Small Abattoir Processing Sheep

Here are a few of the photos taken during our visit to a small country abattoir outside of Perth, Western Australia. We were interested to see how a small family run abattoir that processed small numbers of animals operated, compared to a large factory abattoir. I visited a large beef abattoir many years ago and was saddened to see how frightened the animals were before they were stunned. It was extremely busy and noisy and the calls from the other animals were distressing for those waiting in the lanes. I wanted to see if there was a better way to kill our meat animals, causing the least stress possible and achieving a completely pain free and instant death. In Australia, all animals killed for sale as meat have to be killed under strict conditions that satisfy the requirements of Health and Safety regulations. Large animals must be inspected by a meat health inspector while being processed. Unfortunately for most of our meat farm animals this means they are sent to large factory abattoirs for processing. There are a few small abattoirs left in Western Australia that process small numbers of animals and have a meat health inspector visit on kill days. These small abattoirs offer a small meat producer and his animals a few benefits. Firstly, a farmer can stay and observe the entire process from off loading his animals to cutting and packing the meat, so he or she can be assured that the animals have not suffered during the process. Secondly, the sheep can see a familiar face and feel some reassurance. Thirdly, the sheep are processed in very small numbers and well away from the other sheep. They are given an electric shock that stuns them into unconsciousness outside the building and are then pulled through into the processing room. Before they are stunned they do not call out more than is usual for sheep so they do not agitate the others waiting in the yards below. Once each group is processed, another is driven up onto the stunning platform, away from the sight of the other sheep below. The process is much kinder to the animals than what I observed in a large factory abattoir. No process that involves killing an animal is going to be completely stress free unless you shoot your animal through the brain while he is eating some grass in the paddock- which incidentally is how farmers manage animals they kill for their own consumption. Animals killed in such a way can be eaten by the farmer but are legally not able to be sold to a third party. This is where the problem lays. The quickest, kindest and most stress free way to kill an animal is not able to be practiced on animals for public sale. However, my observations at the small abattoir were that, as far as abattoirs go, this is the better option if you are concerned about your animals' welfare.

BE WARNED: There are graphic photos of sheep being processed on this page! If you do not want to see sheep being killed, skinned and cut up, DO NOT LOOK AT THIS POST!!!


The holding yards at the abattoir- undercover. The animals are held for several hours to reduce the stress they have experienced during transport to the facilities. The building looks like a shearing shed and so the sheep will be most likely expecting to be shorn- a mildly stressful, but usually painless (depending on your shearer!) procedure that they know and understand. This helps reduce the stress they feel in the unfamiliar waiting yards.

Managing Livestock so They don’t Become Dead Stock

(Or why you are not exempt from animal welfare laws just because you live on a farm)

Firstly, I must do the disclaimer! I am not a livestock expert. I am not a veterinarian or an agriculturalist. Seven years ago I was a complete novice in the farming world. Now I like to think I have learned quite a bit about caring for these beautiful farm creatures. This information is what I have learned from seven years of watching, looking, listening, and reading all about sheep, cattle and pigs. It is the accumulated knowledge of seven years of owning, caring for and loving my own livestock. As with anything else in the world, do further research to find out for yourself if what I know and believe works for you and your situation!

Anecdote: When we first looked at Morilla with the real estate agent we drove around the whole farm and did notice there were several dead sheep in various stages of decomposition lying about in the paddocks. I commented: “There are a few dead sheep about”, to which the real estate agent replied, without missing a beat: “If you’ve got livestock, you’ve got dead stock”. This seems to be the general attitude of farmers who own vast amounts of land and have large numbers of livestock. If you have 20 sheep it is a tragedy to lose one. If you have 2,000 sheep, who’s counting anyway? To me, every sheep who dies is a terrible loss that probably could have been prevented if I had been more knowledgeable, more mindful or more determined. I do not like to lose an animal because I just failed to care enough.

