Back on the farm in York
Seems farm life appeals to us because we have spent another month on our friends’ farm in York and are surrounded by sheep, sheep and more sheep.
After our arrival and a few days handover we were left in charge of the herd of dorpa sheep including daily feeding of three small lambs – Ray, Pru and Little.
Some might find it hard to believe we can be trusted to look after a farm. Yes, we have asked ourselves that question too. However, John and Sue are very trusting and apparently we are trustworthy. I guess our ‘happy to give anything a go’ attitude helps too.
Farm chores
Our daily chores included;
Bottle feeding the lambs each morning – yes that’s a thing and it takes place just after sunrise because the little beasts are hungry and loud. Dressed in appropriate farm attire we let the lambs out of their overnight abode aka the shed and proceed to be harassed until we feed them. Said food or milk comes in recycled beer bottles with a lamb-proof teet – very clever of Sue.
Aaaa-choo farm chore
Laying out hay from the back of the ute – this may sound like a straight forward task however while bouncing over ruts and uneven ground Steve found out the hard way that said hay gets everywhere. Said hay also flared Steve’s hay-fever, literally.
IMAGE CAPTION: After feeding Pru, Ray and Little would perch themselves in front of the caravan – so cute.
Check out my new boots covered in milk!!
Missy with one of her mouse-catches.
Our fix was to swap jobs and that worked a lot better. I thoroughly enjoyed breaking up the bales of hay in to biscuits and throwing them to the hungry sheep. No matter how much food we feed them it’s like they had never eaten before. They push and shove each other around.
Ice cream for sheep
Dispersing pellets every other day – like the hay, the sheep love pellets. John described it as like ice cream for them. Packed full of goodness the sheep bolt toward us when we enter the paddock carrying buckets in the back of the ute. We move as quickly as we can to pick a spot for dispersal and run out four lines in a big X shape with the ute in the middle. We have to move quickly because the sheep will bowl us over trying to get to the pellets if we aren’t careful. They vacuum them up in no time and come crowding around for more. Some of the big gals even put their front legs on the ute tray to look for more – crazy and not so smart.
Farm jobs
As well as looking after the sheep we also had a list of jobs to do… at our leisure of course.
We could have sat around and done none of these and John and Sue would have been okay with that.
A farm job/challenge for Steve
The first job or perhaps I should call it a challenge was to construct a hutch or house for the growing lambs in order to get them out of the shed.
The reason a hutch is needed is because there are foxes in the area that will very rudely attack lambs and sheep for that matter. So, the hutch design needed to be secure on all sides and the top as well as be able to withstand a fox digging underneath it.
Steve walked the farm a bunch of times looking at what he could use to make the hutch. He settled on a cage John had built to fit on his ute to transport sheep. He re-purposed the cage, sitting it on top of spare aluminium fencing sheets that he joined together. I helped too of course. We added a roof and walaa ‘The Taj’ was complete!
Learning a new skill
The next job was all mine and involved learning a new skill – yay! John taught me how to use a chainsaw…grunt, grunt, grunt.
After a thorough safety briefing and demonstration John and I headed out in to the paddock to make quick work of a fallen tree. Well, let me tell you it’s frickin hard work and despite the amount of branches and logs we cut up the hour or so we spent chainsawing, it didn’t look like we touch the sides. Nonetheless we hauled the logs back to the wood stack and over the next week I worked my way through the pile, cutting up the branches in to fire wood appropriates sizes.
No fun for sheep
A highlight and challenging farm job was helping out with the lamb vaccination, tail and ball-banding process. Gosh what a full, tough and satisfying day that was. Firstly we had to herd all the sheep in to the yard. Then run them through the race to separate the rams from the ewes to make it easier to get to the lambs that needed catching. To catch the lambs we literally picked them up and lay them on a cradle and secure their legs.
Then we had to hold down their heads so Sue could administer the vaccine and John could put a band around their tails and for the boys, their balls <insert ouchy emoji>.Yes it sounds horrid however the alternative is often rear ends that get fly blown, which can kill a sheep. Also, you can only have so many ‘working’ rams in the herd without fights. So, seeing the lambs – mainly the boys with a band around their balls – writhe around in pain for a few hours created mixed emotions for sure. By the time we left the farm tails – and balls – were just starting to fall off.
One thing I have learnt while working on this and Wilga farm is that animal nature is harsh. The rams a relentless in their pursuit of female sheep on heat, the mummas with lambs are fiercely protective of their babies until they can’t support them and then dump them to either die or be adopted by Sue and John. All the sheep are bullies when it comes to food and will head butt lambs, other sheep and even me!!! out of the way.
Missy back in paradise
Our little princess loved being back on the farm. She even got used to the baby sheep who had no boundaries and would come right up to her despite her arching up and hissing at them.
She quickly retrained Stormy to keep his distance – such a beautiful boy – and she wandered further away from the caravan each day. I was surprised to see her following me down to the paddock one morning. So cute.
We always enjoy our time with Sue and John and looking forward to being back again soon.