Australian Talk.

[wbvs58]

Gee it's been warm here again the last couple of days. I have been slashing the lovegrass around at the other block where the heifers are. I haven't got much done yet as I have to do a repair on the slasher, I clipped a rock on the edge of the skid and she broke a bolt on one of the stays and bent up the draw bar and now sits skewith on the back of the tractor and catches on a tire when in the raised position.
My cows haven't been doing as well as they usually do in the tin mine, most are OK but a couple are getting a bit lighter on than I would like. I may have to pull them out a couple of weeks early.
I'm off now to fix up the slasher.
Ken

 

[Havinago]

Hey guys, been a while since ive posted. All good on my side our steers are doing really well and the bigger fellas are ready for market but with the way prices are we will have to hold on for another 6 mths id say? Wet as a shag up our way. Wont stop raining. Ken i feel your pain with the tractor. I got a puncture on the rear of our 88hp Fiat a bit of fencing wire went thru the sidewall last wk. Forever working on the old girl. I have to say im nervous about rounding up the steers when it is market time been the first time. Any tips would be great! Hay and mollasas will be on the cards. They are getting nice and quiet all the same tho which is geat. Take care guys, Havinago.

 

[diana55]

Rain.. 6mm a couple days ago and 19mm last rain. Looks like more- almost bogged massey tractor putting out hay. Our country goes from mush to concrete in a few days-just wish the rain would soak in, instead of laying on clay in pools. Its much better than dust however. Temps still mild so bit of green pick peeping through.

 

[wbvs58]

We had 39mm yesterday. I was still able to slash a paddock of lovegrass during which time we got about 25mm, rain was straight down and didn't notice it. Our sandy granite does not go to mud, water just goes straight in especially with all the ripping with the subsoiler I do. When it becomes super saturated the stuff underneath turns to a slurry and is bottomless. I always apply the 3 times rule then, you get over it once, second time only just, third time you just go down.
There is a lot of clover and seradella under and around the lovegrass. This is the 3rd year now that I have slashed that block and even though the lovegrass has spread phenominally and is very tall after our summer, it is generally a lot finer and should provide reasonable feed when it shoots in spring.
Havinago, I think your best bet with your steers is bribery. Get them accustomed to being fed in the yards or in an easily identifiable trough. I use blue plastic drums split in half and bolted together, they are light and easy to drag to the next paddock and the cattle identify with them and follow.
Ken

 

[burglar]

35mm over here. Nice to hear the water tanks filling for winter and I am sure the oats I planted will get a nice boost too. Of to Dallas and Nashville on Friday for a fast 6 day trip. Still have a bit of music business stuff going on here and there. Looking forward to some warmer weather, hopefully not too many tornado's.

Havinago I'm with Ken on the bribery front. I moved 25 steers from paddock to paddock and yarded them pretty easily by using lucernce hay. Just a bail a day for 4-5 days had them following me everywhere. My dog is only a puppy and no help as yet so Hay has worked a treat for me.

 

[Havinago]

Yeah thanks guys. I use those blue drums cut in half Ken they are good. Do have a long timber trough in the holding yards but they arent overly keen 2 go in there. My mate has a few guts's that hog the mollasas doesnt help tho. Will go hard with hay my mate uses it alot with his herd on our block. Its really good to see them do so well been the 1st time i wouldnt mind keeping 1 or 2 for the freezer too Hopefully the prices recover somewhat. Thanks for the replies, Havinago.

 

[jilleroo]

Nothing good to report here weatherwise or cattlewise....the cows have really started to slip in condition, have been good until recently. They're forecasting rain for us later this coming week so that should just about finish us off unless its 50mm or more!
More deathly cattle lurching by on the stock-route, depressing. They're trying to talk prices up but really they havent improved much in Qld., maybe in NSW etc. Just too many cattle clogging everything up.

On a brighter note, little grandson did ride in the show. He was fairly mungery to start with and it didnt help when son hadnt tightened the girth up enough and little grandie, all done up in fancy dress as a knight, saddle and trimmings all slid upside down!
Was the newly broken pony's first outing but luckily she didnt blink an eye. Anyway there were about 10 kids in it and each received first prize and $5 which was generous.