Having livestock in your life is a great joy and a blessing. It is also a responsibility, both morally and legally. Your farm animals must have the following conditions, the same conditions any other animal in your care requires:

Access to clean fresh water at all times

Access to adequate feed to meet their nutritional requirements at any time

Access to shelter from the sun, wind and rain

Freedom from pain and discomfort

Treatment of any injuries, illness or disease in an adequate and timely fashion

Gentle handling undertaken with all due care and consideration

Freedom from fear and stress

Adequate preventative health measures to ensure good health, such as worming, lice treatment, hoof management, vaccinations etc

Freedom to live a life of quiet contentment while being able to exhibit their natural behaviours as much as is possible.

Biosecurity for your Farm

Farm Biosecurity

Farm biosecurity means preventing the introduction of infectious agents to your property and livestock, preventing the spread of disease agents from an infected area to an uninfected area, and minimising the occurence and transmission of microorganisms of public health significance. Biosecurity and quarantine are vital components of any successful farming system. How seriously you take biosecurity on your property is an individual choice, and strict biosecurity may seem like a bit of overkill- until you introduce a disease or infectious organism to your property and then have to deal with the aftermath. Eradicating some infectious agents is very, very difficult.

Farm biosecurity is about keeping your farm and all of the animals and crops on it free from potential disease. It is the application of various systems and practices in order to prevent the introduction of diseases, pathogens, weeds and other pests onto your farm. It also is the implementation of systems and practices which prevent the spread of these pathogens, weeds and pests from your property onto other people’s property.

Biosecurity is the ongoing day to day application of a set of simple yet essential practices designed to safeguard you lifestyle and livelihood from potential disaster. To be effective you must be uncompromising in the applications of the principles and practices required to ensure the system works properly and does not fail.

 Keeping diseases, pests and weeds off of your farm and out of your business is essential because they reduce your farm productivity and therefore your business income. These diseases and pests can make your animals sick and in order to solve the problem you may be required to pay costly veterinary bills or cull valuable animals and lose irreplaceable bloodlines. Certain diseases have an added risk as they can be passed on to humans, potentially affecting the health and wellbeing of your family and workers.  If the pests and diseases are difficult to eradicate from the land, the value of the land may be reduced, possibly greatly. If large numbers of farms in an area are affected by the pathogens or pests, it can have a flow on effect to markets, domestic and international.

Why is establishing a biosecurity system on your farm important?

The efficient Australian quarantine system and the fact that we live on an island can lead some people to believe that we are relatively safe from potentially devastating diseases and pests. While these two facts do help reduce the risk of new pests and diseases being introduced into Australia and therefore making their way to your farm, they are not fool proof (and there are plenty of fools out there who ignore our quarantine rules) and we already have many devastating and costly diseases and pests in our country.

Some of the pathogens, pests and weeds that cost Australian farmers vast amounts of money, time and stress are:

·         Bovine and Ovine Johne‘s Disease- a muscle wasting disease of ruminants that is rare but endemic in Australia. There is no treatment for this disease and affected animals either die or must be destroyed.

·         Newcastle Disease- a highly contagious disease affecting the digestive, respiratory and nervous systems of birds. Highly virulent strains can cause 100% mortality. This disease is occasionally passed on to humans.

·         Avian Influenza- a contagious disease of birds that occurs worldwide. Severe strains cause sudden and quick deaths in birds. There is no effective cure. It is occasionally transmitted to humans.

·         Classical Swine Fever- a highly contagious disease of pigs last documented in Australia in 1961. The risk however is not eliminated and an outbreak would have disasterous consequences to the Australian Pork industry.

·         Anthrax- a disease caused by spores that may be buried in soils for many years before coming into contact with an animal. It can be passed to humans who come into contact with the carcass of an infected animal. Outbreaks in Australia have only occurred in NSW.

·         Foot and Mouth Disease- is a highly contagious disease of cloven hooved animals. It is one of the most serious livestock diseases in the world. While Australia is considered to be FMD free, outbreaks of this disease have occurred in Australia from 1801- 1872.

