Whatever happened to Buttons???

Not sure if anyone has been wondering what happened to Alice's pet lamb Buttons!  Well, we caught up with her on the weekend.  Opening duck shooting weekend, we spent our day mustering and weighing hoggets down on the the other block.

Buttons with all her friends!

Buttons ... weighed 53.5 kg

The purpose of today was to weigh all the hoggets.  We were suppose to weigh them pre-tup but there was a mix up in an animal handling facility due to arrive.  With it now not due till end of May, we decided to weigh post-tup.  We weighed 468 hoggets, all put to the ram (14 missing i.e. in with the ewes) for an average of 42.5 kg, ranging from 35 kg - 57 kg.  For us, we were pretty happy with this.  So all the liveweights have been put against and EID number, and we will continue to build information for each individual.

In the yards

Recording the EID with wand, then recording EID and weight on indicator

Chance to have a family picnic!

 The other purpose of the day, was to remove the 7 lease Coopworth rams from the hogget.  These were taken home separately as our yards at home are not useable.  They managed to get a ride in the trailer whislt the others had to walk.

Bringing the hoggets home ... dad with his two shepherds on foot

Ewe hoggets coming down the hill near home with sun behind

As for other ... couldn't decide what photo I liked most

Turning in at the home gate

Fridolin's first week

We started the week with mustering the dry hoggets.  This task wasn't as easy as first expected due to the number of lambs in the mob.  Luckily though things went our way and we managed to get them all on the road for the trip home.  We had the trailer with us, so for any lamb that was struggling, they were able to get a ride on the trailer.

Dry hoggets on their way home

Some of the stragglers getting captured for a ride the rest of the way

Fidolin has been having a bit of driving practice on the ATV.  At this stage only on flat terrain, going slow and well supervised.  An example was driving the bike home behind the hoggets, towing the trailer of lambs.

Fridolin with the trailer of lambs

Once we had the hoggets home, we took a Faecal sample and did a Faecal Egg Count (FEC), to see if there was a worm burden.  These hoggets were given a LA Cydectin injection on 3rd July.  After 100 days, by giving them an oral drench it cuts of the tail, which is when worms can become resistant.  Our FEC showed 0 epg (eggs per gram) indicating that the drench has worked to date.  We also weighed a sample of the hoggets before we drenched them, so we knew the amount of drench required to cover the heaviest animals.  The average was 45kg, which was a little disappointing, with the range 35 - 58.5 kg.

We then drafted off any hoggets with a lamb and any with dirty bottoms.

Calling for wet and dirty hoggets for drafting

We then docked the lambs.  A full detail of what is done at docking is found under 1st day of docking blog.

Fridolin getting first hand experience at docking

The wet hoggets and lambs were then reunited.  The dry hoggets were taken back to their paddock.  Finally the dirty hoggets were crutched.  We pulled out 7% of our hoggets - which equates to 22.  Of these approximately 16 were classed as daggy.  All 22, rather than be culled, have been transferred to our terminal mob so that we do not keep any of their progeny in the future.

Mal giving the 20 hoggets a bit of a touch up

Other tasks for the week have been shifting all the bull mobs on their rotation.  The spring grass is certainly beginning to kick away now.  We have on and off rain since the 10th - totalling 117.5 mls to date.  Have started on some fence repairs and maintenance (R&M) jobs.