More pictures of Wiltipol sheep shedding

Today I took another picture of the Wiltipol sheep doing their shedding thing. I am so impressed with these sheep, they seem to put on size at a good rate (not too fast so that they get fat and unhealthy) so they are converting feed to body size very well.

The ewes will definitely be ready for joining in Autumn next year. It’s Spring now, so that gives them another four or five months of growth. If they are both covered in early Autumn, then I can have lambs bouncing around 145 days later (about 4.5 months) taking us into mid Winter in 2013.

Seven months later, the lambs will be ready for slaughter (they are meat animals intended for the table). The meat will be ready, then, in mid Summer 2014.

Well … that’s the plan and I don’t want to be counting my chickens before they hatch.

Basically, the cycle goes:

Spring	Aug-12
Spring	Sep-12
Spring	Oct-12
Summer	Nov-12
Summer	Dec-12
Summer	Jan-13
Autumn	Feb-13	Pairing
Autumn	Mar-13
Autumn	Apr-13
Winter	May-13
Winter	Jun-13	Lambing
Winter	Jul-13
Spring	Aug-13	Pairing
Spring	Sep-13
Spring	Oct-13
Summer	Nov-13
Summer	Dec-13	Lambing
Summer	Jan-14	Slaughter
Autumn	Feb-14	Pairing
Autumn	Mar-14
Autumn	Apr-14
Winter	May-14
Winter	Jun-14	Lambing
Winter	Jul-14	Slaughter

Well … there is still a long time between now and the first pairing, so I will just have to pace myself.

Goat Fence – Repair

Last week while I was sick, one of our goats (Holly) escaped from the goat field a couple of times. Yesterday she did it again, so I thought “Enough!” it was time to fix the fence and, hopefully, make it a little more goat proof. Now I know that the only way to make a fence truly goat proof is to make it a 30 foot high sheer concrete wall … but my budget doesn’t go that far, nor do my neighbours think that that would make for a particularly attractive country idyll.

I had some 3m long star posts from the dismantling of the goat quarantine pens, so they would be the foundation of the higher, improved fence.

I wasn’t about to remove the old fence, but bolster the existing fence and increase it in height. As you can see, we had a lovely Sunday here in southern Tasmania. I then went along the fence and put in some plastic electric fence clips. These clips are great, they have a pin that goes through the star post fence-line hold and then another pin holds the electric fence tape in place. The idea is that you can have your electric line close to, but not touching the steel post and with enough space that the line will move with the wind.

I put a loop at both ends of the line and made the electric fence reasonably taut. Now the electric fence line runs at just over 1.8m above the ground.

Next, I ran a new support line along the length of the fence-line. The support line is attached at the top end of the fence with a simple loop and twist (so that the wire “knot” tightens itself when it is pulled taut) and then attached to a line stretcher at the other end.

The stretcher is kind of like a winch, it has an in-built ratchet and pawl with a box nut on the outside so that you tighten it with a wrench. The stretcher is attached to the end fence post with a kind of wire slip-knot (again so that it tightens when pulled). Then the stretcher is tightened and the wire becomes quite tight. I am always very careful when doing wire stretching, my wife’s friend lost an eye from a broken wire, and I have had a couple of nasty cuts on my face from wire breaking under strain (thankfully, I have never had any serious injury).

The support line is then attached to each of the star posts with a wire twist. I cut about 4” of wire and make a V. The bent wire goes through the hole in the star post with the point of the V in the middle. I then twist each end of the V around the support line three or four times. I find this method to be quite easy as I can bend both ends of the V simultaneously and just wrap them around the support wire.

Next, I rolled out a length of dog-proof wire mesh. The mesh has smaller holes at the bottom than at the top, this is also good for keeping out rabbits and other smaller animals. The mesh is then attached to the support line in much the same way that the support line is attached to the star posts. I attach the mesh to the existing fence at the bottom as well so that it is held in place. I left a gap of about 3” between the top of the dog mesh and the electric fence tape so that the electric fence doesn’t earth on the mesh. It is possible that a bird will alight on the tape and make the tape droop, but the bird will get a shock and it should just spring back.

Now that the fence and mesh is all connected up, I just need to power the electric fence and, presto … new fencing in the goat paddock.

Normally, I can handle the electric fence with my hands when it is powered without any pain, but when I was leaving the field, I got zapped on my upper arm, just below my armpit and, wow, that was a good jolt!

Shearless Sheep

It is now well into Spring here in Tasmania, although that doesn’t mean much. Seasons in Tasmania are all wet and mostly cold.