·         Intestinal parasites- cost farmers valuable dollars in lost or slowed growth and development in affected livestock, costs to drench animals, and the increasing risk of parasites developing resistance to drenches

·         Prickly Pear (Opuntia stricta spp.) This plant, introduced from the Americas sometime in the early 1800’s became a truly unmanageable menace in NSW and Queensland between 1900 and 1930. By 1925, prickly pear was completely out of control, infesting some twenty-five million hectares in New South Wales and Queensland. It was spreading at the rate of half a million hectares a year. Chemical weed control failed to stop this plant’s advance and it was only with the introduction of a biological weed control in the form of cactoblastis caterpillars (Cactoblastis cactorum) released in 1926 that the prickly pear problem was overcome. Within six years the weed was almost totally eradicated. (http://www.northwestweeds.nsw.gov.au/prickly_pear_history.htm)

Beautiful Country Skies

My Favourite Street

Beverley, Western Australia

Beautiful Beverley- a small rural town about an hour and a half east of Perth, Western Australia.

Coffee Helps with the Fencing. Then the Sheep Join in.

Coffee the orphaned Brahman cow is a little over friendly and likes to get involved in whatever we are doing. The sheep are also very helpful and like to keep us company as we work. We are very pleased that our animals trust us and are not afraid of us in any way....although this can prove trying at times!

Shearing When You Have No Shed

When we first arrived at our new property we had no shearing shed, but we had sheep who needed shearing before we went on a holiday to the USA for 2 months. What a dilemma. We were terribly embarassed by our lack of a shed and suitable place to shear our sheep, but needed to find some generous soul who would feel sorry for us and our sheep and help us out of our bind. We phoned around and finally found a shearer willing to do the job, on the dirt under a tree. What a wonderful man, we thought,and expected some old retiree to come strolling along with an esky full of stubbies and a few yarns to tell.  Turns out we were not correct in our assumptions! The shearer who rolled up to our yards was, in fact, a world champion shearer who travels around the world entering shearing competitions- and doing very well in them too. He ran his own shearing team, worked all week,  and we realised the extent of his kindness to us when he said he was shearing for us on his only day off all week! He did an absolutely fantastic job- almost no nicks or cuts on our beautiful sheep- and we were able to go overseas knowing our sheep would be less likely to get flystrike while we were away. His wife did the wool classing for us and we got nearly $ 2000 from the wool which was a nice addition to the holiday funds! Two very lovely people who were only too happy to help us out in our moment of need.

Setting up the sling and shearing head from a pine post in the ground

Sheep waiting to be shorn

How to Manage a Rain Water Tank

How to Not Get Dysentery from your Rainwater Tanks

A clean rainwater tank is a safe rainwater tank

Collecting and storing rainwater is an ancient practice. It is very common in rural Australia where access to treated scheme water is not available. The common belief is that rainwater is a safe source of pure water. This may be true as the rain falls on your roof, but if you do not manage your rain water tank correctly, you may well be drinking contaminated water. What is so pure and clean about water that collects bird poo, dead frogs and chemical dust and leaves and stores them all, slowly putrifying in a stagnant pool? The main house rainwater tank at Morilla was an ancient concrete structure that did not seal properly and the collection surface was the large shed - the gutters of which were filled with debris. What it needed was to be replaced with a new tank, but instead we decided to drink bottled water, fit an extremely high quality water filter for cooking water and use the tank water only for showering and flushing the toilet. The water surprisingly remained clean and odour free while we lived there, and no doubt any other farmer would have drunk it without a second thought. Maybe it was my nursing past life coming back to haunt me, but I could never bring myself to just drink water straight from that old, unsafe tank. Farmers all around told us that rainwater tanks are ‘self cleaning’, although how this could possibly occur still escapes me. How does a tank clean itself? The only rainwater tank I would trust would be a brand new one I installed and maintained. Then I could be assured of the quality and safety of the water contained within it.

Water in rainwater tanks is not treated with chlorine as the water that comes from the scheme water system is. This allows microbes to breed and thrive in tanks that are not correctly maintained. What you effectively have is a collection of stagnant untreated water that sits in a tank year after year. The tank will collect debris from roofs and gutters including bird faeces and chemical dust which can pass through a leaf net system, and if the tank is not fully sealed, animals will find their way inside and drown. Over time a sludge will form on the bottom of the tank and if this sludge rises to the outlet point, you will be drinking water that contains some of this sludge material. If at any time the water is not clear, odourless and tasteless, you have a problem with contamination. You do not want to be drinking this contaminated water, and you do not want to know what is in it that has lead to the contamination!

