"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
I have a few bits of undergate for jumpers too but they tend to get used wet - and give me a hell of a boot :eek::cry:

So I use those fancy alligator clips and have a big box of wiring out of an old washing machine with spade terminals on.

I found I could buy 10 alligator clips for the price of one ready-made lead, and yes I am that tight! :oops:


It isn't the spending, it's the principle of paying too much for bugger all; others may just pay what it costs and moan "it's robbery", but I have kids watching my moves :)

I realise now just how much I picked up off my old man, and how by making farming easy and enjoyable it drew me in - I really don't mind if my lads want to farm or not, but I would like to involve them in a system that's cheap and cheerful :cool: not one built around fear, and buying stuff.

Unsure if "regenerative" farming is limited to making the land better, or encompasses making living from the land something the next generation want to be involved in... but it is much easier to teach decisionmaking when everyone knows what we are trying to achieve :cool:

Don't know how I jumped from jumper leads to my succession plan, but hey ho :D
‘ Cheap and cheerful’- the best way to farm and the best way to entice the next generation. Well said!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
‘ Cheap and cheerful’- the best way to farm and the best way to entice the next generation. Well said!
Well, I'd like to think it is more encouraging for kids than constantly bleating about how hard it is, how there's no money in the job, and how everyone is out to get us...

I notice the contrast between my own attitude and most of the farmer's sons I associate with, they think themselves into a rut and stay there.
I definitely don't pretend it's all beer and popcorn, but I try to be positive and provide a more balanced commentary - they know we have invoices to pay from our revenue, that we have to create cashflow to operate, and that you can lose stock no matter how much attention and help you give them.
They also have a huge appreciation of nature, and natural selection pressures - so they have a fairly good base no matter what they choose to do with their lives (I think) which is what I recieved.

I don't want to push them but I definitely like to teach them how to think for themselves.
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Well, I'd like to think it is more encouraging for kids than constantly bleating about how hard it is, how there's no money in the job, and how everyone is out to get us...

I notice the contrast between my own attitude and most of the farmer's sons I associate with, they think themselves into a rut and stay there.
I definitely don't pretend it's all beer and popcorn, but I try to be positive and provide a more balanced commentary - they know we have invoices to pay from our revenue, that we have to create cashflow to operate, and that you can lose stock no matter how much attention and help you give them.
They also have a huge appreciation of nature, and natural selection pressures - so they have a fairly good base no matter what they choose to do with their lives (I think) which is what I recieved.

I don't want to push them but I definitely like to teach them how to think for themselves.
Ah positive attitude! I wonder how much percentage of profit can be put down to a farmers positive out look ? A fair chunk I reckon. I was told by a old farmer when I started a Organic Suckler herd "I can't see that working " then he said " but you believe in what you are doing so you will probably make a success of it "
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
In most tests the right answer is worth half a mark and how you worked it out is the other half.

Life is one of those tests, if you can't show your workings then you have to guess some answers

Getting farming right is much easier when you aren't struggling so much as facing a challenge, struggling tends to prejudice our decisions and then reactions tend to be the result - often it is work (and not think) that is the first reaction.

And then the downward spiral begins.. the tail wags the dog, and the hourly payrate goes from a manager's to a labourer's.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
David McLean, managing director of RCS Australia & a top bloke. I was very fortunate to spend a week in his company as well as sharing a few drinks, meals & interesting conversations

I agree with everything he says here, but it seems so at odds & foreign to what I see in TFFland

I think there are massive cultural differences between agriculture in the New World & Europe / UK, which are insurmountable. Maybe that's why I think they are all just whinging pansies :)

 
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Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
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Collected another 14 calves today :)
6 herefords and a limo for $200 (and milked a few cows for old times sake)
2 speckles, another few friesians and a brown swiss for $100 each - wee red speckle is 4 days old but we'll get him going. Bigger calves onto once-a-day feeding to free up enough teats for the smaller calves.
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Brief farm tour discovered some decent cover in the Tank paddock, so put up a fence in it
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and hollered for some animals
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Plantain is quite an impressive plant.
Checked hoggets and moved them
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And made the boys happy on the way home.
Another 16 bulls coming to join the circus, probably this week.

