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!