Thursday, December 5, 2013

Sad to see them go.


Today is a not so nice day for us as later this afternoon we are loading our last years calves to go off to the sale yards. I know, we are a bit soft now days, at least we are putting them in the Friday sale. Friday meaning restocking/people after breeders and not the butchers. We think our calves are too good for the butchers we'd like to see them go to good homes. I hope the heifers go to someone who wants breeders, they are great looking yearlings. Hopefully the steers will go to someone who wants to grow them out for ages. People probably say you have to be tough and not be so soft well, pish posh this is the way we are. We love our animals and it's a bit hard sometimes to block out the nasty thoughts i.e. slaughtering animals etc. I'll give them good luck, happy good vibes as they hop on the truck. That will do the trick.

Last years calves.

We now have nine new calves on the ground and they are looking great. The oldest of them born in September and the youngest born in November. Genevieve our Guernsey cow had a bull calf this time to Monty our Hereford bull.  The little fella is a very rich dark red colour with nice white markings. The pigs have all finished farrowing at the moment thank goodness. We still have lots of piglets in varying stages of ages running around the place. They are so cute and I never tire of their antics. We are about to start fencing up the paddocks into smaller areas so we can rotate the stock better. Something we have learnt while living here, smaller paddocks are better. So used to large paddocks in Queensland. We fertilized for the first time this Spring as well. The benefits are showing through now with lush grasses adorning the paddocks. We bought a windmill recently, you can't have a farm without a windmill, it's just not right. 
Genevieve and new calf for 2013.


We had a couple of floods go through while the geese were nesting this Spring so not as many goslings as we usually get unfortunately. We have sold a lot of geese this past week as we had to get the numbers down. They were getting out of control and getting onto the neighbours place and eating their grass, naughty geese. My two ewes Gwendoline and Clover are still two no lambs to be seen. One had a still born and the other one, well I don't think she is in lamb. They both need to be shorn very soon too. They reside in a paddock near the house as they were banished from the house yard for nibbling my fruit trees around the trunks and nearly ringbarking them. I've never had sheep do that before. Apart from that there's not much else to report.
Michelle.


2013 goslings.


My ewes and some of the Saddleback piglets.
 
One of the new 2013 calves.