Vet Visit

Today the vet, Scott, from Montrose Veterinary Clinic visited the farm. Our old wether sheep, Gary, has been scratching his neck furiously and he has caused himself some nasty cuts.

Last year, Gary had the same thing. It was caused by lice then … and it looks like he has lice again.

When Gary was sheared, he was given a spray on lice treatment and a drench for parasites. I don’t think that the spray is up to the job on our Gary. Scott gave Gary a shot of Ivermectin to make him less palatable to the lice. The wiltipols’ are pretty impervious to lice as they shed their hair at the time that lice affect the sheep. Because lice have to live further up the follicle than the length of the wiltis’  hair, it isn’t an attractive habitat for the nasty little creatures.

I had made some improvements to the sheep pen so that the wiltis’ wouldn’t escape. However, one of  the sheep got itself stuck in the gate. After giving the sheep it’s OJD injection, the vet and I had to try to push the stuck sheep back into the pen. The next sheep was very spooked by it’s adventure and tried to leg it over the top of the pen. I was able to catch her in the air and bring her safely back to earth for her OJD injection.

They don’t like the vet’s waiting room.

No magazines, no piped music … just sunshine and dirt. Still, job done and I gave them an extra feed of sheep pellets so that their bad experience in the pen isn’t their only experience in the pen. We feed the sheep in the pen every morning, so they know that the pen means food … it is just unfortunate that it also occasionally means being manhandled and injected. Still, it’s a sheep’s life.

After their latest adventure in the pen, I have more repairs and improvements to make … joy.

Over one hurdle

Today, I finished making the fence hurdle for the farm gate. I still haven’t put the gate hardware onto the fencepost, but it is done for now.

The first job today was cutting the checks and fitting the crossbar.

The check was cut by cutting across the post and then using a chisel to chip out the rebate. I marked the rebate by placing the cross bar across the two posts and marking where the cross bar would sit. Then I marked the depth of the cross bar using a square. I used a bush saw to make the cut as it was in a difficult position and the bush saw has an aggressive cut.

The next thing was to drill through the post and into the cross beam and then drive the coach bolt into the hurdle using a crescent wrench. I was going to drive a “nail” made from a piece of steel reinforcing rod, but the coach bolt seemed a better choice as it would also draw the pieces together.

The post was then cemented in properly. I mixed up the concrete in a big bucket and then poured it into the hole. After that, I tapped the concrete so that the mix was smooth on top. I also wanted to avoid having water sitting in a hole where it would rot the timber over time.

The final job for the day, was to put on our new letter box. I had already drilled and riveted the house number onto the letter-box. The letterbox was my darling daughters choice. I’d like to replace the rivets that the letterbox was constructed with, as they are pretty poorly done. Some of the rivets are set at an angle and it would be easy to catch clothing or skin on these rivets.

I will need to make a small step at the foot of the fence post, as our youngest daughter isn’t quite able to reach the letterbox.

I’ll make a fence style type step for my daughter so that she can stand on the step and see into the letterbox.

I also intent to put some fence rails on the hurdle to make it stronger and more attractive.

Fence Fix-up

Today, I bought some fence posts and tools for fixing the fence. The fence post at the farm gate has been in a terrible state since we moved in to this property and it has been my intention to replace it when I had the opportunity. Well, the opportunity presented itself. I want to be able to run the sheep in our lower paddock (where our driveway is). To do this, I need to fix the fence between us and two of our neighbours.

I bought six squared fence posts and ten round posts.

The first thing that needed to be done was to remove the old rotten fence post and it’s supporting pair. The old fence post had a bazillion old staples in it from previous “enhancements” but it was populated by a huge host of detritus eaters (slaters mostly) and several spiders and scorpions. The fence post was also being supported by a star-post. With the fence wire and the star post removed, I was able to pull the post from the ground and then lug it to the bonfire pit. After that, I dug out the fence post hole and enlarged it so that the new post would be OK for the gate.

The supporting post was broken off at the ground so it was just a matter of detaching it from the fence wire. However, to dig a new fence post hole, I had to dig out the broken off bit of the fence post that was under ground. This took some doing as the fence post was set in wet clay and the ground didn’t want to give up it’s bit of rotting wood. When I measured up the hole so that the two posts were set far enough apart for the cross-beam, the old fence post was precisely in the way. So it did have to come out.

This is all that was left of the old fence post. I had to use a crow-bar to lever the post out … the sucking sound it made when coming out of the ground was … special.

Next, dig out the fence post hole.

After that, I set the posts in the holes and did some back-filling and packing. My darling wife was on hand to hold the posts in place while I did the shovelling and packing. The next job was putting some cement into the holes so that the posts are well strengthened.

