As I've already "blogged" today ..there's not heaps of new stuff but I was cruising around with the camera. The weather was warmer, the girls were using the shed as a shade house, so there's a few of the fat belly lovelies hanging inside.
It's heaps easier on Old Goatie now the goats are shorn ...another lovelie kidded today, and I didn't have to do anything ..no rolling the goat over & trimming around the udder ..no hassle trying to get the kid to find the teat.
Kidding in full fleece is not the ideal situation ..and definitely not what I had planned. Getting shearers to shear goats is a big problem, for some reason shearers just hate goats. Anyway, the reason why my last two kiddings have happened before shearing is thus ..the local guys who used to do my goats found other things to do & no longer shear. I wasn't told of their plans until we were due to shear. Then it took another 6 weeks to get another team of shearers out here, having a major flood event in early March also delayed shearing. Summer shearing took place in early April. Winter shearing was put back to early October, again due to rain & the sheepy people wanting to shear sheeps in September. Goats didn't get crutched last year, so it was less than fun ..7 inches of pee stained mohair plus birthing gunk which had to be cut away with hand shears. Me poor old hands never quite recovered from that.
This year, the goats did get crutched about 6 weeks before kidding started and the mohair was not quite so long ...but too long for kids to find teats. I found a nifty pair of scissors which worked heaps better than the dagging shears ..they have kept there edge ..but then we weren't cutting long super wet shitty mohair.
It's not feasible to try & change the kidding time to fit these new shearing dates. Lots to consider ...and the weather isn't a major factor given the Antartic blast we copped this week, although it does dictate other things. If I leave it too late in Spring to kid we run into hot weather ..that's blowfly time. We have a very pretty green fly we call the Luci Fly ..pretty but deadly. It lays it's eggs onto anything damp, and eggs mean maggots which eat into the flesh. Horrific stuff!!
Then there is the feed situation. This area is a winter cropping area, we harvest late November/early December ...so by end of October feed is starting to dry off, weeds are setting seed ..and all that stuff.
I am going to have to bite the bullet and get the shearing done earlier which will mean at least one clip will be short. Don't like doing that because short mohair is not worth a lot ..but we run a commercial operation. The other problem we run into with the later shearing is getting the mohair to sale. I ship the mohair directly to South Africa with several other growers, and missing the boat means mohair is sitting in the shearing shed for 5 months ..a less than ideal situation. Can't change the shipping date because the mohair has to get to South Africa in the current season ..so our summer clip has to be in South Africa before the end of the summer selling season ..makes sense ..I reckon.
Well, that's the mohair rambling done & dusted.
Now an update on the Lovelies! The little doe that I put under the heat lamp has made it. She is sitting on her ownsome & then as you can see ..she is up having a drink. The kiddie count is now 150 ..about 100 more than I wanted ..but that will be another story for another day. The goats have been enjoying the sunshine, so all is not too bad at this point in time.
And just in case you are wondering - the green mark on head ..means they were pulled out of the big mobat shearing 'cause they were close to kidding.
The Bloke is back from his evening outing, poddy bottles are being prepared as I type,
Tomorrow I'll be over in the shearing shed.. have a few big orders to sort & some mohair to wash and samples to send.
So it's night all, catch ya later ..Old Goatie
No comments:
Post a Comment