Christmas Wishes

To all our clients and readers of this blog Claremont White Dorpers wish you and your family a joyous and wonderful Christmas festive season. Please return in the new year safe and well

The puppies waiting for presents

Jessica and Alison have been super busy cooking up a storm. Here are some of Jessica's creations

 Mum Making Christmas breakfast

Dad and Kim enjoying the lovely weather

Kim did a great job hanging the lights

There is always something happening at Claremont

It was my Father's 83rd birthday on the 16th December so we decided to have a family party for him.

Here is the main meal  ready for roasting.

Cameron mowing the grass and making the garden look good.

My mother cleaning the out door tables and chairs

Enjoying the company waiting for the lamb to be cooked. Dad in the white t-shirt had a great day

Tara, Skye and Alison

Lamb cooked and ready to serve. We hired this oven and it was a great way to cook the lamb. All roasted perfectly in 3 hours

Enjoying a beautiful afternoon with the little ones.

Alison with Oliver, Travis and Peta. Izzy the dog is very interested.

The older cousins also enjoying the afternoon.

Oliver and Travis

Watched the cricket in the evening.

Peta playing ball with Izzy

Sunday morning these came to visit

Friends came to visit on the motor bikes

Wildlife

We have an abundance of native wildlife on the property from birds, Kangaroos, Echidnas, snakes and lizzards. I love the native animals. I like to put food out for the Kookaburras and Magpies every morning. I don't put out food for the parrotts because we get mobbed by the Sulphur Crested Cookatoos and they can be very distructive in the garden.

Eastern Rosella on an old milk pail in the shed yard

Galah in the trees

Jeff built this water feature as a birthday present. The birds love to bath in the plough disks

Echidna  in our our garden

Fire

A couple of years ago we had a pretty serious grass fire at Claremont. The cause of the fire was unsual and could have been catastrophic if, there was no one at home. However, Kim was  at home and on the telephone when heard a bang, the power went out and then saw some smoke. He raced out of the house to locate the smoke and found a fire near the power pole.  It was a windy and hot Summer day which meant that the fire started to spread fast. Kim ran to grab the  hose only to realise in the country area with not town water,  no power means no water. He called the Rural Fire Brigade luckily someone was close by and would be on site in a few minutes. Kim raced to the shed to get the water cart which had to be hooked up to the tractor. By the time all these preparations had taken place the fire had spread and was close to the house.


The water cart that Jeff built as a present for Kim's birthday

Things got pretty hairy until the fire trucks arrived. Local Yass councilman and almost neighbour arrived with a half filled fire fighting back pack. The water cart was emptied very quickly. Kim and Cecil Burgess worked up a real sweat beating the flames by hand. When the big guns arrived the fire was controlled quickly.

The fire was started by a Magpie shorting out the electricity transformer on the power pole and falling to the ground on fire. This drama really made us think about how under prepared we were for a fire. We did not have any fire fighting back packs near the house and the water cart was only half full. We learnt a few hard lessons that day.

This Magpie caused the fire

The fire got very close to the house and torched most of the wind break trees.

Almost ready to take off over the hill

The small bit of dry feed gone in minutes

Ovine Johnes Disease (OJD)

 What is OJD?

OJD is a wasting disease caused by the sheep strain of the bacterium Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.

OJD is a chronic infection of the bowel. This causes the lining of the bowel to thicken and reduces the absorption of food. Affected sheep show severe wasting. Chronic scouring may occur. Sheep will eat and drink normally until they are too weak to graze. Death is inevitable.
The average time from onset of illness to death is six weeks to three months.
The classic sign of the disease in a sheep flock is a distinct tail to the mob, comprising sheep in uncharacteristically poor condition.
Most sheep do not show signs of illness for a long time after infection. Many sheep infected with the bacteria may carry the bacteria in the gut and spread the disease without showing any obvious signs.

Merinos are more susceptible than crossbreds and British breed sheep. Goats, deer and other species can be infected to varying degrees. There is no cure for sheep with OJD.

OJD was found in Merino flocks in the Southern Tablelands in 1980 and it has proven to be a costly disease for primary producers. Entire floocks were infected and desimated by the disease. The disease spreads slowly and is difficult to detect early.

What is the treatment for OJD?

While there is no treatment for OJD, vaccination against this disease is proving to be highly effective at decreasing death rates of sheep, reducing the number of sheep shedding bacteria, and reducing the number of bacteria shed in the manure of those infected sheep that shed bacteria.

What we are doing to manage our flock! 




1.       All the sheep in our flock are vaccinated.

2.       We joined Sheep MAP. Market Assurance Program.

Joining Sheep MAP is costly and labour intensive but, we thought necessary to ensure our flock is disease free.  Thus we are able to give our clients official documentation about the status of the flock.

When you join Sheep MAP you do so with an approved veterinarian and both of you must keep meticulous records. All the sheep in the flock are inspected and tested by the vet in the first year. If the tests come back negative for the sheep you breathe a sigh of relief and become a monitored negative vaccinated flock, MN1V status. This status gives the animal in your flock 5 ABC points. When sheep are sold from our property we provide the client with a National Sheep Health Statement

http://www.farmbiosecurity.com.au/files/2011/05/National-Sheep-Health-Statement-printable-PDF.pdf

The program awards points for joining the program, testing and inspections these are displayed on the statement.

