ShooTa
Member
- Location
- Denbighshire - In the vale of Clwyd!
Thanks Sheila
other half found this - do not think its been shared before.
other half found this - do not think its been shared before.
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
Brix 7-11 here thermometer out of battery, average day and night temperature around 12-14 currently
Sheila Cooke
Member
Hi Everyone, please could you help promote the LILIS conference coming up on the 7th of June, at Dumfries House in Scotland? Christopher and myself will be speaking there on the topic of learning to read your land. Thank you kindly.
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/learn-to-read-your-land-at-lilis.288994/
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/learn-to-read-your-land-at-lilis.288994/
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Proof it works here too: happy cows today. I've probably left this a touch too long but they grazed this cell 39 days ago and it last had fertiliser in February 2018.
- Location
- West Somerset
Spot on in my eyes
At least like that there is something in the bank rather than running on credit by relying on a bag of fert and some rainSpot on in my eyes
GreenerGrass
Member
- Location
- Wilts
I posted a while back. I think I may be leaving my paddocks too long before regrading, and I seem to have quite a few annual grasses which head sooner.
Grazed paddock in foreground and new paddock beyond fence, second photo should show new paddock grazed. I know it's not popular elsewhere on the forum but I like docks, the sheep go for them first and their big roots must be doing some good for the soil. Note they have disappeared after grazing.
I'm cautious about speeding up/reducing size of rotation as worry about sheep parasites (worms). Is this something I am right to be concerned about? Really be good if we had cows in system I think, but TB is bad round here and don't have infrastructure.
Welcome any thoughts and input? My goal is to get to daily moves but not there yet. Would I be better to shut some for hay or trampling level is sufficient to justify grazing the longer covers?
Grazed paddock in foreground and new paddock beyond fence, second photo should show new paddock grazed. I know it's not popular elsewhere on the forum but I like docks, the sheep go for them first and their big roots must be doing some good for the soil. Note they have disappeared after grazing.
I'm cautious about speeding up/reducing size of rotation as worry about sheep parasites (worms). Is this something I am right to be concerned about? Really be good if we had cows in system I think, but TB is bad round here and don't have infrastructure.
Welcome any thoughts and input? My goal is to get to daily moves but not there yet. Would I be better to shut some for hay or trampling level is sufficient to justify grazing the longer covers?
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- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I think with a sheep only system, internal parasites are always cause for concern.
Unless you have put a lot of emphasis on selection for resilient sheep, of course, in which case the "torture test" is going to show who can hack it!
How soon do you wean?
It can be a handy thing to do, by putting the lambs on clean pasture and then grazing it lower with the ewes you can minimise their burden.
Maintaining decent "skylines" during early summer can also attract an awful lot of spiders and birds which will all do their part in perdating larvae as they begin to move up the leaf, but one minor tweak can make a large difference in a worming programme: timing!!
So many farmers save up dosing for "a rainy day job" and unwittingly turn out their freshly wormed sheep onto damp pasture where the earthworms are at the surface also - so if possible then clean them up in the dry when the earthworms are deeper as this will minimise any problems from the drench (other than costing a few bob and removing selection pressure from replacements).
Re the grazing you could possibly plan your lamb round ahead of weaning/ during lambing in order to get them away on clean pasture, I'd consider mowing a block to provide this if management was difficult; perhaps a quarter per year would suffice?
My annual grasses here tend to boot early with a long period of heading, in a dry summer they can be in that state for months and so I tend to keep at them, and rest them later in the season to allow the later seeds to fall. I have other pasture types in other areas which stay leafier and I can graze these differently in terms of recovery time and pressure.
Sheila Cooke
Member
Looking great! I want to learn about improved pastures. Please tell me when was this paddock last reseeded and with what mix, do you know? And, are you planning to discontinue fertilisers altogether?
- Location
- West Yorkshire
Went checking on the pizza slices tonight.
The right side got grazed on 9th May on a dampish day (3 weeks recovery)the left on the 19th May this only got rain this Monday just gone even though I left extra cover on it? I think now I should have taken it tighter down to encourage new growth its struggled with the dry spell we have had.
The track back to water is recovering better than expected.
23 days recovery below from the first slice below.
Hopefully another 20 days before I need it again.
Can’t see no clover yet from the dressing I gave it.
