Day 5 - What a Busy, Busy Day!

To start of today we visited Trigger Vale Ranch.  When we arrived we were greeted by Tom the baby lamb who was abandoned by his mother and was being bottle fed. He was super cute! :) They family here raises about 2500 seedstock and breeding Poll Merinos and White Suffolk sheep.  Their main goal is to improve the genetics of both the breeds.  Andrew, the owner, truely believes that improving the genetics of the breed is the key to improved ranch profitability and overall animal performance.  He has done a great deal of research on the animal genetics and he is trying to share his views with the rest of the Merino breeders in Australia, but many of them are very traditional and not willing to change.  He also talked about many genetic and nutritional things that we have learned in many classes at K-State which was really cool to see them being used in real life and not just on books or powerpoints. 

When we were leaving the farm I was bitten by a strange bug and now have a huge bug bite that is hot and painful. :( That would be just my luck!

So the second stop today was so fun! We went to an emu farm! We got to walk around and see the birds.  We tried to feed them, but they were too busy fighting with each other to be concerned with food!  At this farm they have a couple hundred birds that they hatch and raise.  They main reason they raise the birds is for the oils, which are known to have healing properties.  Have made some leather goods from the birds, but they are difficult to market.  After our tour we had a great bbq steak lunch! We were hoping they would cook us some emu since we haven't tried any, but we have also heard that it doesn't taste very good.

Our final stop for the day was at Sprys Shorthorns.  This ranch focuses on seedstock bulls for commercial use.  They also have a small market for show bulls for the northern part of Australia.  The Shorthorn bulls that were here were differnet than what Shorthorns we have in the U.S.  They were much better built and worth a great deal more.  One bull that we saw today was worth 46,000 AUD!!! (That's almost 50,000 USD!)  After we toured the farm they told us more about their operation and then cooked us a yummy dinner of steak! After dinner we all had a chance to sit around and chat and relax.  It was a great end to a busy day!
Now off to Wagga Wagga for a two night stay with free wifi! :)