Farmer Jen Blog

At last... donkey foals now available for sale

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 08:38:00 GMT

Well it's been a long time coming as we packed up from our old farm and moved to the new one (big, big job!!) and at the same time I've been in the process of registering our herd so our stock will now come registered, vaccinated, microchipped, halter and lead trained and of course they're friendly as can be having been extensively socialised with both adults and children.

You can view stock for sale on the donkeys page - and here's a sneak peak to get you started...

Contact me if you're interested in securing one of these fellas - as always, they won't last long!

Tell eBay to stop selling puppy mill dogs

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:32:00 GMT

Yesterday was a bad day. My beautiful TJ the beagle had a relapse of the same slipped disc problem that resulted in his surgery 18 months ago and had to be rushed to the local vet hospital. You might wonder why such special treatment for a beagle that we bought for just a fraction of what his vet bills have since amounted to... but TJ is quite simply a very special dog. When the other animals were sick on the farm, TJ was always the first one to the rescue, like when he tried so hard to look after this little calf when it was sick:

The truth is I like to think that all dogs are special and I love our beagles so much that it's hard to comprehend how people could farm dogs in "puppy mills"... but they do. "Puppy mills" or "Puppy Farms" are large-scale commercial operations where dozens of dogs are kept in small cages for their entire lives, forced to give birth to litter after litter until they're no longer fertile, at which point they're usually killed. Puppy mills are unsafe, inhumane, and produce thousands of puppies with serious health problems every year.

Despite the efforts of various authorities to shut down puppy mills and discourage consumers from buying animals from pet shops, which are the main distribution channel for these creeps who run the farms, puppy mills have found a new and bigger vendor: eBay.

A few years ago, eBay had plans to sell animals via online auction. Responsible breeders would never sell dogs via online auction, so this would have resulted in the site becoming a haven for puppy mills. eBay users and anti-cruelty activists spearheaded -- and won -- the fight to prevent eBay from selling live animals.

But now all that's changed.

Despite eBay's claims that it "do[es] not condone unethical treatment of animals," eBay now allows puppy mills to sell dogs in its classified section.

If you love dogs, I implore you to sign the petition by change.org to send your message to eBay that selling puppy mill dogs is just not on.

Holy fruit bat... what am I supposed to do with this little fella? Any tips appreciated!

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:46:00 GMT

Ok so this one has got me stumped... We had a bit of a mini-cyclone at the farm on Wednesday just as Yasi was lashing the Queensland coastline and along with two and a half inches of rain this poor little fruit bat was blown in...

I have never seen a fruit bat in our area, I generally figured it was too cold and too dry... but with the humidity that follows all the rain and this crazy season we're having, he's ended up in the Highlands.

Currently he (or she) is living in my apple tree all on his own. Does anyone have any tips on what I should do? Will he find his way back to his mates? Does he need anything special? It's not particularly shady in the tree and yesterday he was poaching out there...

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!

OK... this gross... but my chook really laid this thing!

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:43:00 GMT

So one of my chooks has been off the lay and looking a bit scrappy lately around its backside. I was wondering if it was egg-bound but indications were that it wasn't... so how do you explain this thing that it laid today:

I'm not kidding, she really did lay this... it was laying in the nesting box and yes, it does look like a potato or something else but I just cleaned out the pen last week so it wasn't anything foreign... and it was a bit squidgy so I took it inside and cut it open and..... oh........ the smell!!! It was a bit fibrous inside, a bit like this (sorry about the lighting but you'll get the gist...):

Anyway it was very gross... but I'm hoping that this was the problem and that she'll be on the lay again now...

We'll see... but I hope I don't see anything like this again for a while!

Shoalhaven Poultry Auction - 20 March - 500 birds for sale

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:05:00 GMT

I know some of you have been chasing chooks and poultry of varying descriptions... here's your chance to find exactly what you want" The Shoalhaven Poultry Auction

When: 20th of March 2011
Venue: Berry Poultry Pavilion located at the Berry Showground Alexandra Street Berry NSW
Date: Sunday 20 March 2011
Time: Poultry Shed will open from 9am to view the birds. The Auction will commence at 10.30am All buyers must register prior to bidding and payments are by cash only.

Over 500 birds will be for auction

All birds will have informational cage labels with breed, gender, age and colour to help you in the buying process. Knowledgeable volunteers will be happy to answer all your questions about the birds on Auction.

All penning fees and profits from the day will be donated to Hands Across NSW,a local charity helping drought affected families.

Refreshments available all day and camping facilities available at the Berry Showground.

For information contact Shayne on 0410 548 704 or Shayne_earley@hotmail.com
www.shoalhavenpoultry.com

Subscribe and receive Farmer Jen's blogs post - free and direct to your email inbox - as soon as they're posted

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:29:00 GMT

You might have noticed I've been making a few changes to the website and blog, so that I can get news out to you quickly and easily. With so much going on at the farm and off, the good news is I'll be able to get news out to you as soon as it breaks... so you can expect to get more tips and news straight from the horse's mouth (and the donkeys and Dorpers too!)

