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

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

texas pete said:
I'm sure I remember Greg Judy saying at Groundswell last year that he never weaned anything...didn't see the need.

There is a fair bit of "no need" if you seek it out.

No need for lime
No need for fert
No need for parasite control
No need for infrastructure
No need for seed
No need to keep animals apart
No need for machinery
No need for round the clock checks at any time

However this seems to be a view held by the minority of the worlds smallholders in regard to livestock, they like to sneer at the arable boys for buggering off and leaving the crop to grow
This puzzles me because sheep don't grow when they are quivering in a yard somewhere

The biggest livestock inputs should be SUNSHINE and WATER if you want to survive

Samcowman · Feb 9, 2019

holwellcourtfarm said:
And where he had a problem patch of ground he stocked it even tighter for an hour or so, about 300 cows an acre IIRC.

That’s it. Love the theory just need to find somewhere to use it. I’ve got a small arable field here that’s going into cover crop this year that’s going to get hammered next autumn for an afternoon with about 80 cows and their calves. Should be interesting.

onesiedale · Feb 9, 2019

Kiwi Pete said:
There is a fair bit of "no need" if you seek it out.

No need for lime
No need for fert
No need for parasite control
No need for infrastructure
No need for seed
No need to keep animals apart
No need for machinery
No need for round the clock checks at any time

However this seems to be a view held by the minority of the worlds smallholders in regard to livestock, they like to sneer at the arable boys for buggering off and leaving the crop to grow
This puzzles me because sheep don't grow when they are quivering in a yard somewhereView attachment 765406
The biggest livestock inputs should be SUNSHINE and WATER if you want to survive

Is that beehives you've got there on the LHS?

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

onesiedale said:
Is that beehives you've got there on the LHS?

Yes, buzzy bees are a pretty vital component to survival IMO.
Not only do they give us honey/wax/venom to collect, but also the plants respond to them in both ways I do, and ways I do not understand.

They don't take much time to manage for what they give us

although I maybe have a couple of nucs to remove

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

holwellcourtfarm said:
And where he had a problem patch of ground he stocked it even tighter for an hour or so, about 300 cows an acre IIRC.

It's one of the most easy to achieve things if you are set up, even if it's a matter of bunch them up then let the pressure off before they take things too far

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

Samcowman said:
That’s it. Love the theory just need to find somewhere to use it. I’ve got a small arable field here that’s going into cover crop this year that’s going to get hammered next autumn for an afternoon with about 80 cows and their calves. Should be interesting.

Their movement dynamic is quite important, I read a lot of references to "grazing" but much of it is useless without context - ie what we want it to achieve?
If you can't say why your animals are where they are, and for what purpose, then it probably isn't "planned holistic grazing"?

My grazing is still overgrazing as you can see from my photo there, the plants are still not fully recovered even after a bit of rain, so we are still "little and often" moving to try to get selection and trampling managed, it's not ideal but there we have it - the plan suggests they are there and I can replan from this

onesiedale · Feb 9, 2019

Kiwi Pete said:
Yes, buzzy bees are a pretty vital component to survival IMO.
Not only do they give us honey/wax/venom to collect, but also the plants respond to them in both ways I do, and ways I do not understand.

They don't take much time to manage for what they give us although I maybe have a couple of nucs to remove

Some 10 years ago I offered a plot to the local bee keepers club. They were overwhelmed with my generosity!

We've now got about 2 dozen hives on the place.
Think that we got the best deal

Samcowman · Feb 9, 2019

Kiwi Pete said:
Their movement dynamic is quite important, I read a lot of references to "grazing" but much of it is useless without context - ie what we want it to achieve?
If you can't say why your animals are where they are, and for what purpose, then it probably isn't "planned holistic grazing"?

My grazing is still overgrazing as you can see from my photo there, the plants are still not fully recovered even after a bit of rain, so we are still "little and often" moving to try to get selection and trampling managed, it's not ideal but there we have it - the plan suggests they are there and I can replan from this

Aim of it is to trample the mustard and graze whatever else I can get cheap in there but leave the barley alive to scavenge nutrients and create some biomass and keep the soil alive untill spring when it is terminated for spring drilling.

Henarar · Feb 9, 2019

Treg said:
My herd has a matriarch ( Tanzy Bliss ) it can be a bit of a pain as they won't do anything without her, open the gate & they look to her first for permission, they don't move forward until she does.
Tb testing she has to be put in a separate shed because she wants to defend the herd , I put her on a halter & explain to her what's going on & she's fine being tested!
She's now 12 & watching closely she's involving her daughter's in running the herd, as though she knows it's time to retire & they must learn to control the others.
As we mentioned earlier it's not all about profit

a good lead cow can be a blessing and at times a curse

texas pete said:
I'm sure I remember Greg Judy saying at Groundswell last year that he never weaned anything...didn't see the need.

how does not weaning suckler calves work ? the cows need their dry period

Sharpy · Feb 9, 2019

Henarar said:
a good lead cow can be a blessing and at times a curse

how does not weaning suckler calves work ? the cows need their dry period

We find that most calves/cows self wean by 10 months, but there is not much time taken to suckle after 8 months.

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

Samcowman said:
Aim of it is to trample the mustard and graze whatever else I can get cheap in there but leave the barley alive to scavenge nutrients and create some biomass and keep the soil alive untill spring when it is terminated for spring drilling.

