Karoonda Farm Fair proved to be a good opportunity to showcase our sheep and promote the attributes and benefits of the Dohne breed. We also caught up with a number of our clients from the area.
We took 3 ewe lambs and a grown ram for display. The ewe lambs were only taken out of their mob of about 400 the day beforehand. They settled fantastically, to the point where we would allow and even encourage small children to touch them. The effort that we have put in to our sheep to genetically select for quietness was clearly evident.
Lambs from natural matings began to arrive from the beginning of April and we had used 7 young rams for the first time. This included the Mt Alma ram that we bought last Spring. It is good to see these lambs in their Sire groups, and watch for type and similarities. Of course, uniformity and consistency are also valuable, as long as productivity is high.
We had acquired some semen from two Proven Sires and used this and also some from our own rams as link sires. The resultant lambs by AI arrived in the middle of time that those lambs from natural mating were born.
Rain before ANZAC Day is always good to set the growing season off to an early start while the soil and air temperatures are still warm.