The latest experiment in the WGW saga is adopting lambs, rather than breeding them. While this may sound not just radical, but counterproductive, given my strong emphasis on leaving babies with their mothers to learn how to manage in the environment, I’m at least reasonably sure it’s not.
First, the flock has now proven they are “locally adapted”, meaning that all the tutoring I’ve done as shepherd for the last six years has resulted in sheep who are connected intimately to their environment and are fully capable of knowing and finding what they need to eat. So the adopted babies are coming into a flock that can teach them the ropes.
Second, while mamas are undoubtedly the best teachers of babies, there is a lot of “peer” learning that goes on, just as with school children, so even if it takes a bit longer, the adopted babies will have lots of role models not much older than they are. And hopefully the newbies will also share what they are learning as individuals with each other.
Why am I going down this path? The main reason is that I’m getting to the age—I’m 68—where the hard physical work of lambing is the one endeavour that is most limiting for me in terms of continuing to farm for the next 20 years or so. Because I only need a handful of lambs each year to replace sheep that have reached the end of their natural lives, hiring someone to do this for me is not financially viable.
So, I’ve been working with my friends Carol and Allan Phillips from Glen Stuart in the north of Tasmania to acquire 30 lambs (not mulesed or tail-docked) for this year. They should arrive any day (the banner photo above was taken of them at Glen Stuart at lamb marking time). All my genetics in the past have come from ewes and rams I bought from Glen Stuart, so the quality of WGW will remain the same.
One of the side benefits of this approach is that I’m getting only boys. Boys have much less trouble with fly strike because they pee more cleanly than girls, and also don’t have menstrual stain which can attract flies (sorry for the gory details). Over time, I’m hoping to convert to an all-boy flock.
Leo, one of the older named sheep. He’s a boyfriend of Vicki’s—both 7 years old.
What has this to do with dancing? Well, I wanted to have my named sheep, mostly pets who know that I’m really ok, to be the initial “babysitter” flock for the new babies. I’m hoping they will teach the newcomers to trust me by their example. And, of course, my named sheep always run with the whole flock, so I needed to get them into their own separate flock before the babies arrive.
Freddie, the youngest of the named sheep, hanging back from the flock to walk with me. How sweet is that?
I decided to do the sorting in the main woolshed, rather than drafting them off in the race, mainly because I need a second person to keep the sheep up to the drafting gates, whereas I can sort by myself in the shed. It means heading off the sheep I want to hold back and allowing others to go forward. All it takes is a well executed step and lean to “baulk” a sheep. It’s a bit like a simple dance step. I spent about 3 hours dancing this way as I sorted 22 named sheep from the others. It was fun, good exercise and got me my babysitter flock. Now we wait for the adopted babies to arrive!
In other farm news, White Gum Wool is now accredited by the fashion industry preferred certification, the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS). We’ve been certified by New Merino ™ since our inception, and RWS adds another layer of respectability to our sustainability and traceability bona fides.
The video below is a recent clip taken while I was shepherding. Several of the named sheep are hanging about to chat with me.