A Very Big Day

Tessa ready for work.

It has been a very big weekend of getting things organised. Here on the Sourthern Tablelands of NSW where it is very cold, often wet and with occassional snow in the winter, we like to lamb in September /October when the weather begins to warm up and the grass has started to grow. The ewe's maximum requirements for feed is when she is lactating, and we have found that on our native pastures the ewes struggle to get enough nutrition to keep themselves warm and produce enough milk to give the lambs a really good start. They can do it because they are a hardy breed but we find the lambs born later soon catch them up because of their nutritional advantage.

So the rams have to go in with the ewes on the first of May. As a result we have spent the weekend drenching and sorting all the ewes into their joining groups, colour coding  and putting them out into their individual paddocks. It is exciting to anticipate the spring lambs, and whether our careful selection of which rams to  will work out. Every year we plan to ensure the new crop of lambs will be superior to their parents and  spring is the time when we begin to  see how successfu

Letting the sheep out at Pyes Farm

We also selected from our crossbred ewes a group to be used as recipients for our embryo transfer program. This program requires careful selection and care of all the animals concerned, in order to get the best results. The more sheep that turn the embryo into a live lamb the more economical the program will be and a great way to multiply our best genetics.