You can see that the fence posts are set to the right distance so that the cross beam sits properly. When the concrete goes off, I will cut a check into each of the fence posts so that the cross beam sits flush with the top of the posts.

The check is simply a shallow rebate cut into the top of the fence post. When the fence wire is attached to the final fence post and it is tensioned, the final post is pulled toward the supporting fence post and the cross beam is held tightly between the two posts.

After the two posts are connected via the cross beam, I’ll drill a hole into the posts that passes into the middle of the cross beam and hammer a 1 foot piece of steel reo, kind of like a really big nail.

I have another fence post to replace which will be a bit more tricky because it connects three fences. When I have set the other fence post, I will be able to tension the fence between us and the lower neighbours and then I’ll hang the new fence netting. For that, I’m going to use an old fishing net and I have bought a pair of shears to cut the heavy nylon netting to fit the height of the fence.

After the fence is finished, I’ll be able to let the chooks out again and the sheep into the lower paddock.

Shearing Day

Today is shearing day. I’ve arranged for the shearer to come out and shear Gary and give the girls a drench.

This morning went pretty well, I got the sheep into the pen without any problems. Over the past couple of weeks I have been feeding the sheep in the pen so that they would get used to it in there. I walked into the pen with the sheep behind me and they all came in and got their breakfast without a hitch.

Then I went on to feed the goats and the chickens. Still no problems.

Next, I had to go out to the sheep again to connect the power so that the shearer can power up his rig.

Hang on … only two sheep and one sheep bleating to be let back in!

Damn! So I have about half an hour before the shearer arrives and no way of getting the third sheep back into the pen by myself (I am just not very good at round up sheep, and the sheep know it).

Well … at least the sheep that needs to be sheared is in the pen, and one of the sheep can be drenched.

I’ll see how I go with getting Apricot into the pen before the shearer arrives … I don’t fancy my chances though, I expect that I will end up with three out and none in.

The shearer has come and gone now. Peaches got out of the pen before he arrived, so I ended up with just Gary in the pen. That was fine, he was the only one that needed shearing.

Now he is happily sheared again and ready for running around like a goose. He still has a dermatitis rash on his neck, but that’s something that I will need to treat with a cream. I’ll see how I go with that. Gary was very well behaved for the shearer.

For my money, get a local shearer around to shear your sheep, he was so good with the sheep and so knowledgeable about the animals. You really can’t do better than to support locals like this, and shearing is such an old and iconic skill.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Close encounter with a Sheep

Today, the two Wiltipol sheep (Peaches and Apricot) got in and helped me in the workshop. I was working on my forge in the lean-to and when I went in to the workshop to get some tools, they were poking around looking very curious about what was in the workshop. Now these two sheep have always been very nervous and stand-offish, so I was very surprised to find them in my workshop.

After I shepherded them out, they went into the lean-to to see what I was doing in there.

Back and forth we went, me moving casually and just getting about my work, while the sheep seemed to be having a bit of a game of it.

Later, I tried to call the sheep in closer and they came. This is about as close to us as the sheep have come without being corralled for drenching or worming. I was quietly happy.

They are lovely sheep and, it would appear, much more curious than I thought that sheep were. Still nowhere near as curious as the goats, but then goats are known for their outgoing nature.

Great Escape

It was very nice of the sheep to wait until the weekend to effect their breakout. I had just gone down to the paddock to give them a supplemental feed when I saw one of our sheep, Apricot, in the bottom paddock. When she saw me coming, she took fright and ran through the boundary fence (the boundary fence in the bottom paddock is just 5 strand wire) and into the no man’s land between us and the vineyard. Fortunately, she didn’t move much more than that.

I poured out the sheep nuts on the ground for them and Gary and Peaches started eating their feed quite happily, but Apricot wanted to get back into the paddock and get herself some of those yummy treats. The fence is obviously harder to get under from the outside, so she just stood around looking sheepish (pun intended).

Next, I rounded up the family and we did some sheepherding. We drove Apricot back through the fence and through the bottom paddock to the gate without too much trouble, and then into her own paddock.

Finally, I inspected the fence line and found where she was getting through. I had not really fixed the fence properly when I first did it. It was dark and I was in a rush. Still, it has taken the sheep 6 months to break out, so not a bad outcome.

Now to start saving for fixing the boundary fences properly. Farm fences should really be replaced every ten years or so. I have about 2km of boundary fence to replace and about 570 star posts. If I replace the posts with a timber post every third post, then that’s about 376 star posts and 193 timber posts. The timber posts will cost me about $10 each and the star posts are about $8 each. Along with that, I need fencing wire and wire mesh (I need to make the fences goat proof). So I reckon that the entire enterprise (boundaries only) is going to cost me something in the vicinity of $8,200.

