Farm Enterprises

General

General Farm groups with Miss Iles, have been busy cleaning silos, silo pads and generally getting storage areas ready for harvest.  They've also been conducting practical observations, cleaning out sheds and helping out in the butcher shop slaughtering sheep.   Since Mr West returned from the North-West Tour, he's been busy with machinery maintenance and cleaning all that red mud off of the tour vehicles! 

Cattle

Students are out and about throughout the day checking on our breeding mob with Miss Baker, learning to identify the signs of oestrus, noting down matings and working out when to check cows for possible return-to-oestrus.  This way we can keep an eye on individual animals and whether they are falling pregnant at the sighted mating.  These records can then be used for our Collect and Record Production Data competency.  

Grains

Firebreak spraying is underway, so students are busy mixing chemicals, driving the Ute sprayer, and learning to stay JUST far enough away from the fence to avoid having to make repairs!   Crops are coming along nicely, with the plants taking up all that lovely rain, fertiliser and intermittent sunshine.  Final fungicide sprays are going out now, so the crops should bolt ahead. 

Piggery

The Piggery enterprise has been very busy this past week assisting students with completing their competencies before the end of term. Certificate III Pork students have been learning the ins and outs of Biosecurity, whilst keeping on top of gaining industry skills and knowledge. On Wednesday, Certificate III Pork students will be going on a daytrip to Westpork’s Breeder unit in Gingin with Miss Davenport, to complete further Artificial Insemination practicals in a large commercial setting. 

We would like to remind students, that if you have flu or flu-like symptoms to please let our Technical Officer know. We have controls to put in place to prevent transmission to our pigs. 

Sheep

Tailing of lambs is now complete (apart from a few stragglers in the Poll Dorset mob), and students have had the opportunity to spend a day (in the cold and rain for some groups) to learn the intricacies of tailing and mulesing.  This involves all aspects of the mulesing cradle including catching, operating the gas knife to remove the tail, ear tagging, scratching for Scabby mouth, vaccinating, castrating and applying veterinary treatments after mulesing.  They have also been drafting the dry ewes off and carting them to another location.  We've had mixed results over our lambing mobs with the highest being an impressive 145% lambing!  

Another load of lambs headed off this week, with mostly only ration lambs remaining.  A large number of sheep groups have been tasked with weighing and drafting these lambs over the past few months and some have gained the knack of estimating an animals' weight by their size and condition.  No one will ever be as accurate as Mr Laird though!