With all the rain, and a motorbike/4wd event up the road, our road on both sides, has become little more than a mud wrestling pit. At least 13 vehicles have become bogged to the axles since Sunday. Four phone calls to Cooma shire have bought no result, as have two phone calls to John Barilaro, (member for Monaro) not even a courteous return call from either. My frustration is unimaginable! We have sheep to supply, sheep to oversee on the other block, and no one gives a damn. No  wonder I'm a grumpy old man!

We have decided we need to find softer homes for our old F3 ewes, they have been great producers in our commercial flock and popped out a lamb every year. We don't want to send them off on a truck to the saleyards, where they will be pushed around. Nor do we want to carry them through the winter here. It will be much better if we can find them a home that can fuss over them a bit and feed them a few nuts (our daughter calls them sheep crack). They have been running with Stud Dorper Rams and should start lambing in May. So for the right person at $60 we think they would be a good buy.

We are in the process of preparing our show team for the Sydney Royal, we learnt so much last year and had such a good time that we are keen to go again. The team has been chosen and we have begun feeding them, it is a delicate process as they have not had any supplements before. They are also taught to come to be fed, as well as carefully conditioned to the ration. It is easy to kill sheep if the grain ration is not introduced slowly, enabling the gut flora time to adjust to the new foodstuff. 

When the rain stops, five of these cold, dirty, bedraggled lambs will hopefully clean up well enough to make the Show Team. The lack of a suitable shed was ok last year, as the weather was kinder. This year all of us trying to prepare for the Show here in the south, are finding it challenging.
We are currently unable to leave the farm as the road in both directions is impassable a causeway washed out one way and a metre deep of mud in the other. The local Shire Council does not think it will get here to repair the road before Monday. On the bright side it is a good opportunity to catch up on the paper work.

Today the sun is shining and the damage of the last ten days assessed. We have lost a few sheep, one old ewe that was a bit poor succumbed to the relentless rain,as did a low weight weaner. This morning may reveal more losses when we check out the impact at the other block. We have longed for a huge shearing shed where we could shelter all the sheep during this unusual
weather event, just feel so sorry for the stock having to endure day and night without respite,and the ground covered in water, making rest hard.

Our poor sheep have been standing in the rain for almost ten days now and there is more to come. Sheep endure this type of weather but it interferes with eating, resting and joining. They also use energy just keeping warm, fortunately we don't have any lambs to be concerned about.
We have been asked about "flushing"  and what it means: In the normal flock it is achieved by putting the ewes onto better feed to create a rising plane of nutrition, this  can be done by feeding suplements such as lupins, which are high in protein, or giving them access to high quality pasture prior to joining. The point of this is to increase conception rates, with the hoped for result of more lambs at weaning. Which improves the bottom line of the enterprise.

In embryo transfer programs, "flushing" means chemically stimulating the ovaries to produce a larger number of ova, for fertilising and transplanting.

With the large number of wet days, we have had to delay the weaning of our lambs. This has had two effects, the ram lambs are close to being sexually active and need isolating. But of more immediate importance is the ewes are down in condition, and joining is rapidly approaching.
What we must do now is  to "flush" the ewes, this means they need a rapid rise in nutrition, ideally with a boost in protein intake. Even in normal circumstances this will give an increase in the number of twins.

Koenie's visit is over and our joinings have begun. It has been a wonderful opportunity to be able to discuss, pull apart, look for strong points, and make the joining decisions, with the help of such an experienced eye. We only need to wait till August/September to see how well we did.

We are lucky enough to have Koenie Kotze here today to go though our sheep and help us pick a Show Team from our little weaners that are too young to be classed. Once again we got half way through the sheep, and the weather went crazy,we had another huge storm, with hail. Very dramatic but I think we are going to lose a dam wall and an access road. 

Finally managed to get the lambs weaned, better late than never. The biggest worry is that with the dorper ram lambs, they are keen to work from such a young age, that you don't want them joining their mothers.
This week we'll be having another South African Dorper inspector to visit, as we are keen for him to look at our weaner lambs and to give us some guidance with our ram selection for joining later in the month.


One of the breeding strategies that breeders use in their studs is corrective mating: this is where animals are combined where one animals excels in an area where the other is weak, with the goal of correcting the weak point and creating more uniformity within the flock. An example of this is selecting a ram with a very good head that conforms in a superior way to the breed standard and using that ram to improve the quality of all the heads in the flock. The same principle can be used to improve other traits such as shedding. However, the breeder must always be careful not to focus on one single trait at the expense of another.

Line breeding is also used in most studs to increase the incidence of good genetics, where animals are bred that have related ancestors. The aim of this is to increase the uniformity of the progeny. Line breeding creates the most genetic gains in a flock, but has the problem that, in attempting to increase the incidence of good genes, there may be some defective genes that also accumulate and this can result in problems with future generations. Hence the old saying: "It is called line breeding when it works and inbreeding when it doesn't". If the line breeding is too close it can also impact negatively on growth rates and fertility.

This weekend is the planned date to wean our lambs, but we are having some trouble getting enough straight hours to process the sheep.Martin has installed the weigh bars under the new sheep handler,preparing to weigh all our lambs. We do this for our own interest interest as well as enabling us to send the weights to "Lambplan". This indicates to us a measure of the genotype of our sheep. The Dorper inspectors help maintain a good phenotype,(visual qualities), and performance recording gives us information about genotype,(genetic potential).

The morning started well with just a light drizzle, which eased up once we had the sheep yarded. We were moving along quite well when the first storm came through (about half the lambs processed), it wasn't  long then we were able to get back into it. Then dramatic thunder storms started with abundant  lightening. There was so much energy in the air that I saw the drafting gates spark. This necessitated a retreat to the shed. We then got a another break before the heavens opened  up (with 15 sheep to go), at which point we gave up. With the lambs wet and miserable and the sheep yards flooding there was no going on. Oh well, back to it this morning.