While I’m at it, I also need to divide the bottom and top paddocks for goats … and new shelters in the bottom paddock. Hrumph, more costs.

D’oh The Sheep ate the Pine Saplings

Well, who’d have thought that sheep would eat trees? OK so I’ve seen that trees in sheep paddocks tend to have no lower branches, but I thought that that was because sheep broke the branches to get under the trees for shade. I never would have believed that it was because they ate them.

Five holes in the ground with some potting mix mixed in and no little saplings left. Bummer.

Well, today we went out and bought a couple of Grevillia Grandiflora and I put them in grow tubes so that the sheep don’t have such an easy time of eating them. One by the boundary fence to add to the general wind break, and another by the sheep pen to provide the sheep with some shade when they are locked in the pen awaiting the shearer (the shearer sheers Gary and drenches our three sheep).

Hopefully, the sheep won’t try too hard to eat the new saplings.

The pine trees that we planted in the bottom paddock are all doing fine. One of them has lost it’s tip, so it’s likely to struggle a bit and probably throw out co-dominant stems.

Why Go Green?

I suppose that some people don’t see the point to adopting a green approach to their lifestyle. I’m by no means a tree hugger and I am less interested in the state of the planet than I am the state of myself.

For me, the motivation is financial … I don’t like to spend a lot of money on stuff that I can do myself, and do better in a lot of ways.

I’ve been keen on getting some land for a long time, and buying our 4 and a bit acres has certainly given me a lot of what I want (although I would rather more land too). Our property has three 1 acre paddocks. The top paddock isn’t really usable at the moment as there is a lot of rubbish on the land that needs to be cleared, and the paddock is not flat (about a 15 degree pitch).

Each of the animals on our land have to be able to provide something for the table, directly or indirectly, if they have any place on the smallholding.

Chickens

The chooks cost us about $25 per month in feed and they provide us with an average of 3 eggs per day (5 white leghorn hens + 1 Rhode Island red rooster). As we are not breeding the chickens, the rooster has to prove his worth. Fortunately, he protects the hens and improves their community, they don’t fight with each other nearly as much as without a rooster. Also, the chickens eat insects and weeds, so they are good workers. I sell the eggs at $5 per dozen when I have enough eggs. On average, I would sell about 3 dozen eggs a month. They cost me more than they make in direct income, however, they also save me another $5 per month in eggs and much more in pesticide and herbicides. The chickens also convert kitchen scraps into rich compostable chicken poo … which is excellent for the garden. Saving me even more money. The bottom line for the chickens save me about $5 per month or $60 per annum.

Goats

The goats cost a lot to feed, there isn’t any way to get around that. Each goat costs about $350 per annum to feed. If I breed a goat and sell the kid when it is about 7 months old, it has cost me about $200 to feed. Add in the veterinary costs (an average of $35 for worming injections and boosters etc.) and I am losing money if I sell at $200. Fortunately, I can get a little bit more than that for a dairy goat … but not much. I need to improve the quality of my goats so that I can improve their value. The does are class “D” at the moment, but I am breeding them up with better quality bucks to improve their kids. More shows and more knowledge is what I need to improve the quality of the dairy goat breeding program. A top quality buck can fetch >$3,000 and a good quality doe something less than that (these are prices that I have heard, but never had quoted). Each pairing costs me $80 per doe, so that’s another annual cost to factor in.

I plan to have about 12 does and keep the high quality does for breeding. If I breed all of the does in a year, then it is going to cost me around $960, feeding will cost me around $18,000 for the year and medical costs around $500. If each doe throws a pair, then I can look forward to selling the kids for about $18,000. I would still be losing money until the quality of the goats increases to a good level through higher quality milk production and conformation proven at agricultural shows. Goats normally throw twins, but can throw triplets as often as singles.

Also, the goats give milk, at a rate of about 500ml per milking. With 12 does in kid, that’d give me 6 litres of milk per day and that could mean quite a reasonable amount of milk for cheese. Cheese from goats milk earns about $16 per litre. From cheese, that’s a potential $17,000 income from cheese and milk products from about 1,100 litres of milk per annum. Alternatively, I could sell the milk directly at about $4 per litre ($4,380).

So, selling kids and milk would give me about $22,380, or kids and cheeses $35,000 from a cost of around $17,000. Not a huge profit, but there is room to improve by improving the quality of the goats. More land would let me breed more goats and increase profits.

Sheep

The sheep are all about breeding meat for the table. The pair of Wiltipol sheep cost me $500 and won’t be ready to breed until next year. The sheep cost me almost nothing in feed. They eat the grass in the paddock and occasionally get sheep pellets ($25 per bag, per annum … pretty cheap). Annual shearing and drenching costs me $65. Mating the sheep will cost me about $160 per annum and I can look forward to four lambs per breeding season. Getting the lambs slaughtered costs me $70 per animal so it is going to cost me $345 per annum and will save me about $700 per annum in meat, so it will save me $355 per annum overall. I will be doing my own butchering of the lambs, so that has saved me another $120 per lamb.

