New arrivals at Moora Farm

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This morning I drove north for a couple of hours to a little place called Milloo - and picked up six F4 Dorper ewes and a pure bred Dorper ram.  They are the (re)start of the Moora Farm sheep flock.

When we first got into (hobby) farming it was sheep we started with.  My Dad had sheep (and pigs) for most of the time I was growing up.  I was familiar with dairy cows through my Mum's family - but also familiar enough to know I didn't want to milk cows.

My sheep farming at Kilmore had it's ups and downs - as I adapted to the first cross Merino ewes that most Australian farmers had in those days.  They were very flighty girls compared to the cross bred ewes I was used to.  One might even describe them as poor mothers - all too willing to abandon a lamb.

Eventually we did adapt and learned to love them - and produced some very good second cross lambs.  They were never easy though.  

When we first came to Moora we had too many ewes and 80% of our paddocks cultivated trying to get rid of the gorse.  We had to hand feed - as the couple of paddocks we still had in pasture got bare ... and then very muddy.

Imagine, if you will, my dear wife with a 20 kg bag of sheep pellets under her arm and 80 ewes all around her as she trudges through mud to a trough you can't see for milling mutton.  Not just a pretty face! 

I'm not sure what her tennis friends would make of it - but I guess most women are tougher than they look.

I'm told these Dorpers are much better mothers than Merinos - though still on the flighty side.  We've locked them up in the sheep yards since they got home and we're going to try and get them well accustomed to us before they go into any paddocks.  There is plenty of feed in the sheep yards for several days.

We are starting with just 7, but we will breed up until we have a flock of a similar size to the cattle herd.  I understand they are complementary to cattle in a cell grazing system - but I still have to work that out.  The start of the flock will just be doing clean up duty here and there for a while.

They are a lovely looking animal.

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