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

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
6
this is the treadmill I can't seem. to get off. but spring has been a little slow here this year
I went to a funeral of a farmer today- 79 , still had his own herd of cows, died while working in the garden. Lots of farmers there , all a bit worried. Spring has not come, no blossoms on the trees, nothing leafed out yet, no one has planted anything as it is too cold and wet and most hay fields were wiped out by the thick ice that covered everything this winter. No one remembers having such long winter for ages. My paddocks look better than most , as I’ve already mentioned, and tomorrow I’m am letting the cows and sheep graze a few hours for the first time since November 18th. I had an uneasy feeling about this winter going into it and had purchased extra hay- I have used almost all of it- I have enough for about 2 weeks left but I want to keep it as a back up. So hee goes. I waited till the three leaf stage( just) but can wait no longer. 3 C outside.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
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 :)
I like mess
Mess is good
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
But you know that when it warms up it’s going to warm up @Crofter64. This week there’s finally trees getting leaves. It’s strange, how it feels so late in the spring, but it really isn’t. I keep thinking my grass should be farther along but really... the trees and ditches are only just getting going. My grass is actually probably farther ahead because it was so short the soil warmed up fast :ROFLMAO:

I don’t know when seeding usually happens out there but here they aren’t really behind. They’re definitely not early and any turn in weather could make them late, but really it wasn’t that long ago you didn’t start seeding until May 15!

It was April 26 I finished putting the chicken coop poop out in the front yard, so that’s not even three weeks yet. The straw is almost gone from sight!

212465DD-CCD7-4205-970B-B0B44E554A10.jpeg


I even mowed the small area around the house I mow. But now it looks like it needs it again :shifty:

Not sure I’m going to have the time, or enough strawy stuff, to get it spread on the other pasture I really wanted done. Most of the winter bedding is well on its way to muddy, decomposing poop, not good residue. But I think I’m going to experiment with compost and manure teas on that part instead (y)
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
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 :)
Benefits of being coastal :whistle::inpain:
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
But you know that when it warms up it’s going to warm up @Crofter64. This week there’s finally trees getting leaves. It’s strange, how it feels so late in the spring, but it really isn’t. I keep thinking my grass should be farther along but really... the trees and ditches are only just getting going. My grass is actually probably farther ahead because it was so short the soil warmed up fast :ROFLMAO:

I don’t know when seeding usually happens out there but here they aren’t really behind. They’re definitely not early and any turn in weather could make them late, but really it wasn’t that long ago you didn’t start seeding until May 15!

It was April 26 I finished putting the chicken coop poop out in the front yard, so that’s not even three weeks yet. The straw is almost gone from sight!

View attachment 798954

I even mowed the small area around the house I mow. But now it looks like it needs it again :shifty:

Not sure I’m going to have the time, or enough strawy stuff, to get it spread on the other pasture I really wanted done. Most of the winter bedding is well on its way to muddy, decomposing poop, not good residue. But I think I’m going to experiment with compost and manure teas on that part instead (y)
Liquid manure? This sounds interesting!

What's your plan?
 

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
But you know that when it warms up it’s going to warm up @Crofter64. This week there’s finally trees getting leaves. It’s strange, how it feels so late in the spring, but it really isn’t. I keep thinking my grass should be farther along but really... the trees and ditches are only just getting going. My grass is actually probably farther ahead because it was so short the soil warmed up fast :ROFLMAO:

I don’t know when seeding usually happens out there but here they aren’t really behind. They’re definitely not early and any turn in weather could make them late, but really it wasn’t that long ago you didn’t start seeding until May 15!

It was April 26 I finished putting the chicken coop poop out in the front yard, so that’s not even three weeks yet. The straw is almost gone from sight!

View attachment 798954

I even mowed the small area around the house I mow. But now it looks like it needs it again :shifty:

Not sure I’m going to have the time, or enough strawy stuff, to get it spread on the other pasture I really wanted done. Most of the winter bedding is well on its way to muddy, decomposing poop, not good residue. But I think I’m going to experiment with compost and manure teas on that part instead (y)
We’re at the 45 th parallel -quite a bit further south than you . So, we’re about a month late. Every year there is something weatherwise to panic people and it always turns out somehow. This year it’s the completely brown hayfields (alfalfa dominated) that the dairy farmers rely on and their inability to get o n the land to seed anything. You are right though. when it finally warms it’ll jump straight to hot.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
That’s more like what my cows and calves are running? How do you find your stores do on that? Have you got any after pictures?
Stores do just fine. Had one mob we turfed out in mid Feb (that dry spell we had) onto winter barley volunteers and they grew at up to 1.5kg/day, made me realise that we can be a bit precious about what we think they need. They get a lot of variety too, gone from pasture as pictured onto a patch of heading blackgrass, sterile brome and phacelia at top of demo field...won't do them a lot of good, but I'll move them off it tonight and it saves getting the topper out. And it's diversity for the rumen bugs.

As to your second question: do I look like the sort of person that has photos of cow pats on my phone?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
As to your second question: do I look like the sort of person that has photos of cow pats on my phone?

As it happens, from the same spot, the very next day. I should have let them eat it further down, as I won't be able to get back till after Groundswell, but normally would leave more behind so it isn't checked too much and comes back quickView attachment 799052
Answered your own question there: Yes :p:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 

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
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
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
Traditional contemporary thinking (If that's not a contradiction in terms!) is not to let anything go to seed. To top anything that was getting too far ahead (or mow).
Even within that thinking however, it always seemed you'd lost the battle for the best grazing when it started to seed. And it was always a battle to try to keep it at that stage. Topping just seemed such a waste of time, diesel and grass to me.
I'm no where near where I want to be with it this year, but still a very different mindset to grazing management. Lots more subdivision and higher residuals planned.
But it takes lots of electric fence if your not to be moving loads of fences every day.
Doesn't help that I've got a lot of grass keep with little or no fencing to start with, and not in a ring fence.
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Cow pats are really quite interesting when you get into them. I took the 3 year old investigating them last week.
@martian are you going to be doing a pasture walk this year. I missed out last year. :cry:
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Traditional contemporary thinking (If that's not a contradiction in terms!) is not to let anything go to seed. To top anything that was getting too far ahead (or mow).
Even within that thinking however, it always seemed you'd lost the battle for the best grazing when it started to seed. And it was always a battle to try to keep it at that stage. Topping just seemed such a waste of time, diesel and grass to me.
I'm no where near where I want to be with it this year, but still a very different mindset to grazing management. Lots more subdivision and higher residuals planned.
But it takes lots of electric fence if your not to be moving loads of fences every day.
Doesn't help that I've got a lot of grass keep with little or no fencing to start with, and not in a ring fence.
No fencing isn't a huge handicap, I would rather a "blank canvas" than a heap of infrastructure in the wrong place for what you want to do.
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
No fencing isn't a huge handicap, I would rather a "blank canvas" than a heap of infrastructure in the wrong place for what you want to do.
I know what you mean but the issue is lots of hedges that aren't stockproof so have to be fenced. So that's 2 lots of fence - 1 either side of the hedge.
Then subdivision can be thought about after that.
 
Last edited:

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,293
  • 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/
Top