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

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
Been playing around with the pizza sliced fields lately on 24hr moves mainly maybe 36hrs on the slightly bigger areas. Everything had 50kg per acre of 20-10-10 the week before to avoid cold turkey so we should get some quick regrowth
Threw some clover in with fert with the idea cows will tread it in as they go.
View attachment 798374View attachment 798376
The left side of pic below is 5 days after the above pics.
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Cow dung is very sloppy and not holding together well but I guess that’s the rich spring grass not helping.



View attachment 798372 View attachment 798380
A little damage around the water area as we got 3 wet days last week but I’ll throw a little seed on here on the last day for cows to tread in. Can’t really do much about it really as it’s the only water in here until I get a portable bowser or something else rigged up.
View attachment 798386

Mowing land below got same fert as above 2 weeks ago.
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Probably ready for cutting now as it’s above my knees. I normally would but I’ve decided to let it go to seed this year as I haven’t done that for the last 5 or so years.
I may be kicking myself in a few weeks though as weather is great at the moment and will probably turn poo when I want to crack on.
View attachment 798390
I was wondering about the paddock youwould like to re seed by leaving it to grow longer. If you graze it very lightly, the animals will get the benefit of it while it is very palatable, they will trample some, but a lot will continue growing and will reseed itself. That way when the cows return they will have three kinds of grass on offer. Or were you thinking of cutting it for hay once it has matured some more?
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
I always look at them leaving the grazing around the cow pats as a good thing for several reasons,
Parasite control being one of the main ones.
Kp talks about leaving a third of the grazing behind each move , which is quite hard to visualise but they probably mess on 10-15% each time, so if on the next grazing they leave them plus the new lots of pats then your nearly to your 30% .
Think of the pats as a soil biology haven , if left for 60 days & nothing grazing that area it gets a chance to fully recover, plus spreading out.
Also it's building up a bank of grass for later in the season ( when grass gets shorter in the autumn there is still patches of longer grass for the stock).
Ah, you look for 1/3 of the mass left behind that way then. I picture it as at least 1/3 of the plant left (really here they recommend more like 2/3) So if I picture the plant in my minds eye I divide it into thirds and when the cows eat the top third they're done. I seen a really good illustration of this with the bottom third being for the plant and soil, the middle third for wildlife and the top for livestock. Of course they don't divvy it up this perfectly but it was a good image to save in my mind for later. Especially when you have grasses that don't grow as tall. What Timothy and Brome can handle as a third would be the entire wheatgrass plant!

If done by mass then you're still liable to have areas eaten right down and the areas around the pats and where they bed constituting the third of the field left.
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
I was wondering about the paddock youwould like to re seed by leaving it to grow longer. If you graze it very lightly, the animals will get the benefit of it while it is very palatable, they will trample some, but a lot will continue growing and will reseed itself. That way when the cows return they will have three kinds of grass on offer. Or were you thinking of cutting it for hay once it has matured some more?


Sorry yes I am cutting this for hay/haylage hopefully.
 
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Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
I like that (y) I don't "get" some of the things put on here but I get that

I have been trying to leave more cover behind this time, no idea how much as I don't know what the measurements look like, the field in my last pic on here I moved them on when there was a lot left it is a job to get past thinking what a mess it looks but that field has recovered really well despite it being one of the poorer fields and there is a good feed for them there again now:)



That’s my problem with this way off grazing is how much of a mess it looks with clumps of grass here and there and flattened down where the cattle have laid on it and not eaten any.
But I’m hoping using this method of grazing I will start to think how well it looks in that state and the benefits will come from it.
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Ah, you look for 1/3 of the mass left behind that way then. I picture it as at least 1/3 of the plant left (really here they recommend more like 2/3) So if I picture the plant in my minds eye I divide it into thirds and when the cows eat the top third they're done. I seen a really good illustration of this with the bottom third being for the plant and soil, the middle third for wildlife and the top for livestock. Of course they don't divvy it up this perfectly but it was a good image to save in my mind for later. Especially when you have grasses that don't grow as tall. What Timothy and Brome can handle as a third would be the entire wheatgrass plant!

If done by mass then you're still liable to have areas eaten right down and the areas around the pats and where they bed constituting the third of the field left.
Yes you are right it should be 1/3 plant left(y) me & the cows need more training to get it right:oops: :D
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
That’s my problem with this way off grazing is how much of a mess it looks with clumps of grass here and there and flattened down where the cattle have laid on it and not eaten any.
But I’m hoping using this method of grazing I will start to think how well it looks in that state and the benefits will come from it.
move them on and don't worry about it I spose after all the herds of wild buffalo of whatever didn't give a stuff if every bit was grazed the same height
 

awkward

Member
Location
kerry ireland
6
I often remember remarks from dairy discussion groups - popping out of my memory palace.

