March in a Nutshell

For us March has been a quiet time and I apologise for the lack of blogs but we managed to squeeze in a holiday.

First a glance at what has happened on the farm.

1st March, or thereabouts, the rest of the rams were introduced to the ewes.  This was touched on in the last blog.

We weighed up the last of our lambs, gave them a drench and parked them to go to the works in March.  They were suppose to have gone, but have been delayed a week due to a mishap at the works.  They have done well in the meantime, so fingers crossed for a good carcass weight.

End of February, saw us doing the whole farm covers.  Despite the growthy season we were sitting at 2100 kgDM/ha cover over the whole farm, with the finishing country at 2350 kg DM/ha average.  There is some rough feed on the hills, but this will slowly be consumed through the rest of autumn.  The finishing country is looking in good health.

The dairy heifers received their second zinc bolus treatment against Facial Eczema.  Spore counts have maintained slight to high (http://www.rd1.com/dairy/facial-eczema/waikato-spore-counts) but are below last years peaks.  The weaners were all weighed at this time and have averaged 0.67 kg/hd/day over 100 days (for kiwi cross).  Making them 169.4 kg average.  This puts in line with industry of between 165 - 177 kg at 200 days approximately from birth.  If we can maintain 0.65 kg/hd/day over next 60 days or better, will but them at 210 kg 1st May.

We then sneaked away for holiday, and were lucky enough to find Craig who moved in and looked after the place.  He did an absolutely wonderful job doing all the stock movement, a bit of fencing, looking after the dogs, chooks and cat, and when we came back we just had to carry on.  Great peace of mind while we were away and often as farmers we can't get long breaks due to the requirements on farm.

On our return, we had also had the digger in.  Main role was to metal the high use areas of the yards, remove dirt/mud from truck access area, metal it, put in a culvert and recontour our lawn.  So things a looking a litte different. 


Trees gone and dirt added!  Might get to have a flat front lawn!

With Alice camping at Ma and Pa's house for 13 days, she was pleased to get home and has been helping dad out on the farm this week.  Today though we decided to take her training wheels off and after the usual moral support and help, she was off without her wheels.  We have little suitable area for her to bike on about from up and down the drive which is good getting down, not easy to get back, and lots of bumps.  So today we suggested she tries the sheep yards.

Alice trainer wheel free in the sheep yards

And then we persuaded her to cycle back from the yards to the house and hoped that she could remember to use her breaks before she crashed into the gate.  The sheep were a bit sceptical of her and made a b-line to get out of her way.

Holidays and Cheese

Well we have finally managed to have a wee break off farm for more than 2 nights!  We have timed the weather pretty well and Alice and I had 4 great days away at the beach and Mal is still there.  Unfortunately he had to come home in the middle to load out the bulls.

The big bulls we were sharefarming have gone on a terminal trip.  Of the two mobs:

• Averaged 600 kg LW, grew at 1.10 kg/day over a 207 days and killed out at 315 kg CW
• Averaged 548 kg LW, grew at 1.12 kg/day over a 146 days and killed out at 273 kg CW

I came home early as work awaited me and someone had to shift the animals.  First jobs home were to open the gates for the hoggets/light ewes to drift to a new paddock and shift the three mobs of heifers and treat a lamb for flystrike.  The dogs having had limited run time in 4 days were taken for a run to the back of the farm.

We have had some more spore counts taken and still have a reading of zero, which is great news so far.  We will aim to take a pasture sample on a weekly basis to monitor the situation.

Before we left on holiday we had the vet out to palpate and blood test our flock of rams before the breeding season.  In recent seasons there has been out breaks of brucellosis (http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/pests/brucellosis) but luckily we have not been affected by it.  If infected the rams easily spread this within the flock at mating time and/or amongst other rams.  The infection can lead to reproductive failure or abortions.  At palpating time, the vet is checking to see that the testicles are healthy ie no lumps or abnormalities.  All the rams passed the palpapation test and awaiting results of blood test.

On the cheese making front:

• the Farmhouse Cheddar has been coated in wax and sitting out in the shed where it will age for 5 weeks.  End of February will be cutting time!
• I made a Feta, but unfortunately didn't take a photo of it and now it is all gone.  It had a lovely fresh creamy taste and didn't last long at all making its way into salads and top of crackers, or on its own.
• Milk is out to make Caerphilly cheese which orignated from Wales.

Making the cheese hasn't been hard but can be time consuming and getting timing right so not up at all hours of the night or sometimes having other things to do.  Patience is required.  As mentioned in an earlier blog we bought the Hard Cheese Kit.  In this it provides you with the mould, wax and bowl, butter muslin, starter culture, cheese salt, steriliser and instructions.  In the booklet it gives recipes for 3 cheeses and a feta.  There are other kits to get you started with other types of cheese. 

In addition to the kit, we do need a few other things such as:

• cheese vat - am using my perserving pot
• incubator - am using a 4.2 litre tupperware container in our chilly bin
• thermometer - am using our electronic soil thermometer
• Pipette - am using one from our FECPAK kit (not used for FECs first thankfully)
• Maturing box - am using a small chilly bin
• Feta mould and brining container - am using the hard cheese mould and it fits snuggly into a round clik clack container
• Cheese press - used a jar with my husband's weights on top
• Knife for cutting curd and a draining spoon - all things in the kitchen
• Timer - my oven timer is my next best friend and use it to time all steps in process.

The only part of the kit you will need to replace over time includes:

• salt
• steriliser
• culture
• milk
• maybe butter muslin but I just wash and reuse