Supplementing Your Sheep's Diet with Grain

When the pasture is not enough - Feeding grain to supplement your animal’s diet

 Oats, wheat, barley and sorghum are often used for supplement feeding of sheep when pastures are not adequate to meet the animals' dietary requirements. Sheep will also need roughage in the form of hay, if edible dry grasses are not available in the paddocks. You can also feed your livestock commercially made feed cubes or pellets. Refer to the instructions for quantities to feed your animals.

Sheep requirements for supplementary feeding
When feeding oats:
Weaners- 2.2 kg per week each
Dry adult- 3 kg per week each
Six weeks prior to lambing- 3.8 kg per week each
Lactating ewe- 5.1 kg per week each

When feeding barley, wheat or sorghum:
Weaners- 1.8 kg per week each
Dry Adult- 2.4 kg per week each
Six weeks prior to lambing- 3 kg per week each
Lactating ewes- 4.2 kg per week each

Oats are the preferred grain to feed sheep and cattle as they are less likely to cause lactic acidosis- a process that can kill your stock. Introducing grain (or any new feed) must be done gradually to allow the rumen bacterial colonies to adapt to the changing environment and be able to process the food safely without making excessive lactic acid.

How to Calculate How Much Dry Food You Have in Your Pasture

Pasture assessment for absolute beginners

Owning a large amount of land is an incredible responsibility. If you do not know what you are doing you may very well make some serious mistakes before you have a chance to learn how to do things correctly.

You cannot just do nothing with the land. You will either need to lease it to people who know how to manage the land (although when you do not know what is required to manage the land it is actually impossible for you to know if what the leasee is doing is correct!) or you will need to manage the land yourself. If you choose to manage it yourself you will need to ensure that you keep some plant growth in the paddocks to prevent the topsoil blowing or washing away. The top soil is not very deep and contains the required nutrients that enable plants to become established and grow. Once it is gone it is very difficult to establish any plant life. A bare paddock and a very windy day are a disastrous combination. You will also need to keep your weed burden down so that weeds do not take over your pastures and leave you without any stock feed. Also, your neighbours will not thank you if your weed seeds are forever blowing into their paddocks. You do not want to be driven out of town by an irate group of farmers. You will need to select the plant species you wish to grow and then ensure they can become established and stay established by eliminating the competition from the undesirable weed species that will forever be trying to invade your paddocks. You are going to need advise and help from the very start of your venture if you are going to succeed. You do not have the luxury of spending ‘a few years’ learning how to farm while your paddocks turn to dust!

I cannot advise you on what pasture you need to grow or what chemicals you need to spray to control your weeds. You are going to need advice from specialists who know your area. I can advise you on whether or not the pasture you have growing on your property now is adequate to meet the nutrirional requirements of your stock. That is what I will attempt to do in this chapter!

Living with a Septic Tank System

Septic Tanks 101

Lucky you, you have your own underground sewerage treatment plant

If you are moving to the country from the city chances are you will be encountering your first septic tank system, unless you are old enough to remember having one in the back garden when you were a child. I have distinct memories of the terrible smell emanating from these unpleasant storage tanks when they were well due for emptying, and watching in amazement as the septic truck suction hose bounced around the garden collecting its putrid load. I also have a distinct memory of a septic truck driver standing over the open septic tank examining the progress of the job, while he ate a sandwich. I do not think he washed his hands before he had his lunch, but is that even relevant? The man was consuming food while he breathed in raw sewerage and looked at the sludge in the bottom of a shit tank.

Do not dread the possibility of buying a property with a septic tank. Having a septic tank that is well maintained and cared for is an inexpensive and easy way to manage household waste water when you are not able to be connected to a deep sewerage system. A new septic system should last at least 30 years and require emptying every 2-5 years, depending on usage. You do not need to fear them failing and sending septic water into your house or smelling offensively if you follow a few simple guidelines. Neither do they need frequent pumping and emptying or expensive additives to keep them working properly.

Living Off the Grid- Solar System

Is it possible to live a normal life completely off the grid with a solar electricity system with a generator backup?

