ADOPTASHEEP FAQ

WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU ADOPT A SHEEP?
So this is your opportunity to adopt a sheep. It will cost only $35 to pay for feed for your sheep for 100 days. That's only 35¢-a-day. It will mean the world to your sheep.
NAME YOUR SHEEP
When you sponsor a sheep, you will get to name it. First you tell us what sheep you want: a lovely motherly ewe, a frolicking lamb, a horny ram, a wool-growing champion wether. Then you tell us what name you want to give it. We'll tell you if the sheep likes your choice or sends you a 'Try again' message. (Sheep are very sensitive about their names. They are very proud animals. They like to be treated with respect.)
A PHOTO OF YOUR SHEEP
To thank you, we'll take a photo of your sheep that you can frame. It will be sent to you by email as soon as we get a shot the sheep will agree to release.
WRITING TO YOUR SHEEP
If you want to send an email to your sheep, we will print it out and read it out to the flock. (We have too much trouble isolating an individual sheep for a personal communicaiton. So be aware and don't get too personal in your emails.)

VISIT YOUR SHEEP
All adopting 'parents' can come and visit their sheep and enjoy a tour of the farm. (It's a warts and all tour - dry waterholes and hungry kangaroos. But there's a cold beer and a warm handshake waiting for you. You can find out more about the Kiely family and Uamby on http://envirofarming.com)
Daniel handles the lambs only when necessary because their mothers don't like other people's aromas. They may even abandon their lamb when it's very young.
HOW TO ADOPT A SHEEP
You can send a cheque or money order to Michael and Louisa Kiely, ADOPT-A-SHEEP, "Uamby" RMB 384, Uamby Road, Goolma NSW AUSTRALIA 2852
We have a PayPal facility available on the "DONATION" button.
To have a chat, you can call us on (612) 6374 0329. (If you are calling from the USA, remember our morning is your afternoon, your morning is our middle of the night.)

(Thank you)

HOW YOU ARRANGE YOUR ADOPTION?


1. GO TO WWW.ADOPTASHEEP.COM.AU AND CLICK ON THE 'MAKE A DONATION' BUTTON IN THE TOP LEFT HAND SIDE OF THE SCREEN, WHICH TAKES YOU TO PAYPAL. IT IS A SECURE ONLINE TRANSACTION SERVICE.
2. PAY THE AMOUNT COVERING THE NUMBER OF SHEEP YOU WANT TO SPONSOR - $35 for one, $70 for two, etc. (Please ignore the fact that PayPal won't let you indicate that you want to sponsor more than ONE sheep. We are still trying to figure that one out.But in the meantime be assured we can work out the numebr of sheep by the amount donated.)
3. PAYPAL TELLS US YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND WE EMAIL YOU WITH 3 QUESTIONS:
Q.1. What type of sheep did you want to sponsor.
Q.2. WHat name did you want to give it/them?
Q.3. If it is a gift, what is the name of the person receiving it (so we can mention them on the Certificate of Adoption)?
4. YOU ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BY RETURN EMAIL.
5. WE THEN CREATE YOUR CERTIFICATE(S) AND EMAIL THEM TO YOU

TROUBLE GETTING THROUGH TO DONATE AND ADOPT A SHEEP?
If you have trouble with the PayPal payment system, call us on 02 6374 0329.

WANT TO VISIT YOUR SHEEP?


Yes, you can visit. There are certain restrictions:

1. Not in January. It is hot and uncomfortable. We will need the month to get over what's happened this month. (Our backlog of jobs has grown infinitely since we have been almost full time on sending out certificates.)

2. It is not good practice to hold young lambs. It puts them under stress and the aroma of a human can cause the mother ewe to reject the lamb, causing death.

3. Visitors are encouraged to join us on our daily rounds to observe the sheep.

4. We welcome visitors, but we are not a neat-and-tidy farmstay/dude ranch operation. We are a messy working farm. You are welcome to pitch in and help out.

5. We have limited modest accommodation at Uamby for a small number of houseguests. But we can arrange accommodation in the nearby historic gold rush town of Gulgong.

Looking forward to seeing you.

Michael, Louisa. and Daniel

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE BEHIND ADOPTASHEEP?

We are the Kiely family of Uamby. You can visit our blog (http://envirofarming.blogspot.com) to learn about how we farm. This photo was taken by a young journalist from the Land newspaper back when we had grass, before the worst of the drought hit us. We aren't an old farming family. We took to 'the bush' seven years ago to learn the farming game and we've had six years of drought, pestilence, fire and flood. We love it. Louisa is the farmer. I am worth a half a sheepdog (the wrong half). And Daniel is our manager (and our son). We grow wool. Fine wool. Superfine wool. Mother Nature's favourite fibre. We run a humane farm. We protect the wildlife, we honour the former indigenous owners of the land, and we have reverence for the soil and all that it grows. Many people visit and stay with us. We enjoy having company. We also enjoy being alone here on our 'place'. There's nothing grand about us or our farm, except the sky at night and the mighty Cudgegong River as it races over the rocks. Now Louisa studied Agrcultural Economics at the University of New England where I met her. (I was studying honours history and living on a farm, which made me attractive). We had three children before she finished her degree. And I promised her we'd live on our own farm if she came to the city with em and we made our fortune. The money appeared in the form of an insurance payout when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease at age 46. So we left our marketing business in the city and came out here to live. We have two adult daughters Jessica and Rachael, living in our home in the city. Rachael has made us proud grandparents of Xavier (4) and Brodie (6 weeks). Jessica has made us proud parents of a Young Businesswoman of the Year Finalist. And we're just proud of Dan because he's a city boy who took to farming and shearing and woolclassing like a duck to water, and earns respect from our neighbours as a good worker and a charming companion. That's us.