Need to get this into bales now ASAP it’s looking a little flat and sorry for itself. I would have done it last week but farm track was closed due to new concrete being laid
The right side got grazed on 9th May on a dampish day (3 weeks recovery)the left on the 19th May this only got rain this Monday just gone even though I left extra cover on it? I think now I should have taken it tighter down to encourage new growth its struggled with the dry spell we have had.
The track back to water is recovering better than expected.
23 days recovery below from the first slice below.
Hopefully another 20 days before I need it again.
Can’t see no clover yet from the dressing I gave it.
Need to get this into bales now ASAP it’s looking a little flat and sorry for itself. I would have done it last week but farm track was closed due to new concrete being laid
Sheila Cooke
Member
@Karliboy thank you for sharing your photos. Looks like you're learning lots. You mentioned the idea of grazing it down low to stimulate growth. Actually, it's the opposite. You want to graze it high to reduce the recovery time. Especially at this fast-growing time of year, you want to get round your whole farm quickly. You're right that the grazing stimulates growth, but taking it short saps the life out of the grass. Grazing it tall is much better.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Good call there @Sheila Cooke .
It does appear that it grows faster when grazing low but it's (in my observation) really only in appearance; as Karl suggests it triggers a response from the plant, but, a withdrawl from the root reserve.
It works better if you only make those withdrawls when you really need to as opposed to all the time.. this is what stresses the plants and biology under them.
We're in that position at the moment and so I've just made the call to reduce my stock numbers, trading properties are great as long as you remember to trade
It does appear that it grows faster when grazing low but it's (in my observation) really only in appearance; as Karl suggests it triggers a response from the plant, but, a withdrawl from the root reserve.
It works better if you only make those withdrawls when you really need to as opposed to all the time.. this is what stresses the plants and biology under them.
We're in that position at the moment and so I've just made the call to reduce my stock numbers, trading properties are great as long as you remember to trade
Must remember to tell my sheep that......
" graze tall '
" graze tall '
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Just tell the manager to move them before they graze low.Must remember to tell my sheep that......
" graze tall '
They are much less "conservation-minded" than cattle, all the same. That's why I liquidated mine.
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Sheila Cooke
Member
I know you all like juicy bits of information, so am sending you a couple of recent research articles.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Next time we have a uni crew here, I'll get a copy of our carbon audit on here
Foolishly all I have done previously was snap a few pictures of their conclusions and let them take all the hardcopy, but it's really evident the contrasting stats between the natural ecosystem (good guys) and the human helpers (environmental terrorists).
As I say, the main reason I work a 45 hour week is to reduce the time available to be a "farmer"
Foolishly all I have done previously was snap a few pictures of their conclusions and let them take all the hardcopy, but it's really evident the contrasting stats between the natural ecosystem (good guys) and the human helpers (environmental terrorists).
As I say, the main reason I work a 45 hour week is to reduce the time available to be a "farmer"
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
I DARE YOU to post a copy once you have it, along with a summary of your last annual accounts, on BF's "most profitable sucker cow breed" thread
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
It's an interesting field Sheila. It's 17 acres with at least 4 soil types, 40% is reclaimed inert landfill and it grew forage maize 6 years ago. It was then sown to a ryegrass ley. Since then it's had a single dose of 100kg N per hectare (100kg per acre of 37.5%N ammonium nitrate) early in the year until this year. This year the reclaimed land, as usual, was very slow to start growing so had 45kg N per hectare in early April but the rest of the field has had nothing. I missed out the slow bit from the first grazing round as I'd have been grazing grass only 75mm high so that part has only just had its first graze this year.
That photo is taken in one of the cells that has had no fertiliser this year and was grazed in the first round 39 days ago.
I'm aiming to cease using fertiliser next year on our grazing land. I'm also aiming to reduce our winter housing period as far as I can over the next couple of years to reduce our winter feed cost. I am going to clear the manure from our sheds over the next couple of weeks and stack in a corner of that field, adding woodchip and composting it. I'll also add some soil from one of our woods to the compost heap to try to encourage beneficial biology in the compost. The compost will be spread after the last grazing of this season.
Really I'm just experimenting here now. As you all know we plan to leave as soon as we can. I'm not overly pedantic about our holistic objectives here right now, just learning how to manage grazing better to move our farm towards them.
When we get to NZ I'll be tapping Pete's knowledge more and looking to get serious about full-on holistic management and landscape diversity.
We'd like to run a grazing enterprise incorporating Manuka honey and coffee production if that proves possible. Just because nobody has done it before doesn't mean it couldn't work.