:cool:
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
This half of my Tank paddock was grazed 15th-22nd of September - so my evaluation/ observation is:
25 recovery on the plan for this paddock
Enough cover to feed the mules (y)
Should be enough litter left behind after them all (y)
Feeding a hectare per 100 per day (y)
25 hectares of grazing, 25 days of recovery near enough at present.
15 hectares (ish) set aside for silage, as per the plan... is still short but coming away thick
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so at this point in time I think my plan is holding up, but that is my thought process
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
pretty calves there Pete
Plenty of variety too, I sort of want a bit of a mix-and-match herd.
I want to keep my shorthorn and limo x heifers and eventually put a speckle bull over them, should make nice milky cows being 50% british friesian and lumpy but easy calving calves, with decent meatiness without being a massive animal to finish on pasture.
But the other boys are more for growing out as decent friesians fetch quite good money here store or just 'big' and really like that shorthorn look
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So these girls have a fair chance of becoming my sucky cows in future. Hence keeping them small so far.
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
David McLean, managing director of RCS Australia & a top bloke. I was very fortunate to spend a week in his company as well as sharing a few drinks, meals & interesting conversations

I agree with everything he says here, but it seems so at odds & foreign to what I see in TFFland

I think there are massive cultural differences between agriculture in the New World & Europe / UK, which are insurmountable. Maybe that's why I think they are all just whinging pansies :)

I agree with everything he says there to @Farmer Roy . I'm not sure there are massive differeces between farmers / agriculture around the world , good & bad farmers everywhere .
There does seem to be a difference at the top - government/ NFU & I know alot on Tff would say public opinion, but there does seem to be a change recently, whether the hot summer have made people realise that it's not guaranteed that crops will grow / livestock have enough food but pretty much every person I'm speaking to is asking about the farm, can I manage, will there be enough food or the cow's.
Even the neighbours have suggested buying a cow a month to make sure the farm survives ( until I explained how much meat that actually was but their going to get more people together to lower the amount each! That actually brought a tear to my eye that they cared that much ).
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I do like the '3 legged pot' analogy

It would be very easy to lengthen one leg at the expense of another leg without a clear direction of where you want to be... quite a few around here would benefit from hearing that

I don't know if my family would still be farming here in 70 years let alone 700 but I don't see why my systems won't still work as long as there is sun and rain, will be interesting to see how something that we take for granted now (eg silage) would happen without diesel, for example.
Already have a plan B for feeding themselves from the face in case of emergency, like the day my star tractor lets me down.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I do like the '3 legged pot' analogy

It would be very easy to lengthen one leg at the expense of another leg without a clear direction of where you want to be... quite a few around here would benefit from hearing that

I don't know if my family would still be farming here in 70 years let alone 700 but I don't see why my systems won't still work as long as there is sun and rain, will be interesting to see how something that we take for granted now (eg silage) would happen without diesel, for example.
Already have a plan B for feeding themselves from the face in case of emergency, like the day my star tractor lets me down.
But time spent planning is not proper "productive farming time" according to some Pete :whistle::banghead:

Time spent thinking things through is never wasted. It makes actually doing things so much more productive. (y)
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
I do like the '3 legged pot' analogy

It would be very easy to lengthen one leg at the expense of another leg without a clear direction of where you want to be... quite a few around here would benefit from hearing that

I don't know if my family would still be farming here in 70 years let alone 700 but I don't see why my systems won't still work as long as there is sun and rain, will be interesting to see how something that we take for granted now (eg silage) would happen without diesel, for example.
Already have a plan B for feeding themselves from the face in case of emergency, like the day my star tractor lets me down.
Well our family has been here for between 200 and 300 years and I can't see why it can't carry on producing though if it remains viable will depend to an extent as treg says on the cards we are delt from those who are so called in charge
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
the house is a bit like that, I think they just lobbed down 4 big cornerstones and built in between :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
mind you I wouldn't mind betting it will still be standing when some of the litter they build now has fallen down
Proper timber framed houses (12 inch oak beams type :love:) are way more resilient than modem brick or concrete concoctions. If the ground moves a bit you just re-plaster the cracks and learn to lean a bit. In a fire big oak beams survive with full strength. Modern houses don't survive either well.

Even better with 3 foot straw bale walls ;)
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 81 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 68 35.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.6%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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