For those of you interested in receiving blog posts direct to your email inbox, you can now subscribe to this free service. I will be using the blog to notify everyone when new stock is available, including donkeys and Dorpers which are always in high demand.

To subscribe and receive my blog posts direct to your email address, simply click on this link or you can even complete your details right here:
Alternately you can follow the posts by RSS feed or simply check in here at www.farmerjen.com to see what's happening on the website.

I will occasionally distribute newsletters as well... but the blog is really where you'll find the news.

Hope this helps everyone, and if you have any questions as always you can drop me a line here.

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Dorper ewes and whethers available - 2009 and 2010 drops

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:20:00 GMT

Thanks everyone for your patience with the Dorpers... I finally have some good news for you with our 2010 drop lambs ready for sale - $220 each for whethers and $320 each for ewes. We also have some 2009 drop ewes available - $320 per ewe. We also have a couple of 2009 whethers left over that will be no good for meat (a bit too mature now for most people's liking) but would make great lawnmowers for those of you wanting pets - they are just $180 each.

Ours our white Dorpers and our 2010 drop are F4, with 2009 being a mix of F3 and F4. All stock is vaccinated, drenched and ready to go. Free delivery within the Southern Highlands area (NSW) is available on lots of 10 or more - for smaller quantities or for areas further afield please contact me to discuss delivery options (I may be able to help you for a small additional fee or put you in touch with a recommended carrier).

As you know Dorpers are in extremely high demand at the moment and very difficult to come across so if you are interested in placing an order please contact me as soon as possible using the contact form on this website. I will update this post when all stock has been depleted.

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Buying and transporting livestock across Australia?

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:30:00 GMT

I often receive messages from readers asking if I ship livestock around Australia or if I know of local breeders in various states of Australia (I'm based in New South Wales). Where I do know of local breeders in your area I will always recommend this option ahead of transporting stock over long distances. This is based on a couple of important premises including:

1. when you buy local stock they will be accustomed to your local climate, environment and conditions
2. the less time in transit, the less stressed the animal
3. it minimises the risk of an animal leaving my property in perfect health and arriving at your place in less than mint condition.

The first point I learned the hard way when we sold a young donkey foal, Roxy, to a lovely family on the south coast of NSW. Roxy left our property in perfect health and settled into her new home perfectly... until she was infected with paralysis ticks a couple of weeks after transportation. Her new helpers did everything they could to work with their vet to treat her but unfortunately she lost the battle. Paralysis ticks aren't present at our property so I hadn't thought of the implications of her moving to a coastal area... and the same can be said of moving animals to hotter or cooler climates: there's always a chance they won't settle in well.

The second point is important from an animal husbandry perspective. Unless you know your transporter and their practices very well, do you really want to put your animal through a long and lonely transport process? This is the reason I usually decline requests from very willing buyers for my stock in Western Australia and Tasmania: my feeling is it's just too far to send a young animal on their own.

The final point is relevant and the cause of most post-sale disputes between stock buyers and sellers. I remember buying some of my foundation donkey stock several years back, travelling down to the ACT to inspect them and then arranging a horse carrier to deliver them back to my farm. One of the young foals was trampled in transit and arrived with a gash on one fetlock. Upon arrival we also had unseasonably wet summer conditions that were ideal for bacterial infections and despite the best vet treatments at our local international standard equine hospital, the foal didn't survive. So my advice is that if you have to transport animals over long distances, do it yourself and take is slowly. If you can't, then use a well known and recommended transporter in your area (who comes with a good reputation that they'll be keen to protect).

To this end, if you are looking for small quantities of livestock - feel free to contact me and ask about our stock or recommendations for breeders closer to home for you. If I know of anyone I'll pass on their details, but if not my tip is to try the Classified section of The Land newspaper. I have had excellent experiences with this method, because it's typically used by farmers who really know what they're doing - as opposed to the opportunists who are just out to make a quick buck. Sometimes they'll also be able to deliver for you.

Just my thoughts... but worthwhile considering to get the best out of your new livestock purchases

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Rains, floods and Fly Strike in Dorper sheep - it's not what you might expect

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:31:00 GMT

Well if you thought that after 10 years of drought this unseasonal rain and flooding would be just what the farmers ordered, then think again. I cried last month when I saw all the bumper crops flooded by rains. All those farmers who had used up all their savings waiting for that rainy day were certainly hopeful when the rains started falling... but it soon turned to dismay as crops were obliterated or at best reduced to animal fodder quality. But with rains and floods comes moisture that lies around causing other problems...

