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.
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.
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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.
We are back! The long drive home takes the shine off a bit (11 hours), It was worth it as we had a wonderful time. The Amarula Dorper sale went extremely well, with all the dorpers selling for good prices, despite the false start with the floods, there was plenty of interest and plenty of buyers. We brought a beautiful type 5, confirmation 5 young ram, the best ram in the sale, (we think). He will fit perfectly with our current genetics and has excellent lambplan figures. (Top 1% out of ALL sheep breeds, for eye muscle)! Terraweena's dispersal sale was the next day, unfortunately we were unable to stay, it also went very well. Lots of very nice sheep have gone to new homes and can only enhance people's existing white flocks. Sad to see such an excellent stud disperse.
We missed Friday's blog and we will not have one for Monday as we are having another attempt to attend Amarula's Sale. Enough of the roads are open to for the buyers to get through. But the bridge near Warialda with it's approaches washed out will take months to repair according to the council. That much mess must be a nightmare for local government.
It is another gloomy morning, misty rain and cloud. With the memory of the big dry not that far away it seems ungrateful to be sick of the wet, but a bit of summer would be nice. It is also not the favorite weather of sheep.
Ideally lambs should be weaned into a clean worm free paddock. But on our other block, we only have 3 main ones that are large enough. One has our crossbred flock, one our stud ewes and lambs, and the other is being rested.
We will wean at the end of January, so one option is to put the ram lambs, (which will soon start working) in the fresh paddock, then put the stud ewe lambs with the crossbred mothers, and the crossbred ewe and wether lambs with the stud ewes. There is an additional advantage in this, the weaners settle much quicker when they are running with the adults, and we like to feed a few sheep pellets at this time, so that the adults teach the lambs to come for these, useful in times of drought. It is a more natural way, not, say, having a town with only teenagers, "Lord of the Flies" style. Today was to be Amarula Dorper Stud's sale, but with the huge body of water flowing around the north, it has been postponed until next Monday. We are to pick up a ram from them, so we will be checking if it is possible to get out to their farm, or if the water has cut them off, as they are not far from Moree which is underwater. From the photo no one will be visiting Amarula or beyond today, the approach to the bridge has been washed away on the eastern side as well. What a mess!
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