Roblin
Babydoll Southdowns &
Alpacas
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2010
19 February 2010 It's been a busy month. Both January and February have been much busier than I expected. With good falls of rain around Christmas, some rain in January and now just in the last week, we got 4 inches in total, over a few days. The countryside is looking very green and the sheep and alpacas have some good greenery to graze on. We have now joined our Babydolls and look forward to a lot of new babies in August. I wish I could change their lambing season...but being British sheep, they are determined that the lambs will be born in August. Oh well, I guess they know what they are doing. In the last two years, August hasn't been a very cold month and we make sure they all have shelter and good food, to help get them and the lambs through. There has been two articles published this month about our Babydolls in vineyards. Neither article can be viewed on the internet, so I have mentioned the magazines below, for anyone that might be interested. The Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower & Winemaker Magazine
Due to the popularity and demand of the Babydolls in vineyards, we are expanding our crossbreeding program and hope to produce more Babydoll Crossbreds this year. We closed the bookings for Babydolls for 2010 and 2011 already and haven't opened up bookings for 2012 yet. Of course, number of the pure Babydolls are limited each year. But for any vineyards interested in small sheep, for keeping the grass and weeds under control, we will be offering the Babydoll Crosses as well. We have sold a number of Babydoll cross lambs to vineyards already and we have had good reports back on the job they are doing. Rob and I are planning a trip to NZ in April and while we are there, we will be visiting Yealands Estate. Home to some of our Babydolls, that have now become Kiwis. It will be great to see them working in the vineyard and we hope that will also get to meet, Peter Yealands himself and other members of his staff that have been so helpful with the planning of Babydolls into NZ. I am so looking forward to visiting Yealands Estate and will certainly make an entry about our visit when we return. Luckily, we will have some good people here at home to keep an eye on things for us and especially the Merino ewes, if they decide to start lambing before we arrive home again. We can't always take a break away, but this was a good opportunity to visit our NZ customer and get some time off before sowing more crops and before the start of our busy lambing times. Peter kindly sent me a photo of one of the Babydolls in his vineyard. It's just a lovely photo and you can tell by the smile, that the Babydolls have settled in very well.
31 January 2010 January was certainly a hot month. I guess what else do we expect in Australia. We all survived the heat and all our animals did exceptionally well. We had to turn on some sprinklers for our alpacas to help cool them down, (the water was from our bore), as they didn't get sheared last year. We had problems getting our shearer organised late in the year, so plan to get him to shear the alpacas earlier this year, so they don't have to go through summer with their coats again. But I am sure they enjoyed a good sit under the spray of water. I turned a milestone in my age this month and enjoyed a day relaxing and doing things that I enjoy, that I don't normally get to do, due to being too busy. We have already joined our Babydolls rams with our Saxon Merino ewes again and expect lambing of our Babydoll crossbreds to start end of April into May. The lambing went very well last year and hope for another great season with no problems. This month we had a couple of alpaca babies born. Both are boys. One is a chestnut colour with a white blaze on his face and the other is pure white. They are both doing well and we moved the mums & bubs into a lucerne paddock for extra feed. They arrived due to a little accident with our male alpaca getting to some of the girls. But I am determined that he won't be joining our girls until well into Autumn. Summer is just too hot for babies to be born.
2009 15 December 2009 It's nearly the end of the year and we are looking forward to a well earned break. All our lambs for this year have been delivered and we've made room for our next lambing season in 2010. Including, dropping off our second shipment of Babydolls for NZ, into quarantine. We've had some hot days, but I am sure with summer well on the way, we can expect a lot more hots days, but hopefully with some good rain. All our animals will be well prepared for the summer months, with new water troughs installed and lots of shade and a good supply of hay when need. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year.
1 November 2009 Lambing of the Babydolls and the Babydoll Cross lambs went very well this year. We had a good percentage of births and there was plenty of feed (actually still is) on the ground for the ewes & lambs. We have sold all our lambs from this year and also, all the lambs for next year's lambing have been sold already. These miniature, woolly faced beauties, are still proving to be very popular and have found a productive place in vineyards and orchards. In September, The Weekly Times did a story on our Babydolls. The link is below for anyone interested in reading the article. Also, our New Zealand customer has had a number of media releases done on his new arrivals, earlier this year and I have put a link to one of his stories below. Our next export of Babydolls to New Zealand will go into quarantine next month and then 30 days later, in January, they will arrive at their new home and become Kiwi sheep. It's been a very busy year and we are in the middle of the hay making season and the weather is warming up. Soon all our sold lambs will be at their new homes, before the summer weather really hits and we will then be able to work on preparing our ewes for the next joining at the end of January.
