Thursday, September 27, 2012

More Arrivals and Departures

Our population has gone up and down.  Beatrice, our last ewe to lamb, produced a lovely little girl last Friday.  Beatrice, along with Barbara and Bianca, are our first three ewe lambs born at Fossils Retreat.
Proud Mum, Beatrice, with baby Diana - 1 day old.  Another hit by the mystery paintballer

Lambing is now complete - we had five ewes lamb, with a lambing percentage of 140%.  In contrast to last year where we appeared to produce nothing but rams;   of our seven lambs this year, four are ewes which we will keep for future breeding.  All the ewe lambs are black with white 'paintball' hits, and the breed is known as 'Wiltidorp' - a Wiltshire ram over a Dorper ewe.  All are doing exceptionally well and putting on weight magnificently.

We have also procured another six hens - point-of-lay 'Hyline' pullets which are the breed most commonly used to lay commercial eggs.  Our three Plymouth Barred Rock hens are/should be laying now - one went broody and had to spend a few days in the sin-bin (converted cat carry-cage).  Right now, the Hylines look some weeks off egg producing.  Makes one truly realise what the term 'hen pecked' really means when you see the treatment metered out to the newcomers by our existing five girls.

Not a very clear picture, I am afraid, of our newcomers - they are the brown ones at the back of the pen

We also have some visitors at the moment - a mother duck who proudly does the rounds of the paddocks showing off her little brood.

If you look about half way up the photo, towards the right hand edge, you will see a little broken brown line that actually is a visiting Mother Duck with 9 little ones.  She wouldn't allow us any closer to get a good photo.  She started off with 12 babies, then we noted there were 9, and today I note there are only 6 left.  Maybe they will remain the sole survivors as they are now getting a little bit too big for hawks to swoop down on

More visitors - Pukekos on our lawn.  The dogs were tied up when this photo was taken - you don't see the pukeko when the dogs are loose!

Departures - Zita and Zelda are but fond memories for us now, having met Vic, our homekill agent.  Charley Farley (a.k.a. Stumpy), Bonnie's vertically challenged Dexter steer, is next to board the angel train - Vic is due down to meet him in 3 days' time.  Also departing us then will be Cedric, our last of last year's male lambs

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

All the New Lambs

All our lambs arrived within 10 days, and all six except one, are the unique black colouring with white splotches - looks like they have been the target of paintballers!  Of the six, three are ewes and three are rams

Dasha, with mother Annabel

Derek, Delia and Dasha - a.k.a. The Three Hoons.  Coming up for 3 weeks old in this photo

Grab them young for a cuddle, as they get pretty speedy at avoiding catching at a few days old

Bianca was a first-time lamber, and produced tiny but healthy babies - Duncan on the left who is the only one throwing back to his Dorper mother, and sister Dixie

Our lambing went well, with only one yet to lamb, who is Beatrice, who had an early lamb late last season, so may not have come in heat as quickly as the others.  We are still not sure whether she is in fact going to produce a lamb or not.  Barbara went in to labour but was having difficulty birthing, so we took action, delivered a big ram lamb then discovered the birthing problem was due to a very badly presenting second ram lamb which unfortunately was dead when we removed it.  Her surviving ram lamb is nice and big and healthy, called Dante

A shot of all the lambs frisking around and boing-boinging

With another very wet but very warm winter, we have had our fair share of the usual feet problems with the Dorper sheep.  Apparently, their hooves grow faster than most breeds and especially so in wet weather.  With all the surplus water in the paddocks and muddy, pugged yards, it has not been easy dealing with feet trimming and additional treatment for footrot for some and scald with a couple of the babies.  Roll on summer, daylight, and sunshine!