We had our stud flock ewes pregnancy tested two weeks ago by local contractor Steve, a good man with a very sharp sense of humour. I guess when you spend a fair part of your working life inside a makeshift tent and with an ultrasound on a ewe's belly you develop a sense of the absurd.
The good news is that we have about 230 lambs in utero from 150 ewes making a lambing percentage of over 150%. So the rams Hermes, Osiris and Vulcan have been doing their job. Indeed Vulcan is getting a reward and has been at Logancrest serving some Poll Dorset ewes too. We have 95 ewes with multiple lambs which I thought was a high percentage but Steve told us it is the same at almost every stud in the region. It will be an interesting sale year in 2011. Only 12 dry ewes and those that are more than two years old are off to Southern Meats and the 'maiden' ewes will get one more chance next year. Fingers crossed for an easy lambing season which may start as early as mid July.
Elsewhere the 60 flock rams to be sold in November this year are doing well, particularly the few that we did not shear as a small test group. We wont shear them in January next year but leave the wool on until August or September. The 40 ewes we had not sold are doing well and will join the stud flock later in the year and the 200 first cross ewes are all the better for a drenching and being on the new turnip and clover crop.
It has been wet (luckily) and very cold (not so pleasant) so we have been chopping wood, fencing and getting the new water tank set up so that we can begin to irrigate the house paddock and plant out the orchard, olive grove and a very small vineyard. All in all it is progressing realy well and ahead of schedule.....more on that soon.
Cheers!
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