By Judy Barnet, Ag Columnist
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to park the trailer there?” said Richie. “Remember last time the pigs got out and demolished the garden shed and wrecked the chook pen?”
“Oh, it’s only for a few days – they are going on Friday. It is easier to park the trailer here and teach them to jump in outside the yards than try to get the trailer inside,” I replied.
Famous last words as this afternoon I heard a racket coming from the Araucana chook house and went outside to discover the pigs had bulldozed their way in, letting the chooks out in the process. Luckily Richie was still at work so I enticed the pigs back down to the yards and locked them securely back in the Pig Pen. The idea was to teach the pigs to jump into the trailer by putting their food inside so when Friday came to take them off to the abattoir they would load themselves with minimum fuss. You’d think I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Now I have the chook pen to fix before Richie gets home. Although he’s pretty good, he wouldn’t say I told you so (like I would to him!) He’d just grin and say naughty pigs! I suspect CJ may be a bit relieved when I tell her the pigs are locked up again. I had to slip into town yesterday afternoon and asked her if she minded feeding the calves, which means getting the bucket of milk past the pigs who know exactly what time the calves get fed. She was obliging but the next morning I noticed the milk bucket was all dirty with pig snout marks all over it so I suspect she did battle with the pigs on the way!
There are still half a dozen ewes to lamb. No. 814 lambed some time on Sunday night. When I did my rounds Monday morning I noticed the lamb was on its feet and drinking and I got close enough to see it was a male. I went back a couple of hours later to catch and tag it. I noticed Gatsby, the only ram still in with the ewes, was hanging around with the ewe and her lamb. I thought this was unusual as the other sheep had long gone from the hill where they sleep every night with the Alpacas. As I got close to the lamb I could see it had been attacked. I am reasonably sure I would have noticed if it had been like that earlier therefore I deduced that the attack had been after daylight and suspected it must have been a goanna. The wounds were on the rear hindquarter, I can only surmise that the ram and ewe fought off the attacker as a few more bites and the lamb would have been history. I took the ewe and lamb down to the house and CJ and I treated and bandaged the wound. However, it looks like there may be some tendon damage. There are so many goannas around at the moment it doesn’t bide well for the last ewes to lamb, and you can’t watch them 24 hours a day.
Shearing has been delayed due to the shearer injuring his wrist and will now be on Monday, 22 November. Although, at the rate, we are finding badly fly struck sheep and using the hand shears to clean them up I feel like we will have shorn half the flock! Well, that’s a slight exaggeration but let me tell you it’s not a fun job for us or for the sheep! Because of the delay in shearing, we decided we couldn’t put off drenching for another week so mustered on Tuesday morning and drenched both ewes and lambs. However, we must have missed the Wild Bunch and a couple of cunning pets as I found a couple of badly struck ewes this morning. We also cut out a couple of yearling wethers for the freezer. They will go in the ute with the pigs in the trailer.
I checked the teeth of last year’s lambs as they need to go before they cut their two teeth. If this happens they are then called hoggets instead of lambs and, although to me they taste much better, they are not worth as much money. I was relieved to see they still had their lamb teeth, mainly because I am looking to enter some in the Stanthorpe Show in January. However, there is no guarantee they will still have their lamb teeth by then!
For the first time since I have lived here on the farm, I have opened all gates onto the dam, allowing both sheep and cattle to graze. With Glenlyon Dam at 98 per cent and climbing, water is now the boundary. Unless the stock feels like a big swim they are safe to leave along the edge of the dam. Previously they could always just walk up or down the creek or wade across. The heifers are especially loving grazing in the paddocks that have not seen stock for a fair while.
Dora has been going crazy splashing through the water and has finally started swimming. Previously she would just play along the water’s edge and dodge attempts by me to throw her in! Even when Clare was visiting with Bonnie who spent all her time in the water, Dora was like, “Nope, not going in that far!”
Yesterday afternoon I spotted three adult swans swimming back towards where the pair had their nest just a couple of weeks ago and to my surprise, they stopped where the nest used to be and are hanging around that spot again. I shall watch to see what happens with interest.
Well, that’s about it from me for this week, I look forward to catching up again next week.