Yes, it certainly is. And if you get the right system for your needs, you will rarely need to use your backup generator at all. You do need to pay more attention to the appliances you buy and how you use electricity in your home, but neither of these two things are bad things. It is good to be aware of how much power you use, learn to reduce your usage and stop being mindlessly wasteful.

We bought our property knowing that it was not connected to the mains power system, but fell in love with its location and the sheer beauty of the landscape (Mistake number one in house hunting, apparently!) We knew we would probably end up living off the grid with a solar power system (which we were a little excited about actually), but made the usual enquiries to our local electricity company, asking the cost of connection to their grid. After finding out that it was going to cost around $80,000 to get a mains power line to our property ( yes, a loud "WTF" was said to the poor electric company man on the phone before I regained my composure and corrected myself and said "I see...interesting...thanks for your time but I think I shall respectfully decline."...or something to that effect!) And then knowing that after coughing up such an indecent amount of cash, we would still be billed by the electric company every 3 months for our electricity usage, we found the decision to go solar much easier!

The old system that was at the property when we bought it- designed and built by the previous homeowner for weekend use- was insufficient to supply us with our power needs. How was I to run my espresso machine?  Made out of old typewriter parts and wooden spoons and held together with sticky tape and string, the old system was a relic from a bygone solar power era, long surpassed by modern technology. It was actually of little more use than a bicycle attached to a dynamo.

Here is the old system that came with the farm

The old system was adequate for short term use and brief visits to the property but no good as a long term system. The batteries were inadequate and antiquated and the panels were old and inefficient. The system was 7 years old and many advancements in solar energy had been made since it was installed! The old system would predictably run out of power at around 8pm- 9pm, and so off to bed we would go as it was too late to start the generator and disturb our neighbours across the river. This became a problem very quickly, especially when it meant missing an episode of Boardwalk Empire, again! We were dilly dallying about what to do about the power situation, when a freak storm blew our shed away and forced our hand. Even God or whatever the greater powers that be are, gets tired of watching fools struggle with indecision! In one afternoon we urgently needed a new power system, and we urgently needed a new shed to house our power system. A quick call to the insurance company made it easy to push ahead with the new efficient solar system and make our own energy from the sun. 

The original solar system shed after the big blow.

We called in Switched On Solar to come and give us a quote to build us a system that would allow us to live like people who are connected to the grid, instead of hill billies who were making power by getting beavers to run around in a hamster wheel. We wanted to have all the conveniences of modern life, so we knew our new system would be an amazing salute to modern ingenuity. We called a local shed erector to give us a quote for a new shed, twice the size of the old one and built tough to withstand the high winds we get here at certain times of the year. "This no be cheap", we thought! And it wasn't cheap! The shed cost $ 23,000- half of it covered by insurance. The new solar system cost us $22,000 and needs one more upgrade to allow us to run air conditioners- we need 6 more panels and 12 more batteries.Surprisingly, the cost of the shed was more of a shock than the cost of the solar power system!

The new system as it stands today, before the final upgrade- designed and built by Switched on Solar- Note the difference.......

