G'day, Allooo and See yoooo Jimmi!

[Millymollymandy]

What site, what site????? spill the beans!

Hello Floot - looked at the beautiful piccies on your website. Your town looks a bit posh. I've been to the Gulf of Carpentaria (can't remember name of town offhand) and it most definiately wasn't posh there!

[Muddypause]

Hello Floot, and Boots (did I say hello Boots already? - can't remember)

I once dared to suggest that the Good Life avatars could be dispensed with in this thread, but it wasn't a popular idea. You can upload your own, but to stop being Margo you just have to post more. When you become Felicity Kendal (Barbara) you'l find that men of a certain age take more interest in you; you'll have to post your way through that, too.

[gunners71uk]

hi boots nice pic happy new year bushwacker lol

[floot]

*straps on stilletto heels and strides off into the cowshit!!*

TY folks.. I will get over the female avatar.

On the Good Life, it was on TV here in Australia in the 80s and wife and I loved it. It should be re-run as a lesson to people about the pitfalls and fun off self-sufficiency.

Nice forum, nice welcomes milly, muddy, boots & gunners..

cheers

[Boots]

Your toe first Floot.... Put your toe down first, then the heel!!!!

Oh for crying out loud, ya gettin ya skirts all crappy!

Walk properly, son!

[ina]

Kind of a side shoot question here, Ina...

Your sheep...well, sheep/animals in the UK... are they all farmed with indoor access then? Big sheds? Could they live a year over there without human assistance when the snow comes or do they actually need access to sheds to get through?

I never considered this before, as I am just used to seeing animals on pasture. When there is no pasture and it is all snowy, what do they do? Does it mean handfeeding inside? And if so, for how long?

Depends on the breed, really. We've got mostly hardy hill sheep here (Scottish blackface and some crosses), they are basically ok outside all year round, but if we want them to actually all survive and produce offspring, they need extra feeding in winter. They get hay when the fields are covered with snow, and possibly cake (ewe nuts, sheep pellets...) nearer to lambing time, too. Most of them are brought inside for lambing - a) that makes it lot more pleasant for those of us lumbered with the job, and b) the survival rates for the lambs are much higher. Newborn lambs are a bit sensitive to wet and cold. (Lambing is in spring, i.e. March to May - saying that, some farmers start as early as now, to make use of the better markets for lambs off-season.)

If you have a breed that's really not used to these conditions, you might have to keep them in a shed all winter. My friend breeds Merinos - they cope better with the Australian climate than with ours!

The cows have also been brought in for the winter - partly because of lack of food out there, partly because they can trample the ground to slush with their big feet (it's rather wet and would take ages to recover), and partly because they will start calving soon - and then the same applies as for the sheep.

We also have deer on this farm; only the youngsters (born last spring) are in over winter. The hinds and stags stay out all year and calve outside, too. They much prefer to be left alone with that, anyway - I felt quite privileged to be "allowed" to watch one calving last year!

I spent 8 months on a dairy farm in Australia ages ago. Took some getting used to - making hay at Christmas time, and feeding not in winter, like we do, but in summer, because nothing grew due to lack of rain! And, of course, hardly any sheds; just for the newborn calves that we kept as replacements.

Ina

PS: Your mate floot sounds a really handsome guy...

[Boots]

Yes, am sure he is really one of our chiselled and rugged Aussie stereotypes... he's just being humble.

So you must have some BIG sheds over there then... I cannot for the life of me imagine cattle in a shed. How on earth do you hand feed cows for months? Far out. Just supplementing them here through the dry, means mammoth amounts of hay.

And deer? Wow. What is it like to keep deer then? They don't sound very friendly. Are they a curious animal or skitty? They are beautiful, but I don't think I have ever seen a picture of someone with a deer. So maybe they don't like people much? Do they tame down and handle ok?

...We do have them here, there is a deer park down south that hosts a bike rally each year, and I have been there many times, but I have NEVER seen a deer there. Just figured the owner put them away, so the bikes wouldn't disturb them or something... but maybe they ran away to hide...?

[Wombat]

G'Day Boots & Floot!

Nice to see a few more Aussies here. Sorry I didn't give you a bit more detail in the PM Floot, but I was in a public library in Massmechelen, Belgium and time was strictly rationed! I'm home now though!

Nev

[ina]

Yes, am sure he is really one of our chiselled and rugged Aussie stereotypes... he's just being humble.

So you must have some BIG sheds over there then... I cannot for the life of me imagine cattle in a shed. How on earth do you hand feed cows for months? Far out. Just supplementing them here through the dry, means mammoth amounts of hay.

And deer? Wow. What is it like to keep deer then? They don't sound very friendly. Are they a curious animal or skitty? They are beautiful, but I don't think I have ever seen a picture of someone with a deer. So maybe they don't like people much? Do they tame down and handle ok?

...We do have them here, there is a deer park down south that hosts a bike rally each year, and I have been there many times, but I have NEVER seen a deer there. Just figured the owner put them away, so the bikes wouldn't disturb them or something... but maybe they ran away to hide...?

Sorry, I missed your post - I think this site doesn't always tell me the truth when I ask for the new posts since last time!

Anway: Yes, we do a lot of feeding... Although most of that is done by machines nowadays. When I did my apprenticeship and worked on an old-fashioned dairyfarm (about 70 cows), it took two of us more or less all day in winter to feed the silage. One wheelbarrow load for each 4 cows, twice a day - I still remember that well! Couldn't get into the shed with a tractor. Here they have a machine that takes blocks of silage and throws it out, nicely loosened up and positioned, along the gates, so you just might have to go along later and push it up a bit for the animals to reach it all.

The sheep (and some goats) that I look after get hay and "cake" (concentrate). The sheep sheds still involve a lot of manual labour; so does the deer shed. Lifting all that hay into the hecks builds up muscle - I can save on fees for the gym! Bedding is another factor in winter: again, the new sheds can be done by machine (that thing takes a huge Hesston bale, chops it and blows it out into all the corners of the shed. Needless to say, not MY shed - I do that by hand, too!) So housing, winter feed, feeding time and machinery, plus bedding material is an enormous cost factor in our climate. Which is why meat and dairy products can be produced so much cheaper on your side of the world!

Deer are quite shy and flighty, but if handled regularly (and ours are, for dosing, weighing, tagging etc), they can become friendly, too. This morning we sent a load of stags off (to be turned into prime venison ), and most of them came up to me and sniffed my hand. They are lovely animals. Even the driver said they were easier to get onto the truck than most cattle! They are a bit more difficult to gather, as they have a lot of space to roam in, and you can't work them with dogs; but ours are used to coming in for feed - so just take a feedbag along, and you are halfway there!

Ina

[shiney]

Goodness, just found this post and welcome to Boots and Floot!


Better late than never.