We sold our agistment steers to the regular buyer (with July payment, the object of the agistment exercise) and trucked them last week. They looked very good. One particular mob was of 409 and we had to muster them out of a paddock and then cross a bitumen road with a reasonable amount of traffic. All was well until 408 crossed the road and the 409th absolutely refused to set foot on the bitumen. He was more petrified of the tarmac than being left behind by his mates. To cut a long story short, he ended up jumping on my bike with me - a big char feeder steer! The bike seemed to sink down to about a foot high and then nearly tipped over as he scrambled off. Amazingly, I only had a few bruises - the bike was rearranged a bit lever-wise
but otherwise okay. Son and I managed to cut the tail off the big mob (which had gone through the gate) and bring them back. Meanwhile the steer had jumped back into his paddock, out again and back again pursued by hubby. Finally hubby tail-walked the exhausted steer on foot to the mob and ... he crossed the road! Never a dull moment.

Havinago, good luck with your mustering. Just keep very quiet and calm, no unnecessary racing around, the less noise the better.
And don't let anyone use dogs unless the cattle are accustomed to them!

Here's hoping you've got some nice feed growing now Diana.

 

[wbvs58]

Geez Jilleroo, you really know how to be in the right spot at the right time. It must have been one of the calves that you brought home on the front of the bike, probably thought he could hitch a ride again. Glad you are OK.
I hate to mention it but we had another 23mm rain on Wed. We are pretty damp and of course at this time of the year things take a bit of time to dry out, especially with it still being overcast and the occaisional shower.
I had the photos take of the sale bulls today for the catalogue and the papers. I think the Franklin bull is pretty good although he is not stand out masculine in the neck but has lots of length x breadth x depth which = lots of volume. Ben he was OK too.
I have started getting the cows out of the tin mine. I got half out yesterday but the other half are way over the back and I will just have to keep tracking them until they get closer. Some of them haven't been doing as well as usual in there so have got them out a couple of weeks early.
Ken

 

[jilleroo]

A very cold and bleak day here yesterday with some drizzling rain. Hopefully the sun will come out today and warm us up a bit.
Next week we'll be busy preg-testing our agistment heifers. The empties will be going to Blackall sale. Prices have crept up ever so slightly for feeder heifers but still dismal. Last couple of years we've got big money for our surplus heifers but this year will drag the average down. The Aussie dollar is sinking down down down which is good for us. I do notice though - when the dollar goes up, we immediately receive a reduction in prices. When it goes down they say "oh it'll take a few weeks to flow through to prices"!

Have got the books up to date and implemented tax minimising strategies as well as possible. The cows are on lick now and will be going onto molasses rollers in another week or so. Going to re-organise some of the cows, bringing more of them closer in for easier feeding. We're nearly half way through the year but its the easiest half that we've done - worse is to come. Friends have just lashed out and bought another property to put their cows on, several million dollars. We've done that in the past too but havent seen anything that tempts us this time so we're just going to go down with the ship here! Wish us luck.

 

[Suzie Q]

LOL at the calf trying to join you on the bike, Jilleroo, I am glad you weren't hurt.

Yes Bribery, Havinago, but other than that don't try anything if you can't out run them, which means either a quad bike or horseback and remember people have been killed on both.

We are looking a bit wet here as well, Ken. We haven't flooded but there is more water down on the flats than usual. I might have to go and make sure the drain is working.

Hubby came home early yesterday to take 11 of our cows to the abattoir. Sniff sniff. Goodbye Diamond who has been our best cow in the herd. She is getting older and it is not fair for her to keep calving. I have 3 heifers from her with Bazadais as their father so I am happy.

So yesterday I brought up the herd below the house and separated out a heifer and a calf. Then when hubby arrived home I helped him put cattle on the truck twice.

I also mowed the house yard and picked up a few fireweed plants that had been hiding.

Other than that I totally cleaned the kitchen and the lounge room and put new sheets and a doona cover on our bed and managed to watch some recorded shows and have 12 hours to be able to record now instead of 1.

Today I will do washing and start on the rest of the bedroom and see how far I get with the rest of the house.

I have made it through to a 2nd interview for a job. If I get a full time job it might be awhile before I have time for Housework so I will do as much as I can today just in case.

 

[Suzie Q]

The second interview went well and I feel much more positive about it than I did after the first interview. LOL I wouldn't have been surprised if I hadn't been called back after the first interview.

I really really like the lady I would be working with who I met yesterday. She seems down to Earth with a good head on her shoulders. I hope she liked me.

I called in to David Evans in High Street and Macquarie Street just to say hello and give them a heads up that they might be receiving a phone call about me.

She said she would not be making a decision in a hurry, so my fingers are crossed. As well as my toes!!!! My hands, my legs, my arms and my eyes. I am in full pretzel mode.