The new system runs nearly all of our appliances, including the microwave, toaster, espresso machine, TV, computer, laptops, lights, overhead fans,  fridge, washing machine and all the charging requirements of all the small stuff like phones and iPads. In the course of an average day, we use lighting in 2 rooms for 2- 3 hours, TV for 3 hours, desk top computer for 1 -2 hours, 420 litre Electrolux fridge for 24 hours, front loading LG washing machine for 1 hour, toaster for 5 minutes, microwave for 5-10 minutes, charge our phones, laptop and ipad. this usage does not drop the battery charge level below 80%, even in winter, so we do not have to use the generator. It does not run the clothes dryer for more than an hour or so without dropping the batteries charge status to below 80%.  It does not run the iron for more than 15 minutes without the generator automatically kicking in. It also would be unable to run a split system air conditioner for most of the night, but it would power the air conditioners during the day while the panels were making power. However, it gets so hot here, we want a split system that we can run at night and so require extra solar panels and extra batteries, which we will put in place before next summer. The current system requires us to use the generator to iron clothes (to use the iron for more than 10 minutes, that is- we can iron a shirt or one outfit without using the generator, but we can not iron several items of clothing). We cannot dry clothes in the dryer for more than an hour without dropping the battery charge levels below 80%. But we never dry clothes in the dryer anyway, so that does not bother us. We use the generator for less than 2 hours per week, most weeks not at all, and the cost of the fuel is very small.  So factor in the cost of the system and shed- $45,000 minus $12,000 from the insurance payout $33,000- and if we were to pay $2,000  per year for electricity (as we did when we were connected to the mains power), we would pay the system off in 16 years. The batteries have a life expectancy of at least 25 years so we should be getting free power for 10 years. Plus, of course, if we had decided to connect to the main power grid, the power company was going to charge us around $80,000 to get the lines to our property! So we have saved money, will save money in the future and are self reliant and green with our power supply- which actually feels really good! Plus, as our town experiences many power outages from the mains electrical system, we no longer have to worry about that and are never without power. We are the only light on the hill during blackouts- and the only ones watching TV or listening to some tunes. The upkeep of the system is minimal, actually there is none of which to speak- keep the dust off the panels and terminals and keep rodents away from the cables, run the generator once a month to keep it in good order, basically! The gel batteries do not require any maintenance, unlike the old style batteries and the panels are super efficient and will last forever but will no doubt be surpassed technologically within a few years! Solar power systems are getting more efficient and cheaper every year and are well worth considering, especially as  mains power bills keep getting more expensive.

We have found that our solar system meets our needs, gives us independence from the electricity companies and is a modern and green technology that we feel good about using.

The new shed built after the old shed blew away in the wind one stormy night. Insurance paid for half of it- unfortunately, not all of it! Gives some nice under cover area for the tractor and lawn mower and rabbits. But one day, in the sunny future, it will be my art studio when it is enclosed!

I'm the King of the Castle (well, Top of the Haystack, anyway)

This sheep has worked it out- when the competition is strong, you have to seek out opportunities others have missed!

Tackling neglected vines with only You tube to guide us!

So we bought the farm......and with it a few already insitu problems. Apart from the lack of sheep-proof fencing, the lack of pig-proof fencing, the lack of Coffee-the cow-proof fencing, the lack of dog-proof fencing and the complete lack of a poultry house and run (and with nearly 200 birds waiting to fill the stomachs of the nearest hungry fox)............the most pressing problem was the neglected vineyard. Along with the beautiful cottage, the stunning river views, the gorgeous undulating hillsides, the thick stands of tall white gums and the close proximity to the city, and the aforementioned problems, came 6,500 vines- right at the front of the property where every passer-by could see and comment on their progress or lack there of. Embarrassing. The shame of being mocked by our fellow landowners would compel us to at least have a go at tending the vines.

Being complete amateurs in viticulture, we were most reluctant to take on the task of rejuvenating our newly acquired vines. They were in desperate need of some help as they had not been pruned or reticulated for a couple of years.  We left them as long as we could, hoping that they would magically sort themselves out. This did not happen. So with great trepidation we watched every available You Tube video on grape vine care and set out into the vineyard armed with very little knowledge and about the same amount of hope. We decided that we had left it too late to prune the vines (secretly sighing with relief that we did not have to bungle our way through that task). That would just have to wait until next year- we were so disappointed! (teehee). We decided to just train this year's growth over the wires (seemed easy), fix the broken reticulation (we could probably manage that without too many difficulties) and let nature take its course (hey, not even our problem from that point forward). We planned to be on top of it all next year, reading, studying, buying new shears and other paraphernalia which would somehow assist us with our struggles, then promptly forgot about the vines and started planning our next holiday to Europe (yeeehah!).


Below: The neglected vineyard in need of some tender loving care, and quite possibly expert attention. Unfortunately what it was about to get was some amateur quick fix therapy and a little more neglect! One day we will replace the missing vines......

We spent the next few days on our hands and knees replacing drip heads and hose lines and contemplating removing the vines and setting up horse agistment in their place.

Hard at work replacing blocked and broken drip sprinkler heads and split pipes.