This should stop the niggling problem of breech strike in sheep and lambs and also stop early sown cereal crops from running to head.

Maybe some cold, wet weather will also help to control the mice plague that is causing heartbreak in the grain-growing districts to our west and north west.

In our district the mouse problems are not as serious although housewives tell me that the Got-It shop in Summer Street, Orange, opposite the post office, is the go-to place for the best sticky mouse traps.

Great care must be taken if using poison baits for rodents as they can harm domestic pets, livestock and humans.

EARLY sown fodder crops are causing livestock to smile and they are providing good quality, high protein feed while later sown cereal crops are growing slowly following around 15mm of steady rain a week ago.

A blackbutt oat crop sown at about 100kg/ha has caught my eye as it germinated in a fairly rough seed bed.

The crop was sown by Rob McLeod's Great Plains disc seeder, a trailed implement fitted with press wheels and operated by Ian Anderson.

A plus for these machines is the fact that they are sold and serviced by Bathurst's very own dealer Watson Tractors in Kircaldy Street.

DISCUSSION this week covered the topic of culling percentage for good quality merino flocks and these vary from a low of 10 per cent to a high of probably 40 per cent.

In a well bred flock that hasn't changed its bloodline for years the lower figure is probably adequate but breeders who want a radical result can ask the classer to be ruthless.

A client in a faraway district once asked me to cull 40 per cent out of both hogget ewes and wethers as "I've got big bills to pay and need the cash".

My memory tells me that he had a quality mob of Cassillis Park ewes that have changed to Severn Park and then on to Mumblebone with lovely white wool and six-monthly shearing.

THEY tell me that retired Dalgety Wesfarmers manager Paul Chapman has celebrated a milestone birthday and I doubt if anyone would volunteer to check his teeth for age definition.

However, I believe that he was born on May 2, 1941 and has a legion of great friends.

Happy birthday Chappy.

FOR many years the grand parade at the Royal Bathurst Show was started by the ringing of a bell by the late Bunty Thompson of Goonamurrah, Duramana.

This year's bell ringing was ably performed by the mayor of Palmers Oakey, Col Ferguson OAM, and I'm told that he really enjoyed the task.

The Agricultural, Horticultural and Pastoral Association have a number of honorary life members and the idea of rotating the bell ringer on an annual basis may be a rewarding process.

I have heard the following comment so many times that it had to be put in print: "Have you been to a better Bathurst show in your lifetime?"

The local kids would agree that it was the best and most adults really appreciated a top class local event, arranged and controlled by locals. A real country show.

LAST week's Federal Budget was obviously framed with an eye on the upcoming federal election (possibly later this year) and there were lots of incentives for lots of voters.

To look back we remember that the Howard-Costello Government left around $30 billion in cash that eased the shock of the Global Financial Crisis.

The Morrison-Frydenberg team presented a near balanced budget before Covid struck yet we now owe almost $1 trillion, most of it borrowed from China.

With the US inflation rate jumping to 4.2 per cent our country can't afford to make any mistakes as someone will one day have to pay the fiddler.

THE 13 starters for this weekend's Upper Hunter by-election are at the barrier and the Nationals could hold it narrowly.

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate would hope for a win on preferences while Labor and Malcolm Turnbull's pick are possibilities.

With an ICAC finding concerning the premier's activities soon becoming public and her government on a knife's edge, this Saturday's result is vitally important.

THERE has been a suggestion made that a walkway that overlooks the East Saltram Creek Landcare project in the Icely Estate at Eglinton should be named after the group's founder and initial chairman, the late Russell Carrig.

This naming of a pathway would be a fitting tribute to a highly respected Bathurstian who conducted the "Illawong" property at O'Connell for many years before settling in the Icely Estate.

Russell was widely known by a generation of country people as a teacher of sheep and wool classing and machinery maintenance at the former Bathurst Technical College in the CBD.

A VISIT to Books Plus in Bathurst brought me to Gary Jubelin's topical story, I Catch Killers ($35).

It is a great read of a real Australian's life as he grew up in Western Sydney and developed into one of our best homicide detectives.

For a really heart-warming book, The Happiest Man in The World is great value at $34 and will suit any reader.

TO the Bathurst trots: Erika Dwyer drove a mare that she owns at last week's meeting.

The mare started at $80 odds, was well driven and won nicely.

Congratulations to Erika and extra oats for the beautifully named Dixiedoolittle.

Readers must notice this column likes to cheer the battling trainers and drivers when they make it to the winners' circle but it's also obvious that the bigger local stables deserve every success that they can come up with.

To start in the frosty dark, work and look after big teams of horses (and humans), drive hundreds of kilometres to race, get home at 2am and bed the horses down before doing it again tomorrow really deserves success.

WEEK 46 of the Australian wool market saw an offering of 49,771 bales selling in the three wool-selling centres.

By the end of the week we had seen a one per cent drop (13ac drop) in the Eastern Market Indicator to 1306ac/kg.

There was a pass-in rate of 12 per cent and until now there has been 1.3 million bales of wool sold.

China remains the main buyer of the wool clip with some specialty Italian orders in the market and some interest from the sub-continent. There are also orders from European top makers in the market.

There is a lot of discussion about the resilience of the wool market with much higher than normal offerings along with the mixed bag of wool types coming onto the market, a lot of this being heavier VM types due to seasonal conditions. Demand seems to be absorbing all this.

Cross-bred wool types are really tough. They eased by up to 30ac last week with poorly prepared clips being hardest hit.

The latest ABS figures show sheep numbers to be the lowest since 1904 at 63.529 million head and the cattle herd at 23.503 million, which is the lowest in 30 years.

Week 47 sees an estimated offering of 45,929 bales. In the same sale last year there were only 18,828 bales offered.

Richard Butcher, Nutrien

THE ages of man: