The 2012 Lambs are here!

We started lambing about three weeks ago and the Border Leicesters are about three quarters done. Plenty of twins and some triplets will make for a busy lamb marking day next week. We expect to have over 125 lambs to mark so it has been a good season. Purple tags this year, green last and orange the year before - I'll post the sequence at a later date.

The Merinos started early last week and so by end September we can mark the first cross lambs. Don't have a photo (yet) but there is one lamb with a black saddle - very unusual and very cute!

Shepherds from the Landes region of France

The region of the Landes is an immense plain situated in south-west France delimited by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, by the banks of the Adour to the South and by the ones of the Garonne to the north-east. Today it shelters the largest forest in Europe, constituted essentially of pine trees planted in the middle of the 19th century on Napoleon III’s initiative or decree.

The department of Les Landes, the second largest department in France, with an area of about a million hectares, was created in 1790 by uniting administratively a mosaic of fourteen small local pays.

The low population in Les Landes, about 300,000 people, has not changed much for the last 150 years and before becoming the greatest area of forest in France during the nineteenth century, this infertile land of moving sandy ground, becoming marshland in winter when the rivers swelled and flooded,  truly merited the name of moor - la lande in French. It was known as the French Sahara. It attracted neither immigration, nor commercial traffic. There were various experiments to control the sogginess of this desolate region, together with agricultural experiments - rice, mulberry trees, tobacco, peanuts - which all failed.

My interest (as always) though is with the shepherds who had a unique way of moving around the region with their flocks. There were few ways to earn a living in this unhealthy, temperate desert, keeping flocks of sheep being a major occupation. In 1850, there were 1 million sheep; by 1862, there were 527,000, and by 1890 this had reduced to 295,000 as forest replaced the frugal moor pastures. The land was so poor that it would only support one animal per hectare. Thus, the shepherds and their flocks roamed widely over the area, moving up to 20 kms a day over communal moorlands to find sufficient grazing for the flock. At night, the sheep were penned in a sheepfold, which ensured that the animals’ manure was not dispersed unnecessarily. The manure was the main crop from the sheep, being used on the fields. The output of twenty to thirty sheep was required to adequately fertilise one hectare of the the poor, acid Landais soil.

• 1 kilogram of rye bread fed an adult, a family of eight to ten people would eat 4,000 kg rye bread a year.
• 3,200 kg flour are needed to make 4,000 kg bread.
• 4,000 kg rye grains are ground to make 3,200 kg flour.
• 4 hectares of land are needed to produce 4,000 kg rye grains.
• 60 tons of manure are needed to fertilise 4 hectares of land.
• 100 sheep will produce 60 tons of fertiliser.
• 100 hectares of moorland provide food for 100 sheep.

Stilts first appeared well before the forest, when Les Landes was an immense marshy country with the vegetation primarily consisting of grass and undergrowth. Principally, it was shepherds who lived in this landscape. The shepherds had several reasons for using stilts in order to more easily make a path through the vegetation when the shepherds travelled the long daily distances required by their sheep-tending to avoid wetting their feet in the marshes but their main use was to be able to supervise their flocks of sheep from afar.

The first records of stilts in Les Landes date from the beginning of the 18th century. However, it is not known whether using stilts was invented locally by the shepherds, or whether they were an import, say from the Flemish region of Belgium, where stilts had been used since the Middle Ages.

Landais stilts were made from two pieces of wood:

• the escasse (“leg” in landais patois) from where comes the modern French name for stilts: l’échasse; and
• the pé paouse (“foot rest” in landais patois), which is fixed on the escasse, generally giving a stilt height ranging between 90 cm and 1 m 20.

The stilt user attaches the stilt to his (or her) leg with two leather thin straps.

The use of stilts by the shepherds for work purposes disappeared gradually between the middle of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century with the establishment of the forest, which drained the marshes and eliminated the pastures, and thus the sheep and their shepherds on stilts.Today none of the original marshy Landes remains.

Salvador Dali Ted

The farm dogs are working dogs and an enormous help....except in the shearing shed when they are a nuisance unless chained up. Blue is pretty good overall, Jess sleeps in the fleeces (she is almost 12 years old) and Ted.....well Ted just likes impersonating Salvador Dali whenever he can!!

Lick Feeder and ELMS Blocks

In an effort to get the flock rams in top condition for sale later this year (November 12th) we are supplementary feeding this year. We have posted news about the Bromar lick feeder previously but we are also using Elders Livestock Management Solution (ELMS)  lick feed blocks. The blocks provide a mineral supplement for the sheep.

"As green feed can contain a poor balance of nutrients critical to maintaining optimum health and productivity it can significantly reduce an animal’s ability to efficiently convert the available feed into meat, milk or wool. It may also contribute to metabolic conditions such as grass Tetany and substantially reduce an animals natural ability to resist infections including parasites."

The ELMS block contains  "an appropriate combination and level of the nutrients required by sheep and cattle to perform at their peak whilst grazing green pastures and fodder crops
including high levels crushed grains, carbohydrates, and bypass protein and a specially prepared blend of both normal and high availability forms of vitamins and mineral."
They are designed to stimulate the rumen to allow animals to deliver higher levels of feed efficiency. 

Let's hope the extra cost and work is repaid in November!

Weed alert

It's that time of year again to try and eradicate serrated tussock (Nassella trichtoma) from the property. It's an almost impossible task as not everyone in the area is as vigilant despite it being listed under the Noxious Weeds Act 1993. So it continues to be a major environmental concern in the Southern Tablelands.

Now is when they are easiest to identify and kill before they can set seed in November. We use a combination of herbicidal spot spraying and, an old favourite, the mattock. We always carry a mattock on the quad bike when we inspect the sheep and a couple of big hits is all it takes to physically remove the plant.

Mostly we are winning but we also have all four thistle species, some blackberry (under control) and plaenty of horehound. The latter used to used in brewing a non alcoholic and bitter 'root' beer. Don't care fort the taste myself but some of the beer labels were fabulous.

The Devil's Rope

After some more research I have discovered that there are not only barbed wire collectors but also barbed wire museums in the USA.  Apparently there are collectors living all around the world and seeking new designs to add to their collections. There are swap meets where collectors bring lengths, minimum of 45cms, of barbed wire fence to trade and even books and magazines devoted to the infernal wire of which there are over 500 different variations.

Barbed wire is often incorporated into 'art' projects - the light above is from the store Mulbury in Fitzroy, Victoria. It has been made into picture frames, crosses, wreaths, sculptures, license plate frames, mirrors, key chains, and jewellery to name a few. The barbs, spurs, stars, plates, points, and other sharp protrusions found on the varieties of barbed wire are decorative and extremely varied. So maybe I should start to take a second look at all the odd pieces of wire that seem to accumulate around the place.

Shine by Three fashion Shoot

Well it's not every day that the farm gets to be the backdrop for a fashion shoot but recently glamorous fashion blogger Margaret Zhang (http://fellt.com/shinebythree/2012/07?page=2) visited and took some amazing photos around the place. She even tried to disguise herself as a sheep in this woolen number. Luckily she was not mistakenly sheared!