David and I awarded ourselves a 'day off' last week as we drove through the pouring rain to visit our new sheep milking colleagues Matt and Becky in Sussex. They were kind enough to invite us over to see their farm and meet some of their girls .. Here they are, the future milking flock of Top Paddock Dairy:
Aren't they just gorgeous?! They are a special breed of dairy sheep called Friesland and one of the first things we noticed about them was their long bald tails. Just like rats! If you squint hard at the middle pic above you can see them.
Matt also gave us a bale of his wonderful home-grown lucerne haylage for the goaties to try out. David put a small amount in a couple of the hay racks and nearly got killed in the rush ..
I guess it was quite popular then!
And the goaties all had a lovely surprise on Sunday night when our dear Francesca appeared. Footsie could hardly get over to the gate quick enough as she spotted Fran with two large bags of bananas!
Monday morning involved a fair bit of paddling around in mud to separate Gracie Moos from their calves as vet Peter was due to arrive at 9.30am to dehorn and castrate. It all worked out pretty smoothly and the 4 (not so little!) calves were moved away from their mums to await his arrival. The calves were very well behaved but there was a considerable amount of anxious moo-ing from all the mums waiting outside!
It's all fairly quick and painless for them - local anaesthetic makes everything easier and David always talks to them and tries to keep them calm when they are held in the calf crush.
Needless to say, their mums were very glad to have them back again when it was all over!
And what of our new little mum, Klaudette? Well, she is doing just fine. And she brought her sister along with her for milking last night .. they are only little girlies and so both fitted quite nicely into one stall in the parlour!
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