I might have started a post like this before, but sometimes life likes to just make sure you are awake and listening, and tests you with a few challenges... one after another, after another and so on.
The day started well, I was up early (6am), as 11 lamb rams had to be loaded onto the trailer and taken to the Wellsford sale yards by around 8.30am. The saleyards is where all the farmers go to sell their livestock, and I had been having issues selling the ram lambs, so I thought I would give it a go.
You need to find a livestock broker, and we found ours through PG Wrightson.
Getting the boys onto the trailer was a little tricky. My pen is raised off the ground at one end, and I can reverse the trailer up to the gate, and the sheep in theory can just walk into the pen, and onto the trailer. Sounds easy...
In Reality:
1). Reversing the car, in a paddock, with a trailer up an incline with long grass, is very hard on the clutch. The smell of a burning clutch is never a good feeling.
2). The Ram Lambs don't want to get onto the trailer, let alone go into the pen with the car & trailer nearby.
Fortunately, I had Geoff with me today, and it's much easier handling the lambs with two people than one.
Once loaded we headed from Kaiwaka to Wellsford (15 minutes drive) to the Wellsford saleyards. All very straight forward, on arrival we fill out a form with our details, unload the lambs into a pen, which we had the help of a young boy/man (8 years or so)... he just jumped straight into the trailer with the rams and started wrestling the rams off. He had no fear at all, and our rams have horns, and I tend to take a more cautious approach, but not this little man. Farm kids are breed tough! Then there is a little time to check out the other sheep and wait for the sale to start at 11.30am.
We headed back home to clean the trailer, go get some mulch and have morning tea before the sales start. Well we achieved morning tea, and cleaning the trailer. On our way to the sawmill, the clutch in the car failed. I knew it was going to be needed to be replaced in the near future, but not today!
So the dramas started, first we needed help to get the car to the nearest workshop, the workshop couldn't fix the car, so we needed to get the car to another mechanic, and then we had to get back to the salesyards. Fortunately, Geoff was with me and had his car to take me back to the sale.
It was great to see the other sheep, how the sale operated, what sheep sold for what price etc.
TIP: If you are looking at owning sheep to breed and sell, go to the saleyards to see what type of sheep is selling and getting the top dollar. Do this before you purchase your sheep. It was very interesting as to some of the prices being achieved. Well over $200 per sheep.
We didn't do so well, our 11 rams, where split into two groups. Big lambs and little lambs. The big lambs sold well, we got just over $100 each. However the little lambs didn't sell, and we were faced with having to get them home. But with no working car I was faced with an issue. I had a word to our livestock broker, and explained our situation that we have no means to get the unsold boys home, and we need to sell them. He got to work, going from person to person, a true salesman, working the sales yard. He finally found two buyers, one offer at $25 each and another $35 each. We accepted the $35 each. Not the price we wanted, and if I had my car/trailer, then we would have just taken them home.
So a challenging day, I've learnt a lot, and I'm still without a car, but all is well that ends well.
I now just need to sort out a plan to get to work tomorrow, a mere 65km away!
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