we trucked out 101 of our maternal male lambs, averaged 17.4 kg CW and 102 of our cull terminal ewes, all to Te Kuiti Meats.

Cull Ewes waiting in anticipation

2nd draft of lambs awaiting the truck

Waiting to get loaded



The truck that came to take them away



The much needed rain has arrived today, as we put away stock in their paddocks, and shift the cattle, before having a rest of what is left of a Sunday!