The Weekly Times Link: www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2009/09/23/114901_on-farm.html New Zealand Media Release Link: www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?id=39435
ROBLIN BABYDOLL SOUTHDOWNS EXPORT TO NEW ZEALAND Roblin Babydoll Southdowns has taken another large stride forward, with our first export to New Zealand completed successfully. We now export Babydoll Southdown sheep to New Zealand's single largest privately owned vineyard. The sheep have a big job in front of them to help keep the undergrowth in the vineyard under control and make it more economical and friendly for our New Zealand customer. He is also interesting in bringing back this lovely breed of sheep to New Zealand and building up the numbers. We wish our New Zealand customer all the best with his new venture and look forward to helping him build his flock of Babydolls.
2008 10 September 2008 Our lambing season for the Babydolls has finished. It went quite well and we only have two poddy lambs from the lambing this year. They are doing well and will join our breeding program in the future. The Babydolls have become quite popular and we currently have sold all the Babydolls that we are going to sell this season. We had a lot of enquiries and had to have a waiting list of all potential buyers. We are trying to increase our numbers of breeding stock each year and hope to have an even better lambing season next year. It's lovely to watch all the lambs at play in the late afternoons and see the mums trying to keep their children under control. Which is almost an impossible task with an over active and curious little lamb.
16 August 2008 Rob has taken some photos of some of the Babydolls lambs. They seem to grow so fast and develop such a curious little nature.
Below is a photo Rob took recently of the Babydoll Southdown Merino cross lambs.
2 August 2008 Today is the day. The Babydoll ewes have started lambing. The first lamb to arrive is a single ram lamb. He has lovely dark colour on his legs and face. The second ewe to lamb had twins. Her first is a lighter colour ram lamb and her second is a darker coloured ewe lamb. These are not identical twins. All are doing well and the ewes are being great mums. I have posted some photos below. I alway feel that photos don't do the sheep justice, but the photos will give you and idea of what the lambs look like. We have a lot more ewes to lamb and I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a ewe lambing every day this month now, until they have all finished for this season.
First Ewe and her Ram Lamb Second Ewe's Ewe Lamb (Twin)
Second Ewe and her Ram Lamb (First of the twins)
28 July 2008 I was greeted today with a lovely little ewe lamb. She is a cross and not a purebred lamb. Her breed is Babydoll Southdown/Poll Dorset/Merino/Border Leicester. A mouth full I know, but she has a great mum and certainly has Babydoll traits. It hasn't been decided yet, but quite possible that I will keep her for our breeding program in the future and breed future lambs to a purebred Babydoll Southdown. All going well it will take 4 -5 generations, but it will be worth it. Her fate as a breeder or pet will be determined later when she is older. I haven't any good pictures yet, but will post some in the next few days.
6 July 2008 The lovely little twins below are now available for purchase. You can find the details on our Sales and Leases page. They will not be able to go to their new home until they are 3 months old, but a deposit can be paid. They are such active little guys and I can spend ages on our back veranda watching their antics of chasing each other and bouncing around at dusk. Below is a picture of how they have grown. We still have some Babydoll Southdown ewes to lamb and expect to soon have a lot of new lambs bouncing around and pictures of them will be posted on this page when they start to arrive.
14 June 2008 Twin ram lambs were born today. They are not pure Babydoll Southdowns, as we have a few of our crossbred ewes and a merino ewe in lamb to our Babydoll ram. The mother of the twins is our black Merino ewe and we were hoping for a black lamb, but they turned out more of the original Babydoll colour. Still very stunning little lambs. The Twins certainly have more of the traits of Babydolls as in, their wrinkly skin, woolly faces and little "old man" looks", plus small size. Mum and the lambs are doing well. I have posted a few pictures on this page when they were newly born, but will up date the photos in the next couple of days.
Lamb 1 and Lamb 2 (Babydoll/Merino Cross)
Merino Ewe & Babydoll Cross Lamb Babydoll Ewe greeting new Lamb
Linda & Rob Power PO Box 426 Cootamundra NSW 2590 Phone: 02 6942 2707
Email: lpower@shoal.net.au
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