 

[wbvs58]

What's pretzel mode Suzie? What is the job Suzie?
Jilleroo I guess your main hope is for some good early storms in spring/summer followed by a good monsoon. I have heard talk of a possible La nina developing others say neutral conditions. I guess a property with feed on it would come at a bit of price premium at the moment.
Conditions couldn't be more different down here. I pulled the cows out of the tin mine a couple of weeks early this year, they just weren't doing any good in there I think the wet conditions had the feed under the trees rotting a bit. Some are looking pretty ordinary in condition.
Some of my paddocks here could benefit from a bit of grazing, gives the temperate grasses and clover a bit of room to grow. I do reckon the standing summer feed here if you don't use it you lose it by the end of winter, it just falls over.
We were down to -4C this morning. Yesterday we had a bit of sleet but sun is out this morn. The forecast is for a bit more rain over the next week. My bull pen is a bit waterlogged now, just won't dry out.
We are past the shortest day now, I do think the temperate grasses respond to increasing day length if there is moisture about.
I reckon I should have a couple calves on the ground by the end of next week.
Ken

 

[Suzie Q]

LOL Ken, Pretzel mode is what I called having all of your body crossed as above.

The job is to be the right arm of the Manager at what used to be Bunny Bites. They grow vegetables and have machines for picking, sauteeing and things like that.

 

[burglar]

Returned from Nashville this week and the First Calf arrived today. Couldn't get close enough to see the sex, but a nice looking Angus none the less. Ken, it came from 6/6 orange tag. We think the 6/3 Orange tag is next.

Did a long term agistment/lease deal last month. 250 Acres between Warwick and Stanthorpe. Had 8 PTIC cows and 3 cow calf combo's delivered yesterday with another 20 or so coming in the next few weeks. Nice to have a bit more land to work.

QUEENSLANDER !!!!!

Dale

 

[wbvs58]

Good on the calf front Dale, those two with orange tags are very reliable cows.
The agistment block will add a bit of scale to get your turnover up to where you want. What is the feed like on the 250 acres.
We had 101mm rain for June, things are just really really wet and not doing the grass much good. We need a bit more sunlight.
The sale bulls are going well. When I weighed them last week they went 960, 882,806kg from oldest to youngest, so that will do weight wise and I have cut down the feed and coast them into the sale on minimal grain. Just under 4 weeks to go.
I sorted out the cows yesterday and put the commercial cows and later calving stud ones up the back. I put 3 that I expect to calve this week behind the house here so I hope I can get them into the yards here to safely weigh the calves without getting monstered by the cows. I just gotta get more calf weights.
Ken

 

[burglar]

Feed is pretty good Ken, not as good as your area, but its 99% cleared, no rocks or granite. No planted pasture, just natural grasses, but hasn't been grazed since dec last year. Should work well for breeding and I don't plan to have too much stock running on it. Off to the Warwick breeder sale on Saturday to see what I can pick up.

 

[diana55]

Where are you Aussies? I know we have been Krudded but come out of hiding. We had the Hawaii holiday and I climbed Diamond Head just one year and one day after having both knees completely replaced. Knees were fine but I was short of breath (obviously not fit). View was magnificent. Love Hawaii. Great beaches, balmy evenings. About 88F during day. Sat on balcony sipping mai tais and taking in the view of ocean. Went on cataraman sunset cruise for good look back at Waikiki and Diamond head. Had two days at Pearl Harbour where the DTD and friend did special tour of Missouri to see engines and boilers, how guns were fired etc. Friend's wife and I did normal tour and then did Arizona memorial again. I still find it very moving. Had a great day at Aviation museum with our own guide, a very knowledgeable man who had 20 years military service. Saw planes from WW2, Korea and Vietnam. Must be getting old as we really enjoy history.

Have had rain and nice green "pick" for sheep but bit short for cattle so still feeding most stock. Nine ET calves born 2 weeks ago (implanted 16 so bit better than 50%)- 2 (1F, 1M) by Leachman Right Time, 3 bulls by Te Mania Infinity, 1M 1F by Coneally Thunder and 2 heifers by Peak Dot Resolute.
Cattle beginning to rub (lice) so started backlining today. We have a very nice girl (third year vet student) doing work experience with us which is helpful as my offsider is holidaying in Mauritius.
Mudgee Field days this week so we are going Friday. Should be fine and sunny after frosty morning. We haven't been for 4 years so quite looking forward to it. The DTD and I going to local show meeting tonight (show next month) as have missed all others this year. Slack... We're both stewards so should put in appearance.

