An Early Surprise

We had a few sets of neighbours in for dinner back in early June. One happened to remark that we were early with our lambing. Oh no, he was assured, we weren't due any lambs until towards the end of August. 'Well', he said dubiously - 'I'm pretty sure I saw a lamb out there'. Earlier that day, Denise had remarked (from the kitchen) that she thought she saw a lamb out in our back paddock which housed our four (hopefully, pregnant ewes - 3 had been run with Barry, our last year's oldest ram, and Barry's mum had been with Bart - our second ram lamb). However, a quick scan with the binoculars didn't reveal anything unusual. Needless to say, all sets of neighbours' tail lights were still disappearing when we donned jackets and gumboots and strapped on the god-send headlamps, and set out for the back paddock. Sure enough, we had a lamb. Astra, one of our four base stock who had failed to produce last year, did the trick this year. The father must have been our oldest ram lamb, Barry, who has proved his fertility at 5 months.

Astra, with very early ram lamb Casper

We had a bit of a trying, busy time over this last winter, which proved almost as wet as last winter. Zita, the younger of our bought-in feeder calves last spring, came down suddenly with a bacterial infection, resulting in two vet visits and long vigilence. She and Clarissa, our Dexter heifer, who had also got a dose of it, were brought into the paddock with the barn and needed to be cosseted for several weeks. Zita went down so suddenly and was very weak - we had to continually go out to the barn at all times when we were home, every day, for 12 consecutive days and haul her to her feet and rub the numbness out of her. To top it all off, she developed ringworm, which resulted in horrid, balding crusty patches all over her. Veterinary advice was that there is really no treatment, it is viral, particularly prevalent in calves - cows don't get it - and just to let it run its 21 day course as the animal's health does not suffer. Sure enough, the whole darned mess cleared up after 2-3 weeks. Now, we are happy to report, she has made a full recovery and is looking splendid on new, spring grass.

Denise, returning back from feeding pigs, fighting off greedy Zelda

We incurred a bit of damage early in winter when we ran the big calves in the paddock with the barn. We had fenced off the haybarn with a multi-strand electric fence, and had found the tape chewed and the unit on the ground still sparking. This happened twice - thus we lost use of both battery powered units. The main culprets appeared to be Zelda and Zita. The two Dexters, Clarissa and Charlie, are a bit more timid but don't miss out on any resultant action. On one of the vet's visits, he also de-knackered Charlie (who is destined for our freezer end of next year).

Damage caused by weaner calves to one of our electric fence units. Not content with just chewing through the tape and knocking down the unit, they also have to chew metres more tape and chew all the leads of the unit, as you can see. We could have almost bought a new unit for the amounts we have had to spend betting new wires and clips.