It's happened!

The state of the dam.

The front dam is a puddle. The extreme heat of January and the other hot days have reduce it to basically nothing. 2018's winter was dry and this dam never fully filled. To combat this my nephew has put a 1000 litre container on the ute so we can fill a trough that we've placed near this dam. The sheep quickly found the trough so each morning I drive out and fill it for that day. Actually everything appreciates the clean water, magpies, galahs and sulphur crested cockatoos. 

RIP Clover.

This week one of our original lambs died, he must have been 15 or 16 years old. He died at the dam and it seems to have been quick. In the photo above he's the regal looking sheep standing behind the front woolly one. He'd been looking thin and unwell for a few weeks so we didn't expect him to see out the summer. It's still sad though when it happens. Our first Wiltipol ram came with a hotch potch group of six sheep. That spring there was no way these could eat all the grass that was growing, so our neighbour agisted a flock of Border Leicester crosses on our property. We'd just had our first lamb. We knew it was a ewe as Gyp had chased her till she dropped to the ground and refused to move. I had to carry this heavy lamb back to the others! When the time came to remove their flock our ewe lamb was swept away with the neighbours and this Border Leicester boy lamb was left with ours. It took quite awhile before we realized this and by then it was to late. We named him Clover. Clover was useful as he loved going up ramps which helped load sheep onto trailers when they needed shearing. He always produced a think fleece. Clover was never any bother and loved his food. He'll be missed. We have only one remaining ewe from those first lambs, Blackie and so far she seems reasonably well.

Summer

The extreme hot weather isn't good for the older sheep. Luckily we only had one of the oldies die over this time. We found her resting behind an old stump. We had gathered the few oldies so we could give them extra food and keep an eye on them. Unfortunately we couldn't see her due to the stump. It's always sad when we find them but as part of the new bio-security plan we have to move the body.