Documentation & Downloads

This section outlines some of the documentation used with regards to the management of the property

By documenting stock movements I am able to see where the stock were at a particular time. If there any disease is discovered in a flock than I may find the source of contamination more easily. I can also see when & how long paddocks have been rested for the purpose of building up a seed bank through spring/summer.  Combined with worm testing this helps to plan stock movements to “clean” paddocks and better manage the worm burden and hopefully reduce the amount of drench used, risk of resistance and reduced costs.

“Downloading”

It is intended that these files be downloaded and modified to suit the users own farm management. Having some Excel computer skills is an advantage for modifying the documentation.

The spreadsheet “Activities– Knockalong” is a sample of the documentation used to follow the labour inputs into the Property. Project work is also listed for both the Purple Patch and Landcare projects. Note that at this time we are experiencing a very long drought and hours for stock feeding are high and weeds are low.

Click on the image to the left to view an extract from the spreadsheet, ”Paddock use”. This file allows the movements of stock to be followed as well as the period of resting paddocks. When the dates are entered on the left,  it calculates the period of use or rest in the column “Days”. The complete Excel file can also be downloaded HERE. I use a similar spreadsheet to document stock treatments as well.

The “Fuel Use Sheet”  form is for the documentation of fuel use on & off farm, and the “Log Book” form helps document the percentage of private & business use of individual vehicles.

To aid in preparing for shearing the “Pre-Shearing Check-list” can be of help when to ensure that nothing is forgotten.

I have spent quite a deal of time to document pipelines & underground power cables, see “Plumbing Map Knockalong House” & “Shearing Shed & Yards & pipe lines”. The garden water is supplied to the house via a siphon system from a dam 2 kilometers away, see “Water line to House”. See also an interesting PDF file on “gravity_flow_pipelines”.

Here are the plans for the ”Drought Lot” built on the property and related information, “Productive Nutrition_Best_practice_for_production_….. “ for drought design, specifically pages 70-89.

Also the general calculation for the volume of grain storage in Grain storage – weights & volumes

In the area of legal matters are the files “Declaration Sheet-Liability for Visitors”. This is intended to both inform about risks and to set restrictions on visitor activities. Also included is the “OHS Policy Statement – Knockalong”.

In order to document the expressions of interest, I use lots of photographs pasted into a word document and then use the ”Shapes” tools under the tab “Insert” to draw over the top of the photographs. For example this Funding Application. (See the planned projects below as well). I also use the quick commands on the keyboard to copy an image from the computer screen (press “PRINT SCREEN (PRTSC or PRTSCN on some keyboards) this places an image of the screen in the RAM (Random Access Memory) of the computer. All you do now is “paste” it into your Word document or into the “Paint” program first so you can cut it to size before you place it in to the Word document. Your keyboard may vary from mine so just do a search in Windows for “Print screen”. E.g. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-PH/windows-vista/Take-a-screen-capture-print-screen , It just takes time to practice the process, Good luck!

Here are some planned projects for the future.