Sounds ideal (that comment wasn't really directed at you, more a general comment), will you just wander around and keep them trampling while they're in there?
My wee bit of experience says that if you want them to do a good job, you do need a bit of pressure on them or else they don't get everywhere - just interested is all.

Have you got a dog? They can be good for helping "drive"

As you can read from these thistles, the goal here has been low stock pressure for performance reasons, and probably also time reasons - long enough for the landscape to resent it, nature doesn't like monotony!

Crofter64 · Feb 9, 2019

onesiedale said:
I'm about halfway through. ( I put Call of the Reed Warbler aside to give my brain a rest)
Finding it a good read, much more digestable than COTRW . Plenty of Eureka moments once I got my head around the Wholes within Wholes within Wholes concept! . . . must admit, I digd go back over that piece a couple of times.
Probably now when I pick up Charles Massey's book again I'll be better prepared.

Same here

. Put aside Call of the reed warbler and picked up Holistic Management a few days ago. Its all starting to make sense. Walter Jehne’s talk is brilliant.

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

Crofter64 said:
Same here. Put aside Call of the reed warbler and picked up Holistic Management a few days ago. Its all starting to make sense. Walter Jehne’s talk is brilliant.

Really quite a fascinating guy, I have had the odd "hunch" about the various roles of soil biota and their role in soil, but it was excellent to have some back-up in that respect. He certainly seems to know his stuff, I guess the paradigm I'm in sees me putting on lime and fertiliser for most of the district, so I get to enjoy reading the landscape and the messages contained therein.
It helps get me out of my own little "bubble", in that I get to traverse hundreds of acres in the morning and hundreds more in the afternoon - and management is largely pretty similar across much of it, controlled overgrazing and quite low stocking density.

It leaves me filled with gratitude that I don't have more land than I can manage effectively..

onesiedale · Feb 9, 2019

Crofter64 said:
Same here. Put aside Call of the reed warbler and picked up Holistic Management a few days ago. Its all starting to make sense. Walter Jehne’s talk is brilliant.

+1 for Walter Jehne's talk , watched it in 4 half hour slots over early morning brews this week. Found that the q&A's through his talk were good. As they say, one person asks the question, at least 10 others are thinking it.

Crofter64 · Feb 9, 2019

Kiwi Pete said:
Really quite a fascinating guy, I have had the odd "hunch" about the various roles of soil biota and their role in soil, but it was excellent to have some back-up in that respect. He certainly seems to know his stuff, I guess the paradigm I'm in sees me putting on lime and fertiliser for most of the district, so I get to enjoy reading the landscape and the messages contained therein.
It helps get me out of my own little "bubble", in that I get to traverse hundreds of acres in the morning and hundreds more in the afternoon - and management is largely pretty similar across much of it, controlled overgrazing and quite low stocking density.

It leaves me filled with gratitude that I don't have more land than I can manage effectively..

In Holistic Management I just read how Allan Savory, while acting as a tracker during theCivil War in Zimbabwe, also had a chance to see a huge amount of the countryside and observed its soil - understocked/ overgrazed areas were easy to track in as the soil around plants was bare and took prints easily. Areas that had had intense concentrations of animals in them , either from herding or predator activity, were difficult to track in as the soil was churned up, plants were trampled and there was quite a bit of ground cover.

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

onesiedale said:
+1 for Walter Jehne's talk , watched it in 4 half hour slots over early morning brews this week. Found that the q&A's through his talk were good. As they say, one person asks the question, at least 10 others are thinking it.

It takes a surprising dedication to sit down to 2 hours of video, doesn't it?

Asking the right questions to the right people certainly helps the learning, my mum always encouraged me to never be afraid to ask a decent question - chances are someone somewhere knows the answer

Crofter64 · Feb 9, 2019

hendrebc said:
Savourys HM handbook is next on my list after I've finished Newman Turners fertility pastures. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to it or not meant to be quite heavy going and hard to understand until the wholes within wholes thing clicks. Will see what it's like and report back. Should finish turner's book this weekend.

I bought the book in 2006 and have looked at it many times since then but this week finally started reading it, and it ‘flows’ well. Short chapters,so far, and easier to grasp than expected.

hendrebc · Feb 9, 2019

Crofter64 said:
I bought the book in 2006 and have looked at it many times since then but this week finally started reading it, and it ‘flows’ well. Short chapters,so far, and easier to grasp than expected.

I started it yesterday and so far it's ok. It doesn't seem like it will be the sort of book I can dip in and out of like I normally do though.

texas pete · Feb 9, 2019

Henarar said:
a good lead cow can be a blessing and at times a curse

how does not weaning suckler calves work ? the cows need their dry period

No idea, I've never calved a cow in my life

I can't remember his exact system, timings etc, but I'm sure he said he didn't wean...nature I suppose...

Kiwi Pete · Feb 9, 2019

Crofter64 said:
In Holistic Management I just read how Allan Savory, while acting as a tracker during theCivil War in Zimbabwe, also had a chance to see a huge amount of the countryside and observed its soil - understocked/ overgrazed areas were easy to track in as the soil around plants was bare and took prints easily. Areas that had had intense concentrations of animals in them , either from herding or predator activity, were difficult to track in as the soil was churned up, plants were trampled and there was quite a bit of ground cover.

The plants need the grazing as much as the animals need the food.

I'm always mindful of Savory's complete 180° turn in belief, in fact it brings to mind Walter's new thread about admitting your mistakes - a rare and beautiful thing!

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

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