Fly Strike is just one of those issues and if you're not familiar with sheep farming you might be forgiven for thinking that Fly Strike is all about mulesing and dirty back ends. In fluffy sheep (as I call the non-shedding breeds!) this is certainly true and one of the key advantages of Dorper sheep (and other shedders like Damaras and Wiltipolls) is that you don't have to mules their backside because they're natural shedders. We've also never shorn our Dorpers because they progressively shed all over, with the exception of some of our older early-cross ewes who tend to hold a bit of fleece around their shoulders - though this has never been enough to cause any problems. Until now.

After reading an article in The Land about the high humidity and Fly Strike in rural NSW following the floods, we brought our herd in to the yards for inspection and sure enough a handful of our older ewes had Fly Strike - not around their backsides as you might expect, but on their shoulders. So in they went for shearing - something they've never experienced before andyou might question why we'd even bother given the small amount of fleece on most of them. But Fly Strike is really one of the most awful experiences that nature can hand out... so we decided just to do it.

So what is Fly Strike and what do you need to look for on your Dorpers or other shedding sheep?

Fly Strike is basically caused when flies get into wet fleece - a prime place for bacteria to grow. One fly can carry about 30 million bacteria inside and outside its body and once this bacteria gets into the blood stream of the sheep - by the larvae burrowing into folds of skin - the sheep will die from what is akin to an extreme virus or bacterial infection in humans. It's a horrible way for them to die.

Several species of fly contribute to fly strike. The common bush fly causes irritation in a sheep's skin folds, especially around the rump. Once the skin was irritated, the green fly, which causes about 80 per cent of all fly strike, will arrive and lay its eggs. However according to The Land, hairy maggots - the larvae of the blue-green blowfly, which will only arrive after an animal has flystrike - were the deadliest.

One of the other problems right now is that chemicals that are available to protect sheep against flies are being washed off in the repeated rains we are experiencing... so it really is a case of farmers not being able to win a trick, whichever way they look!

As you an see, even shedding or mulesed sheep can be impacted by Fly Strike in the right conditions - basically those hot and humid conditions we're currently experiencing in NSW and many other parts of Australia. So if you haven't done so, please take some time to bring in your Dorper sheep and check them over - especially on their shoulder area if there is even a small amount of fleece there - to ensure you catch any infection early before they show signs of illness.

And for more information on Fly Strike, breed selection and more - visit this great new website FlyBoss.org.au

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Happy New Year!

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 03:29:00 GMT

A new day, a new year, a new problem to solve at the farm. Today it was waking up to a scorcher of a summers day, to find a donkey mum and bub separated from each other. With mum on one side of the fence and bub on the other, it was lucky I found them before the heat of the day to get some much needed milk into this little fella:

So how long can a donkey foal last if separated from its mum? That depends on lots of things including its age, the weather, and factors such as predators or dangers to its health. A newborn foal if separated at birth (as happened to one of ours which rolled under a strandwire fence on birth) could last only a few hours if it can't get to its mum for milk. A new born could also be rejected by its mum if its too long - because her ever expanding udder as the milk comes in becomes very sore if the pressure isn't relieved, resulting in an intervention to milk the Jenny and take some pressure off in order to allow the foal to drink painlessly.

In this case my feeling is that the foal was separated almost 24 hours earlier from its mum when one of them wondered through an open gate and along the fence line without the other. The good news is that the foal is 3 months old so apart from its mother's milk it's also eating grass and probably drinking from the dam on occasions, and has plenty of body fat to sustain it over this period.

So while he was certainly a very thirsty boy, he's had a couple of good drinks from mum now and is doing perfectly well out by the front gate. It certainly gave me a bit of a scare though... let's hope it's not a sign of things to come in 2011!

Welcome to the world, Flopsy!

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:02:00 GMT

Well it's been raining all weekend at the farm... which is good luck at the best of times... but it must have been especially lucky because my Winnie gave birth to her first foal. Flopsy was born yesterday morning and is teenie... not unusual for the first born... and very, very cute. His right ear is hanging a little bit lower than the left, which is making him all the cuter!

Welcome to the world, Flopsy!

Do alpacas make good pets?

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:19:00 GMT

This is the most common query I receive in the emails and phone calls I field about alpacas. Once I was asked "would an alpaca or a sheep make a better pet?", to which I replied "compared to what?!"

The way I look at it is this: if you want a petting animal, you should probably choose a domesticated animal like a dog or donkey or horse. Alpacas, like sheep and cows, are not domesticated animals. They live in herds, in the paddocks, and for the most part prefer it that way. By comparison, as I type this, TJ the beagle is curled up on the bed next to me (lah lah lah... I don't even want to THINK about what he's been rolling in today... la la lahhh!).

My alpacas will approach me when I go out into the paddock and love it when I take lucerne out to them, but if I'm gardening or doing work out in the paddock they prefer to look on from a distance. The donkeys on the other hand will be all over me - nudging me to find out what I'm up to and whether there's something in it for them.

