By Judy Barnet, ag columnist
Looking out the window as I write, the sky is grey and heavy with intermittent showers – not to mention intermittent internet as well. In the past few months, we seem to have gone from 3G to Occasional G and I have spent an awful lot of time on the phone to Skymesh as well, with the internet frequently dropping out for long periods. I believed they were doing upgrades to the Mingoola tower but it appears they are doing downgrades instead as our service has never been so bad. Anyway, that’s my gripe for the week.
It was great to catch up with old friends and familiar faces at Jumpers and Jazz last weekend and I thank the readers that came and introduced themselves. I am very grateful for your support. The day went well and we had only one escapee, a Modern Game hen, but she was quickly rounded up. Children flocked in droves and CJ was a very popular person with her super quiet ducks and chickens. “Rooster” the calf was also very popular. He was brought along by Gary and Georgie from
the Elbow Valley Dorset Down Stud, along with one of their rams and a ewe. Young Jack Hiscock gave us a hand for the day and his great help was much appreciated. Danny Aspinall helped us out shearing a Shropshire ewe lamb and an English Leicester ewe. Judy from the Warwick Spinners and Weavers spun wool from both of these fleeces as it came off.
Our weekday routine is for Richie to feed the pigs, sheep, cows and goats in the morning at first light. I feed the ponies and take Dora for a walk and CJ does the poultry. I am on poultry duty while CJ is on holidays at the moment. Friday was my day off, so I volunteered to feed all the stock but my day did not get off to a good start. After feeding the two Saddleback weaners I loaded up the cow food and carried it out towards the ute. About two dozen sheep including Chickie the big Texel
wether turned up to see if I had any feed for them. “No worries,” I told them, “follow me down to the grain feeder – Riverina filled it yesterday for you.” I hoisted the bucket on my shoulder to keep it out of Chickie’s reach. Only a couple of steps before I reached the ute the bucket slipped off my shoulder and down onto the ground. The sheep would never let a chance go by so I grabbed the bucket which was only now half full and left them to it. The cows were not impressed to receive
only half of their daily ration either.
I continued on down to the sheep feeder hoping Chickie and his mates would run down when they finished squabbling over the spilt feed. Sure enough, they did. By this time 50 or so sheep had gathered around the ute expecting a feed. I went over to the grain feeder and found that the holes were filled with dust. It was hard to tell if the sheep had eaten the pellets and the gap was too small for more to fall down into the hole (meaning that I needed to adjust the feeder) or if they just wanted more. It is a very fine line between opening the gap up and giving them access to too much grain (they would stand there and eat all day until they died of grain poisoning) and opening up so they can just lick enough pellets out of the hole to give them enough to keep them happy and healthy. I figured they couldn’t be getting quite enough when they all chased my back up to the house!
I then had to leave feeding the goats until I got a clear run at the silo with no sheep around, as this involves putting the bucket under the silo to catch the grain. It is just not possible to do with the sheep all standing under the silo waiting for the chute to open!
Finally, I got the goats fed and turned my attention to the chooks. This job also requires balancing the feed bucket and getting into the pens, keeping one step ahead of the following sheep. All was good until I ran out of room in the egg carton for the eggs and put some in my pocket. As I bent down to pick up another egg the eggs in my pocket all squashed together and well, you can imagine what happened.
By the time I got everyone fed, addressed all the envelopes for the RBTA’s newsletters and answered a few emails it was time to go into town to do a few jobs I had been putting off. All my hopes of getting some gardening and housework done went out the window. Friday simply vanished!
Upcoming Events:
Final arrangements are still being made but we will be attending the Festival of the Big Cow at the Highfields Pioneer Village from 15-25 September. We are taking a few sheep, goats, pigs and a calf, and there will be sheep shearing also.
Rare Breeds Update:
We had our monthly meeting this week and discussed advertising for volunteers to help us with our admin work, which can be done remotely. This was agreed on so I set up a profile on Seek / Go Volunteer. Unfortunately, so far we have received no takers.
August is Duck Month at the RBTA, so here are some interesting facts on Crested ducks. I used to breed these myself many years ago. I would love some more however I suspect they would be just like the Indian Runners I tried keeping on the farm. After being let out they made a beeline for the dam and would never be seen again!
Crested duck profile
This breed originated from the mallard and the crest is the result of a genetic mutation causing a deformity to the skull. The duck carries a lethal gene that falls into the following categories when two crested ducks are bred:
25 per cent are homozygous for the normal allele of this gene and so have no crest and if bred together their offspring will never have a crest.
50 per cent are heterozygous for this gene and hatch with a crest of varying sizes.
25 per cent are homozygous for the crested allele of this gene and die from the exposed brain without hatching, as it is lethal in homozygous form.
If a crested duck and a non-crested duck breed together, the resulting ducklings would be expected to be 50 per cent crested and 50 per cent non-crested.
They are good layers and come in many different colours. Shape can be manipulated by crossing with other breeds such as the Cayuga and Indian Runner.
