Gwydion's Damara Sheep

Gwydion · **Posted:** Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:24 pm

Steel, brick or treated wood. Every now and then we spray against termites but only localised. For example when the are too close to fruit trees.

Jaymie · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:06 am

why so much barbed wire? is it for the dogs? do you have any issues with wildlife hookups?

Gwydion · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:46 pm

Just to be sure, there are some dingoes around and the neighbor boundary fences are quite low. And there are lots of pig hunters living around here, like one guy 3blocks down the road,he has 8 kelpies, i don't know what happens when they escape.

Gwydion · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:59 pm

The sprinklers are starting to show an effect, the green is coming through early this year. Hopefully from next year we can keep some bits green all year around.

One of our dogs is disappointed because she is not allowed in and the sheep are getting more attention.

Here is one picture with the ram, we called him Leroy (Brown) aka Balls. The front sheep... I guess no one looks good on pictures while eating. Lol

Gwydion · **Posted:** Wed Jul 22, 2015 7:18 pm

So, the shade sail is installed. The plan for the weekend is to put a fence around this 5m by 5m area. I have to duck down a little bit because i had to use leftover steel from building the house, which means the horizontal bars are at 1.8m and to get the hyperbolic shape i had to mount the sail in the low corners at 1.5m, but this area will only be used for drenching etc. The sheep were a little bit careful when they went under the shade for the first time. I hope leaving a few treats there and their feed will change that. ;)

Gwydion · **Posted:** Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:07 pm

We had the vet at our place today, because the runny nose of one of our sheep got a bit better at first but than changed to be even worse to the point where she stuck out her tongue to breathe after feeding. The vet thinks it might be pneumonia which from her opinion counts to one of the 3 mayor problems with sheep in the tropics (worms, pneumonia, roaming hunting dogs). She got treated for it and we got some advise on how to improve their run and how to incorporate a crush for easier treatment/handling. Unfortunately one of the sheep had an accident, ran into the fence and got her leg tangled during the treatment of the sick one and broke a front leg and had to be put down by the vet.

We asked for a non chemical method, so we could still process the sheep and not to add even more waste to the unfortunate event.

Gwydion · **Posted:** Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:48 pm

Soo, all the meat is bagged.

We ended up with

2 shanks plus the neck for a stew, maybe pie filling
2 times 300g back strap filet
1 leg roast (hind leg)
2 leg roasts (front leg)
1 roll roast out of the rib attachment
3 portions of ribs (with the cutlets attached)

Lots off bones for the dogs s well as the liver/heart etc.

My mate who helped me with the butchering got the second half of the rib rack plus one hind leg.

Next time will have a try at tanning the hide but that was too short notice today.

Took its roughly an hour from start to finish plus another hour later in the kitchen after chilling the meat.

I have to invest in some good knives...

Gwydion · **Posted:** Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:02 pm

Evening treats... They sheep have put on lots of weight already...

By the way the meat tastes awesome, not muttony at all, just like lamb.

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