Now I'm not trying to put you off buying an alpaca (or a sheep for that matter) because I really enjoy mine, and spend many hours gazing at them in the paddocks. They're also a fairly low maintenance animal - they have a natural resistance to worms so you don't have to drench them often, so it's really just an annual maintenance of drenching/shearing/clipping nails that you need to worry about. But you should also be aware that they're not really the sort of animal that you can cuddle up to - and yet so many people I speak to seem to think this will be the case.

If you are looking to introduce alpacas as pets to your menagerie, my advice to you is this:

Create a fairly small paddock or yard for them to spend the first 2-4 weeks in (say 20mx20m)
Hand feed them during the first 2-4 weeks with lucerne and very small amounts of horse muesli, so that they get used to coming to you twice a day, every day, as they settle into your home.
Considering buying one at a time, handling as much as possible, and then buying another. Or if you buy two or more at once, consider housing them individually in that first introductory period.
Keep any pet dogs well away from your alpaca. Many of my clients want to buy an alpaca as a herd protector against foxes and wild dogs... and then wonder why the alpaca is very UN-happy when the family's pet dog is circling it. Any members of the dog family are enemy number 1 to alpacas, so keep them separate (at least in the beginning).
Try starting with younger crias - if housed individually they may be more inclined to bond with you.

Of course these are all just tips and may or may not work in your circumstances. If you're not that fussed about cuddling an alpaca, of course you can ignore all of this and just buy a couple, put them in your paddock, and enjoy alpaca gazing from the verandah right away!

F2 - F3 - F4 - what do the numbers mean?

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:08:00 GMT

I'm often asked by prosective buyers of our Dorpers "How do I know what the numbers mean? F4? 3rd X ? etc"

Our Dorper herd is now almost all F4, or fourth cross. Basically the higher the number, the more pure the genetics of the breed you are crossing to.

So if you started with say a merino ewe and joined her with a 100% pure dorper (which means it would have been imported directly from Africa or bred with pure african imports - so very rare - though a F4 or higher ram would achieve a similar result) then that is a first cross dorper, or F1, and genetically its 50% dorper. If you then join that 50% dorper with a pure dorper ram, the offspring are second cross or F2, and it's 75% dorper. The same again, and you have F3 and its 87.5% dorper. And the next time you get F4, and 93.75% dorper (so getting pretty pure).

In terms of the shedding capability of dorpers, we have found that the Dorper crosses will normally be fully shedding from the second cross, provided you're using a good quality ram. This is obviously fairly important in order to carry through the dominant Dorper characteristics including shedding fleece and multiple births (twins are common)

As you're probably aware, lamb prices are at an all time record high. Last week at the sales in northern NSW up to $500 was achieved for F4 dorper ewes - amazing!

Miniature Belted Galloway cattle

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:57:00 GMT

If you thinkour belties are gorgeous, you should see the miniatures that our neighbours are breeding - absolutely to die for! They're much smaller and have been raised as pets. They have a limited number of steers currently available for purchase - if you're interested drop me a line and I'll put you in touch!

Donkey maintenance

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:20:00 GMT

I received an email from Sarah today asking for advice on whether she can keep a Jack and Jenny together year round, and how to worm and halter train her new donkey.

In short, yes a jack and jenny can be kept together year round, I do this with mine. However you can't have two entire (non-castrated) jacks together with a jenny, because they will fight for her affection. All men are the same! However a jack and a jenny, or many jennies, or jacks and geldings, will all live together happily. I take my small son with me and sit him on my jacks, they are all pets to us and are not at all concerned once they're in separate paddocks with their separate harems of jennies!

The question of putting a jack with your jenny also comes down to her age - I wouldn't recommend mating her until she is 3 years old. Any younger than that will put quite a bit of pressure on her as she'll still be growing as the foal is growing. Also you need to consider what to do once the foal is born - you may need to separate them from the Jack for some time, and if the foal is a jack then you'll certainly need to have him castrated.

As for worming and halter training, I worm my donkeys with a horse drench. I rotate the brands and formulae a bit, to discourage resistance. Last time I used Equimec liquid, you follow the directions per liveweight on the packaging. Most of my mature donkeys are about 200-250kg (they are on the smaller side, as far as donkeys go).

As for halter training, I use foal size halters when the donkeys are foals and shetland size halters on the mature donkeys. However having said that, I don't halter lead mine very much. It isn't difficult to train them for this, you just need to be patient. Donkeys do not respond to being rushed so the best process i can recommend is following the donkey initially and slowly tempting it to your direction, and reinforcing positive behaviours with treats. My donkeys follow me around all over the farm so I rarely have need to halter them.

Hope this helps, enjoy your donkeys Sarah!