By Judy Barnet, Ag Columnist
Saturday was cleaning up day. I had people coming to inspect the sheep so I set myself a goal of the kitchen, entrance room and front verandah. Anything that is brought home naturally gravitates to the dumping ground of the entrance room until put in its proper place. Much to Spider puppy’s delight, this includes many socks and a vast array of shoes. More magazines than you would find in a waiting room and just, well, Stuff.
With a 5 am start the rooms looked at least presentable. Pikelets were cooked and the sheep were sorted into pens. The prospective buyers arrived and had a good look over the sale lambs in the pens outside the house as well as the rest of the sheep Richie had yarded early in the morning. An inspection of the poultry completed their visit but they did not have time for a cup of tea. Never mind. I have a couple more inspections coming up so I will endeavour to keep the entrance room tidy until then. We also dined well on pikelets that day!
After lunch, we drenched all the ewes and sorted them into groups to put with the rams. We usually join on 1 April, only a few days away, so to save getting them in again we decided to bring the rams down to drench and then to put in with the ewes in their respective paddocks. Luckily we did as one of the rams had poll strike and another was lame. Fortunately for me, the two rams in question were not needed this year. The Shropshire ram got to work straight away. He has five ewes but for some reason last year two were scanned not in lamb and a third lost hers to the cat or fox. This year I will be following Bruce Tom’s advice and taking the rams out after eight weeks. It was just on dark by the time we finished so we got cleaned up and were extremely grateful for the meal that was provided by our cottage guests.
In some sad news, we lost one of our original Muscovy ducks, Ruffles. I was driving up towards the house on my return from work and right before my eyes Ruffles flapped a few times and fell down. I jumped out to attend but sadly she passed away within a minute or two. She only had minor injuries – her eye was badly damaged and she was missing quite a few feathers. What did this we shall never know but, no doubt, she was protecting her ducklings. They have now been taken over by Mrs Puddleduck. The injuries may have been caused by the feral cat, a chicken hawk or a goanna. I suspect the chicken hawk was the culprit. Richie saw one having a fight with a fully grown guinea fowl a few days before. If he hadn’t gone out I believe the chicken hawk would have won the fight. The feral cat has been spotted a couple of times but I don’t have proof of it killing any of our poultry, yet! Ruffles contributed to the enjoyment of many guests during their cottage stay. She would take her ducklings up to the guests and ask for some grain. She would eat out of their hands. I think we all shed a tear when she passed away.
As I write I am again running late for the deadline. We were struck down with a tummy bug this week and it knocked us all for six. Even this morning when I felt a little better, I was exhausted after a walk to the dam with Dora, who had been cooped up for two days with only a feed and a pat.
It is only when you get sick that you realise how valuable your health is.
We were very excited when friends came over and put up a shower down at the dam. We laid a slab and drainage about a year ago but that was as far as it got. There has always been a septic toilet down there but a shower was on the wish list for when friends come camping at Easter. We even have gas hot water!
Returning home from work on Thursday the first thing I noticed as I drove in past the gate was a small group of sheep including the ram. Sadly, I noticed the ram was lame, not a good sign. I knew from past experience that even if a ram is only a little lame it will not service the ewes. My other problem was that I had sold all my home-bred rams as I had hoped to get one more year out of my home-bred Southdown ram. I had sold some handy rams to Scott (who also has a Southdown stud) so after a phone call he agreed to sell one of the rams back to me. I am very grateful indeed to Scott. Some of the lambs will arrive a bit later this year but that is not a bad thing. It will enable me to keep up with the births and tagging and also have more pens available for ewes having triplets. Previously I have lambed triplets out in the paddock but the foxes and feral cats have cleaned up so many of them.
The sale lambs have grown really well in their paddock with a bit of grain, so much so that if I were to take pictures and videos of them now, they would present so much better. Unfortunately, the catalogue is already out. Most of the videos have already been uploaded but I might re-number them and take some more if I am feeling up to it tomorrow.
I was unable to get over to the Warwick Show as it clashed with the wedding, however, RBTA Poultry Director Cathy Newton has given me the following poultry results:
Bird of Show was the Standard Partridge Brahma exhibited by Tracey Lamb. Reserve was a White Indian Runner Duck by Jack Murphy. Champion Bantam Soft Feather was a Black Langshan Pullet. Champ large hard feather was a Pit Game, Champion Waterfowl was the runner by Jack Murphy, Champion Bantam Hard Feather was an Indian Game female.
For poultry novices Soft feather breeds are all the “soft” feathered breeds which happen to be all the Poultry breeds except the Game Birds – Game Birds are called Hard feather – this has to do with the feather shaft, the soft feather breeds have a lot more plumage on their feathers. The difference between Large Breeds and Bantam is the smaller version of the large fowl however there are some breeds that are Bantam only and have no Large counterpart and visa versa– eg, Seabright and Japanese Bantams are true bantams. Silky is classified as a large fowl and has no bantam counterpart. So shows have the following divisions of classes:
Large Soft Feather
Bantam Soft Feather
Large Hard Feather
Bantam Hard Feather
Waterfowl
And occasionally classes for Turkeys and Guinea Fowl.
We have a new patron for the Rare Breeds Trust, Michael Peel. He is a world-renowned poultry expert and waterfowl breeder. Michael owns Peel Ridge Stud at Camden in NSW and recently sold a pair of Toulouse geese for $4250. In his early years Michael grew up with dairy cattle and pigs but he is known all over the world for his world-class Toulouse geese which he has even been asked to export to other countries. He has generously agreed to send me some of his photos and I will highlight some of our interesting goose breeds in the next few weeks.
This week I received a parcel in the mail from Rick Pisaturo. Rick released a book in 2010, “Australia, My Love – from prisoner of war to Order of Australia,” and generously sent a copy for me and one for our cattle director, Yan Kleynhans. Rick also included a copy of “Stud Beef Cattle Breeding and Common Sense,” a book published in 1978. Rick had a very successful Shorthorn stud in NSW and also created the Mandalong special breed. He was also the first to import and start the Chianina breed in Australia and also the Charolais Breed. In later times he was to create the Square Meater and also the Tropicana Breed. Rick has contributed hugely to Australian agriculture and cattle breeding. On top of this, Rick had a thoroughbred stud and is known for his research and writing on arthritis in livestock. A great man indeed! This book is available online (www.rickpisaturo.com.au) and all profits are donated to St Vincent’s Prostate Cancer Centre
We have some friends camping at the moment and they have a beautiful German Pinscher dog, Dickie. He absolutely loves playing with Dora and together they have a ball. It is a great exercise for both of them and they even go swimming together. Dickie met Spider today. He is far more gentle with Spider than Dora who continually bowls Spider over.