"they'll eat it in May, if not before" was one good phrase to sum up the pasture quality debate, when most were wanting to put the mower on in September :rolleyes: (the ones that did that, were feeding bales by November, and blaming the weather) their concern was only "higher residuals than target" for one month of the year. :confused:
So it's very easy to de-rail your whole growing season in the first round of grazing, is my point... this was in "summer-safe Southland" and these guys made their own luck.

It's similar in a way at the other end of the season, folk grazing their pastures down and down and down as they need to keep milking until the end of May because they only grew just enough forage crop to last - so they are feeding expensive grass and expensive silage etc to cows producing .6-.9kgMS per day, the same 18kgDM per cow in the spring would mean 2.2-2.6kgMS/day!
But they go too hard, for too long - too much grass is seldom a problem - and when it almost starts to live a little, they mow it :facepalm::banghead:

Every single year - this is why 40 year's experience means nart, if it is simply one year's experience repeated 39 more times :)
this is the treadmill I can't seem. to get off. but spring has been a little slow here this year
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I always look at them leaving the grazing around the cow pats as a good thing for several reasons,
Parasite control being one of the main ones.
Kp talks about leaving a third of the grazing behind each move , which is quite hard to visualise but they probably mess on 10-15% each time, so if on the next grazing they leave them plus the new lots of pats then your nearly to your 30% .
Think of the pats as a soil biology haven , if left for 60 days & nothing grazing that area it gets a chance to fully recover, plus spreading out.
Also it's building up a bank of grass for later in the season ( when grass gets shorter in the autumn there is still patches of longer grass for the stock).
20190515_082231.jpg

Not many gaps between pats in here, as you can see when there's low light.
More the odd gap in between them, which (by a law of averages) they should crap on at some point in the future.

When you think about it, cattle are amazingly good at conservation and self preservation, "nature won't cut her own throat"
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
View attachment 798904
Not many gaps between pats in here, as you can see when there's low light.
More the odd gap in between them, which (by a law of averages) they should crap on at some point in the future.

When you think about it, cattle are amazingly good at conservation and self preservation, "nature won't cut her own throat"
Unless nature is a lemming.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
From an Australian perspective ( I will say I have NO experience of dairy, so they might be different ) I have to say I have no understanding of all this talk of short grass, fields looking messy, the desire for everything to be neat & even, single species & looking "park like" . . .
I just don't get it ?
I'd love to see cattle standing belly deep or higher in vegetation :)
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
From an Australian perspective ( I will say I have NO experience of dairy, so they might be different ) I have to say I have no understanding of all this talk of short grass, fields looking messy, the desire for everything to be neat & even, single species & looking "park like" . . .
I just don't get it ?
I'd love to see cattle standing belly deep or higher in vegetation :)
Yet cotton fields are preferred in nice straight lines and even growth. That’s the goal.

Uniformity is a human desire. It’s why we make fence lines straight and crops monoculture and want all our loaves of bread to look the same on the shelf and all the apples to look perfect.

You may say from an Aussie perspective but I’ve seen fields in Aus, they’re expected to look just like fields here. The tea fields were a thing of monoculture beauty akin to a vineyard!

People don't want their front yard to be overgrown as that’s seen as a sign of neglect. That has translated to pastures and fields. Such is the human mindset and culture.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Yet cotton fields are preferred in nice straight lines and even growth. That’s the goal.

Uniformity is a human desire. It’s why we make fence lines straight and crops monoculture and want all our loaves of bread to look the same on the shelf and all the apples to look perfect.

You may say from an Aussie perspective but I’ve seen fields in Aus, they’re expected to look just like fields here. The tea fields were a thing of monoculture beauty akin to a vineyard!

People don't want their front yard to be overgrown as that’s seen as a sign of neglect. That has translated to pastures and fields. Such is the human mindset and culture.

Oh yeah, there is a big aim for uniformity in Cropping fields etc, I agree
It was just the grazing I was talking about really, not things in general
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
We learnt many years ago that "All that glitters isn't (necessarily) golden". Many farms who operate heaps of shiny kit and regularly claim the highest output in the area are wallowing in finance payments and worried sick about how to meet them all. :(:banghead:

You are providing a shining example Pete. (y):cool:
I have enough finance cost to keep us reasonably honest. It's about $500/ac per year so there really isn't much room for toys - it's all shiny on a rainy day, after all.

Copping it today, winds gusting over 140kmh and hosing it down :rolleyes: every farmer I've spoken to has had the same why: "why couldn't we have had some of this in January" :banghead:
Only lost two trees, a window out of my workshop, and it ripped the back door off the barn - otherwise all is well :)
 

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