Ag at Uni

… under the pivot irrigator at work!

The peas are being used for a soils trial, & are very weedy at the moment, but I was allowed to pick some from around the edge of the plots XD

Mustering some of the ewes from a block at the back of the university for shearing.

Had to take two loads in the trailer, & I was watching them while waiting for the next load, while my sister went off to look for thistles in the nearby trees

Person: I just about dropped grass in my coffee

Me: Well, it won’t drink much…

CHICKS!!!

My sneaky brother didn’t tell mum that there was a clucky chicken sitting on eggs in a bush, now we have some adorable new arrivals!!!

Snap from a friend

Seems to follow this blog’s theme of oops! XD

Got an update from the home farm and…

wow… two cows with stuck heads in one milking…

First one is trying (& failing) to steal meal

… I wish…

Whew!!

Two assignments finished today

A group seminar on Animal Welfare in the Dairy Industry

and a Lab Report for the Glasshouse Trial testing the yield response of perennial ryegrass to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer applications on two different soil types

No time to rest though! Bring on the 30% Soil’s test in 2 days!!

There seems to be a theme of “Opps” emerging on this blog XD

Photo sent to me from back at Kirihau farm a while go. The goats are in the garden!!!

The goat on the left is “Stripes”, a wild goat that came out of a forestry block and into our dairy cow heard last year, after the neighbors harvested their Radiata Pine trees. She hangs out with the cows, comes into the milking shed & stands in the corner, then heads back to the paddock with them at the end of milking! Funny little thing.

The goat on the right is “Miss Billy”, my brothers goat. She was also a wild goat that my brother raised. She dogged 3 bullets when he, my dad and friends were out hunting (controlling the goat population in the National Parks). They decided she was a pretty lucky goat, caught her, and since then we’ve had a goat! :D She even goes for walks on a lead!

Whew…!

Haven’t posted for a while, man i’ve been busy with assignments! Just submitted a Feed Budget, only to have a Fertilizer ID report and Glasshouse Trial report due! Haven’t even started my report for the Nitrogen trial yet!

Went for a walk to the duck pond on campus for a break, so cute seeing the ducklings! :D

Here’s hoping everything’s going alright on everyone’s farms! In little old’ NZ were in the thick of calving! Dads had an issues with a couple cows going down, and is getting them blood tested to see whats wrong (may be milk fever from Ca or Mg deficiency, but there are more down than last year), we’ll see!

Weighing the dry matter of the (many) quadrat cuts form the Nitrogen trial harvest last Friday!

Ahh… the smell of dried grass!

Harvest time!

Doing Pasture probe, Rising-plate meter and Quadrat-cut (middle photo) measurements of a Nitrogen trial the class set-up a few weeks ago! (top photo)

Testing the in-field response of Ryegrass to different application rates of Urea!

The samples are washed & ready for drying! (bottom photo)

Hopefully it will bring drier weather with it!

Harvest time!