 

[Suzie Q]

I have been working hard!!! If I can make enough money doing surveys, playing games, etc on the computer then I won't take the full time job if they offer it to me. This way I can work on the computer when I have time and still go and do other things during the week which I would not have time for if I was at work.

eg last week my friend called me as a neighbour reported that a cow had calved and had not gotten up, so I just left the survey I was doing and went straight to my car and drove out to her farm to help her.

We found the heifer down. A) She was too young to be in calf and she is a banded galloway which is a miniature breed and she had just calved a calf to a Brahman Cross bull so no wonder she couldn't get up. We gave her an injection of Key and 2 minutes later she stood up when I picked up the calf to bring over to her. She went down again and we left her to go and feed the rest of the herd and gave her time to recover a bit.

Sadly when we came back she had prolapsed. I have read in here what to do however it was not my heifer so I said I would prefer it if she called the Vet. The vet came and said it was just a uterine prolapse and he could save her. My friend decided to let the heifer out of her misery instead, so had the vet shoot her.

I picked the calf up and put it in the trailer and picked it up from the trailer and put it in a pen as this is the third one in a couple of months and from her farm practices I am not at all surprised

I fed the calf and tomorrow I am going to go and help her put up fences so as she can separate her cattle a bit more easily.

She is going to lend us the bull to get it off her property for a while so we won't have to buy another bull.

His name is Buddy. He is quiet and can be patted in the paddock, not that I will be doing that and he will add height to our calves. I have been told that his pizzle is too long, but beggars can't be choosers.

Monday I went to Ipswich for a meeting and bought some glucosamine on the way home for my friend and ended up there much later than I had anticipated. I did surveys on the computer while she cooked tea and it was lovely for us to have a meal together while our husbands were away.

Tuesday I went into Beaudesert for a meeting with our Bank Manager. It is all signed and sealed. Our loan that was up goes for another 20 years and is fixed for 5 years, so nobody had to lose their homes :banana:

Yesterday was Meet a Friend at Cafe 17, there were only 6 other people and me. Usually there are 3 tables worth of people, but it was still lovely. I then posted a couple of letters and visited Salvos and bought some more tupperware BARGAIN as I want to reorganise the pantry and then I went to Vinnies and picked up a very sturdy shopping bag on 2 very sturdy wheels for $5.00 BARGAIN. Then into Waynes World and for $5.00 a pair of unicorn slippers who have something in the heel so every time you walk the eyes open and close :banana: hee hee hee.

A call from the Bank Manager and a question about the Rates for our Farm so I nicked into the Council and nope the new rates notice won't be out for a couple of weeks so I had given him the latest one and then into Farm Craft to buy some 7 in 1 for the herd.

This morning I just left a Survey half way through and went down to Pilates with my neighbours and finished it when I returned here. It is so much nicer than a full time job and not being able to do other things. I just have to see how much I can earn when I really try.

 

[AussieLim]

Wow us Aussies can talk- 208 pages later! Just goes to show how interesting & diverse our country & people are.
It's been cold here in the SE of South Australia with multiply morning frosts hampering pasture growth. Pasture is rather low due to the record 8mth dry spell from Aug-May. Soil is now wet and waiting for sunshine.
As for our farming business....we have weaned all our lambs & are now doing our best at growing them & finishing them on what little pastures we have. I have also resulted in strip grazing barley crops to utilize as much green as possible.
Calving down stud cattle is well underway. We have a Pure Black Limousin seedstock operation & also produce Lim-Flex (Limo X Angus) bulls targeting Angus based herds.
I have been vaccinating these calves the last 2 days & may I say I'm impressed with this years calf crop so far
Well I will keep u all posted as time goes. Hopefully next month we will be selling Prime lambs and starting to make money again......Later!

 

[diana55]

Nice Brahman bull Suzie (except for the pizzle which was the first thing I noticed, but then I like bulls with tight sheaths). Good luck with your surveys and congrats on loan extension.
AussieLim, what breeds/crosses are your prime lambs? We were grain assisting ours (White Suffolk X first cross ewes) until sold in May. Have younger lambs on barley crop. We sowed it in early March, only 50% germination and then 3 very dry months so it has run to head. Putting 4 small mobs cows/heifers on it daily for couple hours each mob, trying to spin it out a bit.
Backlined bulls (sale and weaners) and heifers and show females today. Nice and sunny which is great for working outdoors. Rain forecast for Sunday/Monday. We are happy with weights of all cattle but they been on feed for quite a long time due to drought.
Back in the late 80's and early 90's we used limmie bulls in our commercial herd over angus and Herefords and bred some stunning meat calves. Of course there weren't any black limmie bulls then. Good red bulls though.