I love crutching time. It’s wonderful when the sheep leave the yards with beautiful clean, white rumps and we know that really, there shouldn’t be any problems with flies. There is real satisfaction in finishing a job that needs doing. The top photo is the last of about 1,000 ewes that went through the shed yesterday.
It’s hard work though. Once again, our rain seems to be lacking so we are weaning lambs early. Instead of double handling the sheep, we’ve been weaning while crutching. Now let me tell you, ewes and lambs don’t draft well. We are constantly encouraging them through the race and working with only small ‘racefuls’ at a time. It’s fair to say that by the end of the day our voices were sore, the dogs were tired and our ears could have done with a rest from all the noise.
Not only that, but my fingers were tender from pulling at the ewes and trying to get them into the pen. The mob we did yesterday was sulky and difficult to deal with – for no reason other than they’ve been that way since the moment we bought them. Some sheep are like that. Others are trouble-free to work with and run through the race easily, and penning up is a dream.
Anyway, today I’m thankful I don’t have a deadline; my fingers are stinging and my wrist is swollen and bruised from a whack I got from a piece of steel (that’s a story for another day, but it was definitely one of my ‘Fleur’ moments).
And for now, I’m thankful and pleased to see clean bums!
Reading this blog reminders me of working with my dad, (although on a smaller scale) one of the best things I remember was rolling the fleece’s a how soft it made my hands afterwards