You may recall that in September we took stock of our options and after looking at the long term forecast, we sold our Wiltipoll ewes (https://rockfarming.com/2019/09/28/the-hint-of-rain/) .

Our gorgeous lambs were brought into some small paddocks near the house and were weaned onto grass and pellets.  Being hand fed, and so close to the action, they soon became very quiet, and would come running towards you – especially if you were carrying a bucket.

We trialled letting them out into the main paddocks, however this turned into a disaster.  As our property was set up for horses, nearly all the paddocks are fenced in plain wire.  The sheep had the run of the place – however decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, specifically the neighbour’s paddocks.  Whilst the lambs were easy to catch (with the use of a bucket), we were wasting a lot of our time retrieving them.

So we made the decision to sell the lambs too.

Twelve of our lambs went to a friend’s place and are now being spoilt on his hobby farm.  To transport them, we parked the horse float in the lamb’s paddock for a couple of days and started feeding them in there.  On the day of the move, we simply sprinkled some oats on the floor and they all marched inside – making it all too easy to pull up the tail gate and take them to their new home.

The youngest and by far the smallest, but rapidly growing girl, nicknamed Runty, went back to other friends who looked after all our sheep during the last school holidays.  She must have made an impression (or Mark and Mell are suckers for a cute face).

Sadly our time with sheep has come to an end… for now.  We have enjoyed raising sheep, with all their challenges, since they joined the first Rock Farm back in 2015.  With a bit of luck – and a bit of time working on the fences, I am sure sheep will become part of our farm again.