First blog

Welcome to my first entry, let me start by telling you a little about myself.

My name is Lia, I'm a born and bred city girl, well I was until my husband had the genius idea of reliving his childhood and purchased a farm.

That farm is what we now know as Claremont and we have been here over seven years, I couldn't imagine my life any other way... even though some days I do get a little over the mundane tasks!

We started "Claremont" on the whim of a fantasy farm idea. We had idyllic dreams of rolling hills and hot breakfasts. However most days, before the house was built, were met with cold blustering winds and all of us huddled around a makeshift camp site. The weather was so miserable and the wind so bad that my parents decided against building a house with us! (I'm sure they regret that idea now)

We looked at several options of what to run on the farm, we toyed with the idea of Lowline cattle and various other small breeds (even falabella ponies at one stage!) but finally settled on the White Dorper. Our reasoning for choosing this breed were its low maintenance characteristics, which were perfect for the weekend farmers we were at the time. Dorpers require no shearing, crutching or mulesing, they are excellent mothers, hardy and fast maturing. My husband Kim eventually retired and manages the majority of the farm workload on his own whilst I am at work. I find myself fantasizing about the days that I will be able to spend on the farm with him, without the worries of work and the weekend ending.

Claremont White Dorpers started with a relatively small ET program with the aim of getting good genetics to start our bloodline. We have since invested in animals from several different studs being careful to pick out features of animals to better our existing stock. We have recently had the honour of importing embryo's from world champion stock, a little more about them is below, and I can't help but be a little proud! 

This is one of our ET Ram lambs by the world champion Ram "Mr Bond". This is the last of his genetics available. We will have semen straws available in the coming months. We are very hopeful that this Ram will be shown at the Sydney Royal Show 2012

 This little man has been a little unwell from all the rough housing boys do but is definately on the mend now and starting to fill out to be a nice looking boy!

And lastly another shot of two of the boys. 

Until we blog again!

Lia