Nevertheless, the Wiltipol sheep are shedding their wool. This is one of the fantastic thing about the breed, being a wool shedding sheep, they don’t need to be sheared. The same can’t be said about our whether, Gary … he is getting a little wool-blind and needs the careful attention of the shearer.

The girl’s wool is coming off in clumps where they rub themselves on various things: fences, garden stakes, each other … whatever they can find.

I have called the shearer, he lives down in the south of the state and he shears sheep all around where we live. He does, mostly, small flocks and charges very reasonable rates. I only have one sheep to shear, but the shearer will also trim the hooves and drench all three of our sheep. He promises to give me a couple of lessons on handling the sheep so that I can better manage Gary’s wool blindness.

Wool blindness can lead to actual blindness from the wool rubbing the sheep’s eyes. Also, it makes the sheep more skittish because they have to rely on their hearing more than their vision. All it takes is a quick trim of the wool from his forehead and under his eyes to improve his lot, so I will certainly be taking a keen interest in making sure that I can do this every six months or so (or whenever it starts getting bad, actually).

Here’s the theory, the shearer tells me that if you grab the hair on their chin and raise their head, their natural reaction is to walk backwards. With your other hand under their jaw (thumb behind the base of their ear), you lift their head and guide them back into your legs. This will make the sheep back-up and drop their butt (once they work out that you are stronger than they are). Then roll the sheep onto it’s butt and lean it back onto your legs. The shearer also tells me that there are three things that the sheep may do …

1. Jump forward;
2. Drop their head and try to rush off; or
3. Relax.

The idea is to hold them firmly so that they get the idea that they are unable to escape and they calm down. Anyway, I will have a better idea when I get to play with the sheep and the shearer.

Spring = Plovers

It’s spring, so the plovers are having their chicks. Around this part of Tasmania, we have hooded plovers. The plovers hang around their nests for about 8 months, raising their chicks. These are a protected species in Australia and you are not allowed to come within 10 meters of their nest … plus the males very aggressively defend their nest. The plovers are a ground nesting species and love open grassy paddocks. Usually, they get along okay with other animals, so long as they don’t get too close to the nest. Males have spurs on their wings.

The chicks look very much like a grey, white and black pom-pom on sticks, they are very cute indeed.

In the above picture, one of the young can just be seen under the mother, another chick is ranging out at the far right of the picture.

Above, you can see Dad with two chicks on the right with Mum still protecting the third chick.

Another photo of the family.

The coming of plovers into the paddock is a sure sign that Spring has arrived.  They are such lovely birds and I really don’t mind being bombed by the protective male. From here, however, the prospect isn’t particularly good. Plover chicks are prey to hawks and falcons in the area, that’s kind of okay, it’s natural. What I really object to is that what the hawks and falcons don’t get, pet cats get. I just wish that there was something that I could do to make them safe from these incredibly efficient introduced predators. It would be very nice if the owners of these animals took greater care of their animals.

New Sheep Auto-water feeder

Today I made a new water feeder for the sheep. There have been a couple of days here in Tasmania where the water in their bowl has dried up and they have taken water from unreliable sources (the water from the top of an oil container). This resulted in the sheep getting scours and me getting very anxious.

We bought some auto-feeders for the goats and chickens a while ago, but they are small, fiddly and (because of the additional cost of the hose fittings and plumbing) worked out to be very expensive.

I bought an 80 litre water basin from the hardware store for $7.00.

I also bought a ball-cock tap from the rural plumbing supplies shop for $50.00.

Finally, I bought some garden hose attachments so that I can plumb the tap to the hose in the sheep paddock.

Using a forstner bit slightly smaller than the thread on the stop-cock, I drilled a hole through the basin near the top.

Next, the stop-cock was screwed into the side of the basin.

Because the hole was smaller than the thread, when the stop-cock was screwed in place, it cut a thread into the plastic. This makes for a pretty tight fit and doesn’t require a grommet or rubber washer.

On the outside, I put some hot melt glue around the base of the thread, I know that I don’t need this … but it is better than a leak. The screw collar was then tightened over the thread and the tap fitting was screwed down tight.

Now, I moved the fitted basin out into the sheep paddock and connected it to the hose. The tap is turned on and, woohoo, water starts to happen.

This isn’t the exciting bit … the proof of the system is when the ball rises up and shuts the valve, stopping the flow of water.

