May 2013 be the best year ever taking us all a little closer to our dreams.
A thousand thank ewes, (!) to all the people who have read our blog, commented, emailed and supported us throughout 2012, it would not be as interesting or fun without your involvement. Thank you also, to all our sheep buyers, you help us keep the "show on the road". May your ewes bless you with many lambs.

Here is a photo of some of the young Rams we have for sale. Some will go to our Sale in Goulburn on the 19 January and some we will be selling from home. They are  sired by the rams from our imported embryo program from the Visagie and Kotze lines and are out of our strong ewe lines that come from Amarula, Kaya and Springvale  and Winrae Studs.

In the age of the commercial Christmas, a handmade gift is a very fine thing. Martin was the recipient of some particularly fine and generous handmade gifts this year. To all who sent us gifts, many thanks, they will be used with pleasure and thoughts of the giver.

Happy Christmas and New Year to one and all. Hope the New Year will be the best yet.
Behold the Christmas Tomato, after years of trying I have managed it. With the aid of the glass house, ( it may have blown away,and put back together with gaffer tape and prayers), but it did feature in the growing of the tomato. Only one, but there are more to come.

Sadly, we had to shoot the lamb. Once we had the infection under control and the swelling in her face went down, we were able to assess the full extent of the damage. The bite and infection had destroyed her cheeks on both sides, all the skin and the muscle had died. No amount of care would enable her to survive that type of damage. She suffered needlessly for two weeks. I always feel guilty when we try to save an animal and in the end have to euthanize it, feels like we only prolonged the poor animals suffering. Whose needs are we serving.
Having seen how terrible the infection is from a dog bite I think we would not try to save any animal again that had been bitten on the face or had deep bites to the body. Much kinder to euthanize them straight away.  Another lesson learnt on the animal front.

After the dog attack on our flock, we brought back the mauled lamb to the shed, (a ewe lamb with good stud  potential) where we are treating her with antibiotics, and she has clean water and pellets chaff, etc. 
Because she was tagged and linked to her mother's tag at birth, we were able to bring her mother into the shed, which considerably reduced the stress on an already traumatised lamb.
At lambing we check the sheep twice a day, and, using a neck band on the lamb, make a note of the mother. (A new born lamb is so much easier to catch than when even 24 hours old). Don't try this on a Merino ewe or you will end up with a deserted lamb!
The neckband is replaced with an ear tag, at marking, and the records entered into our computer.
The lamb is recovering slowly and has started to feed from her mother.

We are very keen to produce as much of our own food as we can, and as we are not vegetarians, this means killing our own animals. To date we have done this with poultry, sheep , a steer, and now rabbits.
The night before the event takes place I find myself feeling anxious, my major priority being that the act will be quick and painless, and of minimal stress to the animal.
My good  friend Bill Chalmers, ( a local artist and self sufficiency enthusiast ) made me a gallows as pictured above, the rabbits head is pushed into the Vee, and with a hard pull on the back legs, the neck is broken, which in rabbits causes an instant death. (No eye reflex immediately) A very quick and humane method. 

Well, Eileen and my acquaintances, ( hardly friends, O Ye of little faith), I have done it, our first four rabbits have beens slaughtered, and dressed for the table!
The first concern now, is whether, finishing them on a mixture of pellets and pasture has proved worthwhile , ie:  they taste like rabbit and not chicken. (Chicken being a more efficient feed converter would make  more economic sense)..see future blog for our ark raised meat chickens.
I have given my good friend Bill, a connoisseur of wild bunnies, one of the aforementioned,and he will do an assessment.
The Giblets, ( heart, kidneys and liver) have been frozen to make, I hope, a gourmet rabbit pate'. The skins frozen, to be tanned and made into a magnificent patchwork quilt!  ( Don't hold your breath, but a blog will follow, if and when this occurs).
I do of course have breeding trios for sale. These are CSIRO, Growtec bred, and a hybrid of NZ white, Californian and Belgian Giants, hence the many colours of their coats.

Here at Crawlers Gully we have abandoned both the metric and imperial systems of volumetric  measurements. Instead we use the " Pineapple Juice Tin" system!
When asked by a family member how much chaff to feed an ailing animal, one could reply, - "Two lucerne, one oaten".
Confusing to visitors perhaps, but very practical.
We are able to offer the visitor to this site, the free use of the pineapple tin system, hoping it will become a part of your farm culture too!
Here  are the basics:    4 Jam tins = 1 Pineapple Juice tin.
                                3 Pineapple Juice tins = 1 Blue bucket
                                2 Blue Buckets = 1 white bucket.
Simple isn't it?

Yesterday we mustered the ewes and lambs, to sort up the last of the sale sheep for our Goulburn Sale on January 19. From a high point on the way out to muster I saw the sheep moving and mobbing strangely and realised they were being attacked by dogs. They had singled a ewe out and pulled her down. I think the quad bike then flew the rest of the distance to the rescue. It was two of the neighbours dogs, a sheep dog and one of the pig dog types, who had a head as big as a watermelon. We managed to catch them and Martin returned them to the neighbour (I suspect the better option would have been to destroy them but we didn't have the gun with us). The damage to sheep discovered so far - best stud ewe from 2010 with cuts to her side, a beautiful ewe lamb with a damaged head and a dead sheep belonging to the neighbour. I think we arrived at the beginning of the spree. Unfortunately, the wretched Llamas were in another paddock so they have now been moved to act as a deterrent, I don't know how good they are on foxes, but they sure don't like dogs. Here's hoping this is the first and last time we have trouble.