Fridolin flies the coop

Today is Fridolin's last day, but there is one last job before he goes, getting up at 6am to put the lambs on the truck this morning.  180 lambs are off on a terminal truck ride.  (Since I started writing this blog, 2 days have passed!)

This week we have had relatively fine weather with only 38 mls falling, with 22.5 mls on Thursday, so we have had an opportunity for getting out and doing some jobs without getting too wet.

Monday we headed north to Maramarua and collected our new rams.  It is non-negotiable since we have been farming out here that our rams must come from a FE tolerant flock and that they must record their information on SIL (Sheep Improvement Limited) database (http://www.sil.co.nz/).  I do have to confess at this time, that I have worked for SIL in the past so have a bit of an understanding of the records.

Our trait focus when selecting rams, is reproduction and growth, as we are building both of these traits in the flock.  Our focus is selecting the highest DPO (Dual Purpose Overall) or DPP (Dual Purpose Production) animal we can afford, and then within a small group select animals that do well in the sub-index of DPR (Dual Purpose Reproduction) and DPG (Dual Purpose Growth) without necessarily having negative traits in any of the other sub-indexes.

Studying the records before looking at the rams

Malcolm and Jan putting the rams into the diamond

The group of rams to select from

This year was pretty easy, as although there were 30 rams in the group, we had narrowed it down to about 6 based on records.  We got the top 2 in to check conformation, and in this instance we rejected one, and then got the next 2 and chose what we considered to be the next best animal.  Hence we walked away with our 2 2-tooth rams in less than half an hour.  In addition we took 2 older rams to boost numbers, that still had good records.

Rams ready for the trip home

Once at home, they got a drench and stood in the yards overnight, before joining the other rams.

On Monday, we also took in a pasture sample to get tested for FE spores.  The results came back 0, which is good, but is something we will be watching closely, especially on the paddocks where the weaners graze.  There is lots of good information about Facial Eczema such as the Beef + Lamb New Zealnad link as follows http://www.beeflambnz.com/facial-eczema.  There are parts of the Franklin and Northland areas which are already showing elevated spores. 

Tuesday we had more rain!  and managed to weigh up some more lambs, which were the ones that went on the truck on Sunday morning.  The 187 that headed off to Te Kuiti Meats averaged 16.4 kg CW which was more than we were expecting as we had weighed a bit deeper in the flock.

In the afternoon we did a bit of investigating into Farm IQ (http://www.farmiq.co.nz/) deciding on whether to join or not, what information to put in and what we wanted out of it for both the sheep flock and for the finishing bulls.  We are still evaluating things at present, so watch this space.

Wednesday was a day off as it was birthday, and my policy is not to work on this day.  We spent the day in town doing lots of jobs but did managed to sneak in a lunch out.

We started having some fine weather at last, so there was some tidying up of ewes and lambs about the place, especially following the rain and start and stop shearing.  So finally all the lambs and ewes were put away in their respectful mobs.  Fridolin spent some time stripping a fenceline and we managed to get this all cleaned up before he left.