Bond- Bewaldeth Bond..

Our Poll Hereford heifers this year have had an unprecidented number of still born calves due in most part to the size of the calves. Its all well and good for breeders to be pushing their breeds to produce a larger beast but if the cattle cant naturally birth them without difficulty then its really not sustainable.

So we have decided to use a smaller bull breed over our existing Poll Hereford cows and heifers. Enter Bond, Bewaldeth Bond. A Belted Galloway, currently classed as a rare breed in Australia and a slower growing animal with a natrually lower birth weight which produces a carcus that has won many awards. Belted Galloways are a very good grazing breed that produce more weight per kilo of grass than most other breeds and they tend to feed on more types of grass than other breeds and thus are good at weed reduction.

We are leasing Bond from one of the leading Galloway studs in Australia and we dropped him off with thie girls this afternoon. After a tiring trip Bond was more interested in grazing than hitting on the lasses. The lassess on the other hand were sizing up the new Lad on the block!

The progeny of a Belted Galloway Poll Hereford Cross will be a black cow with a white stripe with a white face.

New Van Signage

I picked up the van from the signwriter in Ballarat on Friday and felt like driving the hour and a half trip home at 60kms an hour so to get as many people looking at the sign as I could. I then decided that this would probably annoy more people than it would impress. What we are not sure about is whether we are allow the text on the caution turning signage on the back??? I guess we'll find out in time.

Adorabelle is a mum

One of our newest addition to the Wessex clan at Greenvale was Adorabelle which we purchased from Fernleigh farms along with a young unrelated male called Dominator. Adorabelle fell pregnant earlier than I had planned to Dominator and also farrowed earlier than I had plan as such it was a rush last night to set up new accomodation for the impending farrowing. I was so impressed with the accomodation I felt like moving in myself. A snug hut made of large bales overlooking the hopkins river.
This morning I ventured out to find 7 healthy little piglets and 2 not so healthy. A very good breeding litter which was made up of 6 females and 1 male.

Our guest watched the less than 12 hour old piglets as they fed on mum.

Sometimes its best to work with Nature

Ive been trying to incubate some eggs in a small incubator while at the same time put some surplus eggs under a broody chicken. While the chicken didnt hatch them all it certainly hatched 100% more than the incubator. I only managed on Naked Neck Chick out of the incubator and 2 from under the chicken.

And the Winner is Greenvale Meats

Friday night was kind of like the Oscars but not really. They loosened the Black Tie requirement and allowed suits. It was the Powercor Grampians Pyrenees Business Achievement Awards for which we had nominated for a number of categories. There were about 300 people in attendance at the Ararat town hall all on round tables of 10. Various awards were presented through the night. We were half listening to the Outstanding Primary Production category being announced when we heard the winner was Greenvale Meats and a big spotlight shone upon the table. For each award there is a recorded description of the business and various photographs are shown on the big screen. I cant actually remember anything that was said as we were in a bit of shock. We both got up on stage and Amanda made the speach. Nothing planed just off the cuff. These awards are every two years so in two years time we'll be shooting for Outstanding Business Enterprise.

Princes' Trip to the dentist

Prince, our 3 year old Wessex Saddleback boar weighing in at over 300kg needed to have a bit of a teeth trim. We do this for a couple of reasons, although he is a gentle giant accidents can happen to either his handlers or his girlfriends and his tusks are razor sharp and about 1.5 inches long.
Pigs can be immobilsed by slipping a noose around the top of their nose and although he complains this doesnt actually hurt. We have put him in a cattle crush due to the sheer size of him as if he did decide to protest we didnt want to be on the other end of that.
His teeth are cut using emery wire which is a course wire that cuts as its pull back and forth against the tooth.
Unfortunately we didnt have any lolly pops left after his procedure so he had to settle for some more crushed grain.

Bogged again

This rain has been fantastic and Id like to say we have had enough of it but who knows when its going to come again in this ever changing climate. So we battle on through what ever is thrown at us. Today it was a day of getting vehicles bogged. I crossed a little dam overflow gully this afternoon, one which I had crossed many times before over the past few days. Today however the gully wasnt going to let me out of its clutches. So with the ute bogged to the axles I fetched then stupidly tried to drive it through the same gully next to the ute.

The tractor was obviously going to take another tractor help out however we, with much effort, jacked up the ute and managed to get some solid objects under the wheels that enabled the ute to be back out and towed to safe ground.