The warmth is on, stakes are excessive. Sheep are on present and bidders are circling. It’s a ram public sale (and extra moreover) within the Karoo Heartland.
Phrases: Julienne du Toit | Photographs Chris Marais
We’re underneath strict orders: don’t transfer a muscle when the deal goes down. So we sit, motionless as sunset dassies, quiet as our very personal kitchen mice.
However there’s a farmyard fly within the combine, and he’s making nonetheless life troublesome for us. He darts from Chris’ nostril to my ear and again once more. Clearly, we’re his mission for the morning.
‘Don’t bliksem that fly,’ a pleasant warning comes from one row again. ‘You may find yourself with a prize ram right now.’
Regardless of the late summer season Karoo warmth within the marquee, nobody within the crowd is utilizing the provided catalogues to beat back pesky flies. At maybe 25 grand a pop, the Hobson & Steynberg twelfth Dohne Merino public sale on Ganora Farm exterior Nieu-Bethesda shouldn’t be the place for careless whispers or sudden actions.
Jakkie Nel, the auctioneer, hits his straps in full-on Graaffrikaans, that priceless Karoo patter that blends English, Afrikaans and the occasional Xhosa phrase into one sentence:
‘Lekker sterk, manlike kop. Certainly one of a twin. Besonderse goeie bouvorm. Thanks Fransie, jy kry jou ram. Alle voorspoed. Now here’s a beautiful ram, all his figures are there, hy hanteer sag and he has his entire life in entrance of him. 9 thousand rand. All carried out, all by, I’m lifting my hammer. Thanks madam, you get your ram, and may take all of it the way in which to Aberdeen!
‘Wat sê jy, Kobus my ou maat? Mr Bailey, what about you? This one has size, this one has high quality, I’ll knock it down to 6 thousand, it’s your fortunate day. Oh, it’s a fly! I take that bid again.’
An excellent Karoo auctioneer is a magical mixture of televangelist, toastmaster and down-home acquainted. He is aware of all of the backroads, he is aware of all of the beasts and he is aware of all of the blokes.
We will take heed to Jakkie Nel all day lengthy. He’s a bit like that man from the Gunston advert within the days of the outdated Rhodesian tobacco auctions.
It’s a Ram’s Life
By early 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic and a few years of drought and financial despair have despatched the wool worth down and the meat worth rocketing. It’s been such a troublesome time for farmers that Jan Peet Steynberg of Ganora has completely no thought what to anticipate at his annual Dohne Merino ram public sale in February.
If a farmer is in search of to construct his flocks, it’s the sire that makes the most important distinction in the long run. Cash spent shopping for rams is a transparent indication of hope and confidence sooner or later.
From the day it’s born, each facet of a high ram’s life is scrutinised and recorded. It’s weighed at 100 days when it’s weaned. Then it goes out within the veld and toughens up. After 12 months, it’s introduced in, weighed once more, and shorn for the primary time. Samples of its fleece are despatched to the fleece take a look at centre in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), which is able to pronounce on its size, fineness, the yield and the burden of its clear wool.
On the age of 18 months, a promising ram’s life turns distinctly bizarre for a month or two. Each January on Ganora, vet Roland Larson involves do the fertility checks on the males more likely to be offered at public sale. He sits in a shed on a sq. field with a winder, wires and a copper rod. The rams are led in one after the other, held motionless and anally probed whereas Dr Larson winds up the system to generate a fast electrical cost. This transient however mildly surprising process offers him sufficient semen to look at later underneath the microscope. So as to add to the indignity, the dimensions of the ram’s testicles are measured earlier than it’s launched right into a pen, eyes glazed and chest heaving.
The ram’s fertility is, in fact, paramount. It types a part of a dizzyingly advanced system of traits cryptically described on the public sale catalogue. These embody whether or not the ram was one in all a twin or triplet (extremely fascinating), what number of lambs its mom and father had (and what number of had been a number of births), its weight after weaning and after being on the veld, in addition to the burden and fineness of its fleece.
The Pre-Present
We attend the 2021 Dohne Merino ram public sale at Ganora. Jan Peet and Graham Hobson of Ebenezer Farm within the Pearston district have teamed as much as provide their finest saleable specimens for the final 12 years.
Days earlier than, the rams know one thing is up. They’re saved in a single day in a small paddock close to the public sale ring, fascinated by the fluttering OVK co-op bunting, which they take turns to nibble.
On the day of the public sale, they’re led to their enclosures, and grouped two by two. In the event that they don’t have a companion, they get jittery and inclined to leap. The OVK and BKB co-op guys of their company colors patrol up and down the pens, fastidiously checking the rams and their traits as listed within the catalogue.
However regardless of how correct the outline, it’s actually the eye- and hand-classing that inform the distinction, says Fourie Vosloo of OVK. The livestock handlers assist to convey every ram out many occasions in order that the brokers, and later the farmers, can run their fingers over the beast and open up its fleece to the solar for a great look. It takes critical talent from the farmworkers to manoeuvre 100kg of skittish, woolly testosterone, and hold the animal nonetheless whereas surrounded by touchy-feely strangers.
Massive Males, white bakkies
Over the morning, the farmyard fills up with huge males in shorts and durable boots, driving white bakkies. consumers come from everywhere in the nation, together with Ermelo, Vanrhynsdorp, Paarl, varied components of the Free State and naturally, the farming districts round Nieu-Bethesda. Everybody is aware of these are good rams.
The chairs within the marquee are positioned a protected distance aside for these pandemic occasions.
Jakkie Nel takes the microphone, flanked by three assistants who will look out for the practically invisible finger-twitches, winks and lifted eyebrows that point out bids from those that don’t need their fellow farmers to know who’s bidding on what.
‘I’ve seen farmers sit completely nonetheless whereas flies crawl over their faces reasonably than wave them away and make an inadvertent bid,’ grins Pierre Martin of Cradock OVK.
The rams are lined up, able to be led into the limelight. A cowbell rings exactly at midday. Bidding begins on Lot 1, a good-looking fellow considerably bemused by the sawdust-covered rostrum that retains revolving beneath his hooves.
Jakkie extols his multi virtues in a compelling machine-gun singsong, switching between Afrikaans and English with ease as every ram is led as much as the podium.
The assistants on both aspect of him announce every secretive bid with a loud ‘Hup’ and the value jumps by R500 or R1 000 every time.
Jakkie continues by the rams on public sale, exhorting the consumers.
‘Have a look at his head and his again. Look how he strikes. His mom bore eight lambs from 5 pregnancies. Are you thru and are you carried out? No extra bids? The hammer comes down on R27 000. Congratulations to the consumers. This wonderful ram is headed for Cradock.’
Within the wake of the public sale, Graham and Jan Peet pronounce themselves more than pleased with the costs. Fellow farmers have clearly proven they’ve confidence of their inventory and hope in Karoo sheep-farming going ahead.
The rams are loaded. After a torrid few weeks, they’re off to start out their new lives the place a harem of prepared ewes await. The celebration begins and the bloodlines proceed.