Lambs, lambs and more lambs

Well it feels like it should be near the end of the year.   For the last couple of weeks, it feels as though there has been lots of sheep work.  I think I mentioned in my last blog we were pre-wean drenching our terminal lambs.  Well, that was followed by doing all the maternal lambs too.

We then bought home all our terminal ewes and lambs on Friday 16th ... a slow walk up the road but luckily the day wasn't too hot.

We then drafted off what looked like big lambs and weighed these over the scales on the Saturday and crutched whatever needed crutching.  Saturday was one of those days when we were grateful that we had invested in some covered-in yards, as the day deteriorated into rain ... not that we were complaining because we were in need of our 21 mls.  The roof overhead, certainly made working in the rain much more enjoyable.

We managed to get the job done and washed up in time to welcome our dinner guest!

Sunday morning we were up 5.30am, mustered in the ewes and lambs and drafted off all the marked lambs.  We had only contract booked 200 lambs, but in reality we should have booked around 350!  Terminal lambs had done better than planned.  Despite our contract numbers going up each year, we are still underestimating what we can achieve.  The average weaning weight of our terminal lambs was 32 kg which means half of our lambs could have been killed off mum!  Pretty good going for us!

By 7.00 am the 223 lambs were winging there way to Te Kuiti Meats (with 2 other loads to pick up on the way).

Monday we weighed all the lambs and weaned everything in the terminal mob.  The ewes had to sit round home until Friday 24th for shearing, so the holding paddocks are well eaten out.  We shore the terminal ewes and went through and culled all the old girls (the original ewes purchased in 2008).  Some of them were 6, 7 and 8 years old.  A handful (approx 50) have had a second chance if in good condition and good udder as we haven't quite got enough replacements to get rid of all.  All the 'keepers' were taken back down the road, whilst the 'culls' had to wait till this morning for their terminal ride.  Not enough space at the works, so with 150 gone, another 100 to go.

Then inbetween we have weaned, tagged, weighed and crutched (only dirties), all our maternal ewes and lambs.  Some weaning was good and some wasn't.  The 2-tooth mobs weaned 29kg average, whilst our maternal twins did worse at 26 kg, and singles at 30kg.  Overall average 28kg.  There will be a bit of tweaking to that as some of our male lambs came through twice and haven't sorted the files out yet.  I also have yet to revise our lambing % based on lambs weaned to ewes scanned due to the extras tagged at weaning.  Need a rainy quite day to catch up!

Despite all that, another 160 lambs left this morning bound for Te Kuiti.  It was up at 5.00am to get the lambs drafted off the ewes to meet the 6.30am truck.  We were all loaded and truck departing by 7.30am.

The first lambs (terminal) didn't yield as well as would have liked - 45%, down 1-2% for milk lambs.  The black faces did 16.9 kg CW and the white faces did 16.4 kg CW.

Weaned ewes and ewe lambs this morning

Couldn't resist - Alice with two goats who had made their home between the press boxes!

Today is a quiter day, catch up. The ewe lambs have been left with mum for the day, and tomorrow we will draft off the ewe lambs, empty out and pen up for shearing, due to start on Thursday. We will shear all maternal ewes and ewe lambs over two days, before catching breath again. 

Next jobs lined up are drenching the works lambs and sorting into 2 lines based on weight, weaning our hoggets and shearing all hoggets.

Waiting for lambing ...

Since the end of May we have had a bit of sheep work.  That started by shearing the terminal ewes (B Flock) on the 30th May.  This was followed by scanning on 1st June (http://ultra-scan.co.nz/Default.aspx).  This flock is our old ewes and poorer type ewes that we mate to a suffolk ram.  All these lambs will be sold.  Our scanning for these ewes were up 10% but still not flash as it is still pretty much a development flock.

Sam Welch hard at work

The presser (from Canada) and the pile of wool

The terminals after being shorn

 Next was the Mixed Age Ewes (MA) which were shorn on 2nd and 3rd June and scanned on 5th June.  Pretty happy with the way the ewes scanned with overall 163%, with the older ewes doing 171%.  Our two-tooths were a bit disappointing but overall pleased.  The average condition score at scanning was 3.8 BCS.


MA Ewes just before clean/dirtying and bringing only the dirty ones home for crutching

2-tooths coming home for shearing

The scanning equipment

Raewyn hard at work (Alice is the photographer)

All our dry ewes were culled, with a small select few (22) two-tooths were kept.  From next year onwards this policy will cease and anything empty at scanning two-tooth and older will be culled.

Next was the shearing of hoggets 25th June and shearing 27th June.  Previously we had only ever mated a small portion of our hoggets, and this year all 475 went to the ram.  Although their weights were up this year, we still targeted 50% of the hoggets being in lamb.  Unfortunately we acheived 47% but 66% predicted lambing overall.

Bringing the hoggets home

All these hoggets are tagged with EID and will be monitored through Farm IQ.  We have tried to load the scanning, weight and BCS against the hoggets, but unfortunately we haven't been quite able to get our Prattley/Tru Test set up to work properly and still awaiting support from the techno people to sort this out.

The equipment arrives!

Using the Prattley 3-way drafter and Tru-test equipment

In the last 10 days we have been working to vaccinate all the ewes and set stock.  After shearing we hoped to lice treat all the ewes but this has been severley hindered by the wet weather.  With more recent stable weather we were able to catch up on this, plus 5 in 1 (clostridial disease) and Cydectin LA.  Last year we had great success from good ewe condition, reduced dags and good weaning weights that we have decided, at least in the interim that we can't afford to not do this.

2-tooths waiting to be vaccinated and drafted

All our flock has been split into singles and multiples and set stock accordingly. Lambing is due to start 1st August.  To date we had one lamb - single via a four-tooth came in with the mob on 9th July, and late 19th July another single was born.  Ewes are in good condition and all have good covers underfoot.

Our first lamb!

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 ...

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!