August 23rd 2011

August 23rd 2011

The wonderful rain continues and the feed is in abundance and all our sheep are happy and fat.
Great to see after a couple of dry years, so no complaints in that area.

I managed to make it to the 3 sheep trial at Mayanup although due to the wet weather we only finished the crutching the day before, with the dogs still in farm work mode.

I needn't have bothered really as like many people I did not do very well. Results here.
Anyway it is always a good social event, and quite entertaining really, watching sheep split and scatter in all directions, although not so nice when they are your own sheep.

On the farm we are getting ready for lambmarking.
We actually have a lot more lambs than we anticipated, thanks to a neighbours ram or rams jumping the fence.
Not just a few either, about 300 more. So it was a bit of a nuisance trying to crutch the so called dry ewes when there were lambs everywhere. So in the end we left behind most of the mothers with babies and just crutched the rest.
When we get them in for jetting we will then have to mark the lambs. That wont be easy either as some lambs are still being born and some are over 2 months old and will be a fair size. Oh well.

So no trials for a while until we finish with the lambs. The next trial will be the Supreme Championship event at Dowerin, where we will be able to check out some of the eastern states competitors.
Should be a great event. I have only entered Caleb and Leena in the Novice and improver. I dont think they are good enough for the championship event. Balto is still not quite ready although he is at last shaping up ok.
I will mainly enjoy watching and learning. It is a week long event so hopefully I can wangle enough time off away from home.

On Thursday the 18th of August an inaugural Working Dog Auction was held at Katanning in conjunction with the Katanning Ram Sale and Show.
The event took a lot of organising and was run jointly by members of the WAWSDA and the Great Southern Merino sheepbreeders Association.
It turned out to be a huge success with the top price of $5900 going for a Kelpie from Nigel Armstrong’s Yarralonga stud. Just Otto’s brothers also sold for good prices as did Karen Bullers dog Kumbark Anzac who is by Andron Jake out of my Rio. Full details here.

And I succumbed to temptation and bought a cute Border Collie pup, in a moment of madness.
He is a lovely boy though, very soft and very friendly. Video of him on this site, working.
I don’t really need another dog but these things happen, sigh!

Otto has started working. See also a video of him on this site.
He is a fairly full on barking puppy with the other dogs and in his pen, but on sheep he is surprisingly calm, strong eyed and a bit sticky. A little too intense really but hopefully he will loosen up with training.

Ginger is coming along very well but also tends to be a bit sticky, and this will probably be an issue when casting so at the moment I am working on getting really good sides on him so I can always kick him on. He is a nice dog to work though, not too soft but seems trainable.

Scarlett is growing into a lovely little girs but a bit too small to look at sheep yet, another month or so perhaps.

Rio is here on holiday, she was sold some time ago but is back while her owners take a break . It is great to have her actually, and she will be quite useful during lambmarking, as is a great dog on ewes and lambs.

After the supreme only 2 trials left for me. I will miss the State Champs at Esperence is just too far to travel, and that leaves Albany and Margaret River. So depending on Farm work I hope to get to both of them.
We will see.