Welcome to our blog!   It is interesting to see all the new trees which are just popping up in paddocks all over the farm as result of all the rain since the drought broke in 2010 , the farm will have some lovely shelter and shade trees for all the animals , it is interesting to note that none of the livestock eat any of the trees even though they are growing in areas with no protective fencing . This is probably due to the nutritional quality of our pastures and the availability of mineral suppliments for all our animals so they do not need to eat folage of the trees to get there mineral requirements.     We have new piglets here , which are  Large Black crossed with Large English White , there is 2 boars called Charlie ( white with black spots ) and Percy who is Black and 2 sows who are just black .We have Peppa , who is a Duroc Sow also. The piglets spend their day grazing all over the paddocks in among the sheep . We are crutching our Merino  and Crossbred ewes  prior to being shorn , in about 2 weeks or so.Then  they will be having a swim through the sheep dip with Flockmaster dipping powder to clean up any lice which they may be carrying , then back to the paddock to keep growing the lambs they are feeding . The cows  are living in portable fencing so they can be moved on to fresh pasture as needed and they are calving to the new Murray Grey bull purchased March2011 so there is lots of new calves racing around. We have had a magnificent Lambing this year with just short of 200 lambs marked and Tagged so far and lambs still coming.