Fat lambs, if on the market prior to Christmas were bringing in good profits. Maybe we could get into this. We certainly weren’t going to try emus, ostrich, alpaca or lamas. An acceptable starter crossbred was merino x Border Leicester. Border Leicesters are those tall proud-looking sheep that featured in ‘Babe’. We had merinos, so all we now needed was a Border Leicester ram to start printing money. The grapevine soon told us of a local one that would be cheap despite his good pedigree. He was now used only for mowing grass on a property no longer interested in sheep. We rang up for an interview.
He was in a large shearing shed waiting to interview us. He looked us over but didn’t seem able to decide whether we were up to the job. He needed to look at our place to decide. We asked the farmer for the decision. He thought we should just take him. He would like the change. I backed the ute up to the shed’s ramp, opened the cage gate and he walked in, no hassle and so strange.
How much do you want for him she said? What do you reckon he’s worth was the standard reply? Now we always carried a few jars of jam with us on the off-chance that we might meet a receptive old lady, preferably past 80, and as usual there were 3 jars in the ute. How about 3 jars of jam I joked? OK he said, and the deal was sealed with the hand shake.
We started to laugh about the deal on the way back to Wombalano, but when the face peered through the ute’s rear window, quite unamused, we realised he thought he had been undervalued.
He seemed to like being at our place, getting into the green feed immediately after a brief look around. We couldn’t put him with the ewes quite yet but had him in the neighbouring paddock. Rambo was in a further paddock. After a few days we would start our new cross-bred flock.
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