Vegies

What can I say, they don’t cost much, never escape … don’t need a vet. Seed costs around $30 per annum. The veggie patch also uses the composted sheep, goat and chicken poo and turns it into good food for the table. When I can afford the time to grow and tend the veggie patch, we have had some great harvests (mostly zucchini, cucumbers, rhubarb, potatoes). Growing vegetables doesn’t save much money, but it doesn’t cost much money either, so it is a good value thing. I haven’t done the sums on exactly how much money I am saving, so I can only guess. I reckon that it’s about $80 per annum.

Other benefits

All of the food that we grow, we know. One of the key benefits of this sort of smallholding is that we know exactly what has gone into the food that goes into our mouths. It has been our hands that have tended the animals and plants. The animals are treated humanely and with kindness. We know the animals from birth to death and we can be certain that no chemicals have been added. On top of that, our children have a much better appreciation of what goes into the food that they eat. Winner!

Our Sheep

Gary, Bruno, Peaches and Apricots

In this video, I’m just walking around the sheep paddock with Gary, Bruno, Peaches and Apricots.

Gary was about 12 years old in this video and, shortly after the video was taken, he was put down.

Bruno is about 8 years old and has taken to the ewe lambs nicely.

The ewe lambs are a fairly new breed of sheep, Wiltipols, they are a meat breed of sheep that shed their wool, so no shearing, no mulesing and no docking.

Sheep Pen

I built this pen on our property so that I could manage the sheep a bit better. I needed to get the sheep sheered but I didn’t have any sheep pen to make this possible. The need was to have a smallish yard so that the sheep can be held in and for the sheerer to be able to get the sheep and … well … shear them.

The basic design is a bunch of fence posts and some rails with a chute into the pen. The pen I designed is 6m x 6m and high enough so that the sheep don’t just jump over the top of the pen.

I had to use a bobcat to level the land first and then it was out with the auger to drill holes in the ground for the posts.

With the posts in the ground, I set up a simple guide that I clamped on the posts to set the rails while I screwed the rails in place.

Our donkey, Jimmy, decided that the pen was a great place for a good old scratch. So before the posts could “season” into the ground, they got wobbly.

I fixed this, somewhat, by fixing some corrugated iron sheeting. This has the additional benefit of providing the sheep with some shelter from the wind and shade from the heat.

When the sheep are being sheared, it’s high summer, so shelter is certainly appreciated.

Since putting the pen in … it has weathered well and the design is quite satisfactory.

Of course I still need to put in fencing to help direct the sheep into the pen.

The pen is close to the feed shed so that there is access to water and electricity. The shearer likes the setup and, with his approval, I’m happy.

The Flock Expands

I am looking into getting a pair of ewes to add to the Green Home Farm. Having looked into sheep a little, we’ve decided that we would like to get some sheep that shed their wool.

The main factors around shedding sheep are:

1. They don’t need to be mulesed;

2. They don’t need their tails docked;

3. They don’t get flystrike (or at least, they are MUCH less likely to); and

4. We don’t have to get a shearer in to shear them.

There is a very good article about Wiltipoll sheep on the Animals Australia website that makes a very good case for shedding sheep.

We’ll be getting sheep to serve two main functions on the farm: Provision of meat for the table, and grazing to reduce grass and improve the soil (with sheep poo).

Our daughters are a bit put off by the idea of raising sheep for slaughter, but it is an important means of reducing our food bill. A pair of ewes will produce lambs annually for us, and the offspring will be sent off-site for slaughter. This should reduce our meat bill quite profoundly.

Additionally, it means that we will know exactly how our food is treated before slaughter. For me personally, I think that it is ethically better to be responsible for the raising of the food for the family’s table.

The ideal sheep for our farm is a Wiltipoll. These sheep are bread from Wiltshire sheep and have been bread for shedding their wool. The wool is a secondary issue for us. We are not going to be spinning the wool, so it is no great loss that the wool produced by the Wiltipoll has no commercial value. The picture here is of ewes with their summer coat (image from Kars Wiltipoll - http://www.wiltipoll.com.au/). The good thing about the Wiltipoll is that we are not sacrificing quality meat for the benefits of sheep that shed.

I remember having a sheep when I was a young lad in suburban Laverton (in Victoria). Her name was “Sheep”. One day, Sheep disappeared and later in the month, we had lots of meat in the fridge. I can’t say that I remember being upset about Sheep, or even noticing (I was about 3 I think).

Still, I need to learn more about how they shed and how to manage the wool that they shed.