Farm Manager
Geoff.Howell
Geoffrey.Howell@education.wa.edu.au
Welcome back to Term 2 on the farm. Once again we see ourselves in the situation of a late break to the season with only 26 mm of rain in April and a further 10mm in May (so far) which has put pressure on livestock enterprises and fodder supplies.
I would like to thank all staff who were around during the holiday break to keep the farm ticking over.
Trust Funding
The College was advised late last term that there would be extra funding available from the Trust to purchase infrastructure items for the farm to the value of $70,000.00.
We successfully applied for the following items;
- Replacement post rammer
- Repairs to our John Deere 2250 tractor
- Fencing Materials
- Two solar pumps
Students on Farm
General Farm
The College has commenced its pasture renovation programme despite the dry weather with 12 ha at the Harvey site being speed tillered and seeded in Week 2. We are now reseeding 36 ha on the flats, 16ha at sheep and 60ha at beef. This programme is giving students valuable time operating tractors and various machinery in a safe environment and students need to take advantage of this opportunity.
Beef
The majority of our beef herd has finished calving with only a handful left to go, much to Mr Millichamp’s delight.
Sheep
Just as calving finishes, lambing has commenced with the first of the cross bred ewes lambing towards the end of Week 1 with the merino ewes to commence latter in the term.
The Farm
Ms Warden has been busy up at “The Farm” with the College taking delivery of two pregnant gilts, 15 Dorper ewes and 5 Dexter cows. The gilts gave birth to 23 healthy piglets on 27th of April and are doing well. We also had 200 trout fingerlings delivered and 60 day chicks are on the way.
Dairy
Students have been involved in cleaning the dairy feed shed and effluent pit and making compost.
Our next major project is to get ready for Open Day on the 25th of May and we look forward to seeing everybody there.