The vet will inspect your records in the second year. We must keep records of all sheep movements, fence inspections, vaccinations and have animal health statements for all animals introduced in that year.  Our sheep have been tested twice so we carry MN2V status.

This year the vet will inspect our records and the flock.  The vet will look for any thin sheep and if, the vet finds skinny sheep three of them will euthanized and autopsied. We have already inspected our flock and there are no sheep to be concerned about.   This is an example of our flock all in excellent condition.

Below is a map of where the disease has spread. We live in the Southern Tablelands so we are in a high prevalence area for OJD. The disease is monitored though abattoirs and this has shown an increased prevalence in Australia. There is a vaccination for OJD.  Gudair was developed by Pfizer and has proved to be very effective. The vaccination is expensive especially if you have large flocks at around $3 per shot.

More information is located here

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/health/specific/sheep/ojd

What are OJD Prevalence Areas?

OJD Prevalence Areas provide an indication of the percentage of flocks that are infected with OJD in a particular region of Australia.

Inspectors employed by Animal Health Australia work in selected abattoirs throughout Australia and examine sheep for signs of OJD as they are being processed. Sheep with signs consistent with OJD are sampled. These samples are sent to a veterinary laboratory and tested for OJD. The OJD Management Committee makes decisions on the boundaries of the various OJD Prevalence Areas based on the information collected by these inspectors.

There are three types of Prevalence Areas. These are:

1.  Low Prevalence Area:

It is estimated that less than 0.8% of flocks are infected with OJD

2.  Medium Prevalence Area:

It is estimated that between 0.8-12.5% of flocks are infected with OJD

3.  High Prevalence Area:

It is estimated that more than 12.5% of flocks are infected with OJD.

OJD Prevalence Areas indicate the risk of infection in a specific area. The risk that a specific mob of sheep is infected with OJD is indicated by its ABC score. The ABC score consists of points allocated to sheep based on: (1) their Prevalence Area, (2) whether they are vaccinated against OJD, (3) whether the sheep have been tested for OJD, and (4) low risk certification (for infected or suspected to be infected flocks only).

For more information about current OJD Prevalence Areas please click on the following link http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/notes/agg/animal-health/ag1156-assurance-based-credits-abc-scheme-and-the-sheep-health-statement

Stormy Weather

Last night a huge storm hit Claremont and the whole Southern Tablelands region. Three seperate storm cells passed over the property throughout the night, bringing with them lightening, hail, strong winds and lots of rain.

The power went out at about 5:30pm and didn’t come back until lunchtime the next day! When the power goes out at our place it means no water and no flushing toilets.

Luckily we have gas cooking so I was able to prepare dinner by candle light, very romantic. We also have a wind-up radio so that was the entertainment for the evening.

At 06:00 am the power was still not working so Kim hooked up the generator to the water pump so we could have a shower and flush the toilets. Although the power outage was a bit of a nusance we are very used to blackouts. This year there have been 3 outages where the power was out for more than 4 hours. Last year we had about 10 including one on Christmas day.

The rainfall for November has been well above average and will almost reach 200mil (6 inches) I think the average is about 60mil (2.5 inches).

These are some pictures taken by local residents of the storm.

Controlled Breeding the Graphic stuff

Be warned, there are some graphic medical type pictures in this post.



Kim and I are into the third week of our controlled breeding program. Being the third time around we are learning quickly, first lesson learnt Leroy the Ram has to be locked up. Last week when he was removed from the ewes after his five day orgy he was not happy! Leroy managed to jump out of the yards several times trying to get back to his girls. We really thought he was going to hurt himself.


Here is Leroy locked up for his own safety and ours. Don’t worry he was only locked up for a short time.

Saturday morning Kim mustered up the ewes, selected the next group to commence the program and brought the ewes from last week (that are almost ready to be with Leroy) to the yards. First, last week’s ewes need the CIDR’s removed and an injection of hormones is given to bring them into season together and ready for Leroy.

Firstly Kim checks the ear tag numbers to ensure he has the correct girls to have their CIDRs removed. When breeding stud sheep good records are vital and even more important to have meticulous records in a controlled breeding program.

The ewes that need to have the CIDR's removed and the hormone injection are first. These lovely looking ewes will need to wait.

Kim removing the CIDR from the ewe. You can see a small plastic tag hanging from the ewe.

Me preparing the hormone injection and Kim patiently waiting!

Kim injects the ewe in the muscle at the base of the neck.

The ewes are then sprayed with paint on the head so she is easy to pick out on Monday when she ready to be with Leroy for five days.

Now it is time for the second group of ewes to have the CIDR’s inserted. Here I am preparing the CIDR for insertion. You need to cut off the small plastic ball on the end of the removal tail. We do this just in case the sheep scratches their behind and the ball can get caught on a twig or something and be pulled out.

CIDR in placed in a special applicator.

lubricant is applied to the tip of the CIDR

Kim has to clean the backend of the ewe with an antiseptic swab to ensure there is no chance of infection.

Inserting the CIDR

Head sprayed then out you go. We always check the ear tags of the sheep before anything is done to them. The spray just makes it easier to see which sheep is which when drafting the sheep through the race.