Yay, it works. Full basin for the sheep, no more walking out into the sheep field to fill their water bucket. Win-win! I still need to check the basin later to make sure that the stop-cock is stopping the water flow, that the pressure in the hose doesn’t split the hose and … that the water doesn’t leak around the point in the basin where the plumbing goes through the side.

What did the sheep think of their new water trough?

Not a lot … not a lot, at all.

New Fish, New Furniture

Today, my lovely wife and I decided that we wanted to move the little cichlids from the nursery tank into the main community.

The tank lacked hiding spots for the newcomers, so we went to the pet store and bought a couple of plastic/resin rocks that we could glue together to make a taller habitat in the tank for the fish. We took two resin rocks and glued them together with some hot melt glue and then tied on some spear grass (it will root to the “rock”) and then did some tank rearranging.

Enter the little cichlids.

Big Blue (metriaclima pulpican) got very cross and showed off some exceptional colouring. We found that one of the new fish was a female metriaclima pulpican, she started to stick with Big Blue and then she started displaying with him. Very pretty, very excited.

Other than that, the rest of the fish seemed to be fairly OK with the move. Although the clown loaches hid for a couple of hours.

Here is some footage of the tank, it’s furniture and the fish.

Cichlid Fish Tank

le bonfire

Tonight we had a bonfire. My youngest daughter has been after me for a while to have another. I think that it is the combination of a roaring fire, cocktail frankfurts, roasting marshmallows and family that makes these such a wonderful affair.

We never do anything much for our bonfires, they are pretty much just fire, food and family. Although tonight we had two of my youngest daughters friends over for the bonfire (but very much for the food and fizzy drinks).

The fire started very easily. The trick for starting a good bonfire is to make sure that the fire is set on the side from where the wind is blowing. This makes the fire go through the stack and everything burns quickly and easily.

Initially, the blaze rose into the late afternoon sky, up to about 8m high. When the main fuel had settled down and all of the thin sticks had burned down, the coals go on burning for ages. Just 20 minutes after the photos above were taken, the fire looked more like this:

A great coal bed that was almost ready for marshmallows, but still too hot. About another hour later, the fire was very well settled and at potato roasting and marshmallow toasting stage.

Here, you can stand quite close to the fire and reach in with the marshmallow forks (about 1.25m long) and have some utterly yummy toasted marshmallows. I love the crunchy outside and the gooey sticky inside of the toasted marshmallow … anyone who eats these things raw is just plain wrong!

We do a bonfire about once a year, sometimes we will skip a year, this years bonfire was a lovely affair. Now I just have to get rid of my youngest daughters friends who are downstairs playing with the Wii.

Sheep Escape

Today I had a call from my neighbour telling me that his plumber mate had just seen my sheep running down the road. His mate gave a description of the sheep that matched my sheep … so, being a good neighbour, the information was relayed to me. This is one of the things I love about living where we do, the neighbours are friendly and helpful.

So, I rang my lovely wife who was visiting a friend of hers about 45 minutes away from home and we planned to go home immediately and deal with our collection of recalcitrant ovine. It sounded like they were holding up traffic, giving lip to local authority and, generally, being unruly.

While in transit, my neighbour once again gave me a call and told me that they had been chased into the paddock of a historical house and were awaiting my pleasure. He also mentioned, jokingly, that “it’d be easier to shoot the bastards now that they’ve been caught”. My neighbour is quite the laconic Australian gentleman. Of course, we laughed about this.

I pulled into our property and saw that my goats were also out of their paddock and chomping through the house garden … simple enough explanation though, my lovely wife had let them out to have a browse in the back garden. Part of the reason for this is that Holly (our big doe) has managed to create a hole in the fence and gets out occasionally, so I let them back into their paddock and fixed the hole. One job done (for now).

Next, I went into our sheep paddock to find out how the sheep had got out. We’ve had some fierce winds lately, so the fence-line may have caught a downed tree or heavy limb, making it easy for the sheep to skip into the vineyard, and then lark along onto the main road.

Well … when I entered the sheep paddock, the first thing that struck me was … there were my sheep. I called my neighbour and let him know that the miscreants were not mine.

There was a heavy branch down over the fence and it did need immediate attention, but it was not the disaster that I had been planning to resolve.

This does, however, put me in mind of the misinformation that I had been spoon-fed as a child, if indeed one does “leave them alone” they will NOT “come home, wagging their tails behind them”. I think that Little-Bo-Peep should not be trusted as a reliable observer of livestock and their habits. In my experience, if you leave them alone you are more likely to never see the bleaters again.