Saturday, April 3, 2010

Quest for sheep

I've been looking for more dogging sheep, and thought I would go with my neice Ashley and her boyfriend Jason to the Odd and Unusual Sale up in Innisfail on Friday. Jason decided he wanted to have a goat (god knows why), so we hooked up the trailer (since I was going to bring my 10 sheep back with me) up to Innisfail. Now, this is the first time I had ever gone, and I would say there is more odd and unusual people than animals up there. I got my number 144 and was ready to bid. I had gone through the back, and all they had for sheep were Barbados and a couple of unshorn (I am sure for 3-4 years) ewes, 4 Dorpers and some Shetland Sheep. The goats sold first - one-at-a-time- it was going to be a long day, since there were about 150 goats to go through. Jason finally got his goat towards the end - the vast majority went for over 120 dollars. Then they started the sheep sale, and started with the bottle lambs - after the first went through I thought to myself, I should have brought the lambs I have at home - they went for $125 apiece!! I wasn`t too keen on Barbados, but I thought if they sold at the right price, I would buy a few. I didn`t even bother to try. I turned into a buyer for Grant Musgrove though (got to flip my number) - he bought some Barbados that were ready to lamb. The Barbados brought $95 or better. Then there were the old (8 year old) papered Shetland Sheep - $160. What were they thinking-those girls looked like they didn't have long to live. The unshorn sheep brought $130 - I am sure it would cost $30 to shear them for the amount of wool they carried.
In the end, the only thing I brought back from the sale was the stench of goat. At least Jason was happy-Billy the Kid is his name - stinking is his game.

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