Trees are an important part of animal husbandry. They provide shade which reduces stress on animals. Stressed animals don't grow as fast as relaxed animals. Trees also increase soil carbon in grasslands which means richer soil and better pasture. So our ideal is called a "grassy woodland" with about 3 trees per acre, much like the way it was when the white pioneers arrived here, according to the explorers' journals. But we're a long way from that. We are allowing regrowth in some paddocks, fencing off areas where trees are regrowing or putting surrounds around individual trees. We have alienated a 50metre 'wildlife corridor' linking heavily wooded areas "out the back 700" (the 750 acres over the ridge behind the house) with the wooded area on "The Lease" (another heavily wooded area) and the woodlands down by the river. This will be planted heavily with tall trees, understory trees and shrubs, to encourage small mammals and birds. Details about the way we farm for species diversity can be found on our blog "Diary of a Carbon Farmer" (http://envirofarming.blogspot.com). We have a definite philosophy of agriculture that is based on the belief that farming techniques are best when they mimic mother nature.

The sheep have the longest, most comfortable life possible with us... longer than those bred for slaughter and more comfortable than those starved to make their wool finer and those given inadequate shelter due to over-clearing of vegetation. But they all eventually make their way to that final date with death, the abattoir. Few, if any, sheep die of old age. Ours live for 5 or 6 years. After that a sheep is fairly elderly and many lose their teeth or split their palates and find it hard to graze. Death is one of the constants of life in all forms of farming. Even people with small hobby flocks confront this daily. As to where we source our bloodstock, you find the best breeding rams come from the most nurturing environments... and we breed all our own ewes.

You have every right to be outraged at the measures we woolgrowers have traditionally taken to protect our sheep from flystrike. Mulesing, or removing a flap of hide that attracts fly strike, is cruel and I can't be in the vicinity while it is being done. Although an animals's hide doesn't have the same sensitiivity as human skin, there is a lot of blood. Not a lot of bleating, though. And the agony a sheep experiences with maggots eating away at its flesh after a fly strike is far worse, don't you think? As soon as the new clips are available we will trial them. We already use fly traps liberally scattered about the property. And we check our flock everyday for strike - and pull a sheep out for treatment if required. Mulesing upsets me. It's strangely like circumcision. Or body piercing. It's interesting that a lot of animal rights activists willingly submit to having bits of metal thrust through their skin. They appear to want to be kinder to animals than to themselves or other human beings. Did you see the recent South Park episode where PETA was (I think unfairly) depicted as a bunch of emotionally lopsided human haters with a primitive desire to deify animals and sacrifice humans to them. Very funny, but not very fair or objective. It's good to be fair and objective, don't you think? We live by the belief that all living things are part of a community and that all members of the community - even weeds and farmers and animal rights activists - have a role to play and a right to exist. Amen.

WHY AREN'T WE HELPING OTHER FARMERS?

WE WANT TO SHARE OUR IDEA WITH OTHER FARMERS
We know there are many farmers who need help more than we do. But what we did to launch a campaign like Adopt A Sheep can be done by anyone with a computer, an email account, access to the Internet and a willingness to try something new.
We used BLOGGER to build the site for FREE (3 easy steps).
We used PayPal to accept payments, NO UPFRONT COST, ie. FREE (six easy steps).
We did our own PR. (This isn't free. It took me several years to learn how to write a press release. But I'll write any genuine farmer's publicity material who does the first two steps). Going to a newspaper's website and finding out who to email is FREE and two easy steps.

We will send a simple step-by-step guide to any farmer who emails for it on michael@newhorizon.au.com
In fact, if it works (and it appears to) I will tour the country teaching farmers how to do it. I've promised Dan that we will push to have it made a national program, to teach farm families how to connect with city people. Bridging the City/Country Gap has always one of our dreams.

HOW TO GET STARTED
The whole thing starts with an idea. That's the hardest part. Having ideas is a proud Australian farming tradition. I haven't met a farmer yet who wasn't an inventor.

Most marketing ideas are stolen. I stole the idea for Adopt A Sheep from World Vision which is running an "Adopt a Child for Christmas". Louisa and I were sitting at the kitchen table trying to decide whether to sell our breeding flock into a depressed market for a low price, and face buying a new flock after the drought at a high price. (DIsaster.) Or whether we can hope against hope that, if we hold out for 3 months, the rains will come... Then on comes this World Vision commercial, and I said 'adopt a chicken' as a joke, then out popped: "Adopt a sheep"... I got all excited about it, but Louisa thought it was too stupid for words and wouldn't cheer up. She was depressed and went to bed. I followed after clearing my email, but she was asleep. I tossed and turned and fell asleep, but got up around 3am and went to the computer and started work. By 7am I had finished the basics.

I had already taught myself how to create a blogsite. (3 steps) I had already taught myself how to download photos from the digital camera and upload them to the blog site. (5 steps) What I didn't know was about PayPal. Like anything else connected with technology, I was taught how to learn it from my grandson - push all the buttons and see what happens. A half-hour later I had installed PayPal as a "Make a donation" button on the blogsite.

It's that easy. It's that hard.