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

Generally01 · Sep 21, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
Likewise - I really don't know why it only seems the preserve of winter feeding, that's risky in our climate as it puts too many feet in one place for too long. Doesn't stop everyone doing it, but IMO it's still wrong if everyone is doing it and still right if nobody is doing it

I'd be more inclined to build up a standing grass reserve by feeding before it gets wet, then plastering the standing grass down when it does get wet.
Or summer feeding, summer cropping, and focus on our all-grass wintering systems

Right i would prefer to winter stockpile too, but if you can make hay on other peoples property (a lot of people wouldn't mind if you made a deal with u to keep brush down and make a little hay in the process) then it would be easy to extend your grazing season with all the added organic matter.

som farmer · Sep 21, 2020

there's 17 acres, next door to us, a 'bit of a mess', describes it quite well, we took it on, 20 years ago, got it looking right, spent the money on it, just got it ok, owner rung me, and said he'd let it to someone else, who had offered more cash ! Well, he just raped it, 2/3 yrs, let to someone else apparently, i'd ruined it, owner messed about, making hay, never covered the rick, made some haylage, then, he couldn't find anybody, to pay to rent, stayed empty, for 1 year, then let to a sheep man, who never paid. Then the owners all fell out, and we were asked to cut it, £17.50 an acre, we were short of grub, so we agreed. Charged him to dump his hay rick, and for 5 years, just taken 1 cut of hay, no fert/spray, gate shut with last bale, opened with next cut. Accepting it's a bit weedy, and normally wouldn't touch it, i have to say, it makes some fantastic hay, as the field, moves back to the native grasses, yield is increasing, we are going to cut it a second time, this year ! But, it's been sold now, so that will end, pity, it's right next door.

som farmer · Sep 21, 2020

Greg101 said:
I have found feeding hay out on the pasture is very helpful anytime of the year. It boosts your organic matter quite a bit especially if they don't eat all of it and scatter some around.

fed in yard, i don't fancy feeding out on the new leys, helps them come in, as well.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

"Best practice"?

I really don't like to follow

Henarar · Sep 21, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
"Best practice"? View attachment 908856
I really don't like to follow

Wouldn't a lot of these folk simply be better off with less animals?
You know better not more.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

Henarar said:
Wouldn't a lot of these folk simply be better off with less animals?
You know better not more.

All it would take is one more fence per mob, what's that, 200 to 300 pesos? And they would be in there with a tractor replanting seeds a good 6 weeks earlier in the growing season.

There is zero "economy" in spreading out livestock, infact it is almost always negative

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

Don't get me wrong, that same day our stock made a mess too; 3 inches of rain, stock will do that.

But our mess now has 2 inches of grass over it, so the loss of C capture is probably about 200kg/ha over not messing it up. And the affected area will be maybe ⅕ of a hectare between the two mobs, mainly the sheep (sheep are hard on the land by comparison to suitable cattle)

it didn't help they were on the flattest bit of the ranch

When you're talking stock roaming over 6ha per mob and that effect is delaying recovering by 6 weeks, then even without soil erosion it is a huge loss to the system, no wonder people like that guy need to buy a lot of energy at retail prices.

That in turn means they need a lot of stock to pay the costs of being too busy to put a fence up behind them to protect the soil

Samcowman · Sep 21, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
All it would take is one more fence per mob, what's that, 200 to 300 pesos? And they would be in there with a tractor replanting seeds a good 6 weeks earlier in the growing season.

There is zero "economy" in spreading out livestock, infact it is almost always negative

What do you make of the proposed freshwater reform rules?
It’s interesting to listen to Dr Rowarth on The Country tearing into regen ag and saying nz ag already is regenerative. That

Looks pretty destructive to me.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

Samcowman said:
What do you make of the proposed freshwater reform rules?
It’s interesting to listen to Dr Rowarth on The Country tearing into regen ag and saying nz ag already is regenerative. That ☝ Looks pretty destructive to me.

Dr Rowarth is just a shill

NZ ag is all about degenerative farming - our economy depends on the liquidation of natural capital to export offshore, our economy and 'nation' was built on it.
On some lowland farms, the most regenerative thing about them are the dead lambs quietly rotting into the ground out of sight, anything that's easy to sell off the place is..... sold off the place

There is something wrong if you can bugger a pasture or a breeding animal in under a decade and the likes of Rowarth get their pay from reinforcing the view that all is well; just make sure you keep the fertiliser going on to replace the nutrients you sell off - it would be better for the landscape (in very many cases) if it were to revert to matagouri and neither of those two things occurred.

The freshwater reform thing could be good but are more likely to be punitive and very costly. Driving around you see plenty of waterways already fenced off
and then you see a mob of cows in a creek over there
and then you see a dead sheep in the one over there
and then you see waterways fenced off somewhere else

so it's really only the d¹ckheads letting the water quality down, and most of those live in the cities, towns and villages. The stuff that goes down the stormwaters, drains, sewers, and runs off roads can't be fenced off

som farmer · Sep 21, 2020

man is hugely successful in destroying his habitat.

Samcowman · Sep 21, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
Dr Rowarth is just a shill

NZ ag is all about degenerative ofarming - our economy depends on the liquidation of natural capital to export offshore, our economy and 'nation' was built on it.
On some lowland farms, the most regenerative thing about them are the dead lambs quietly rotting into the ground out of sight, anything that's easy to sell off the place is..... sold off the place

There is something wrong if you can bugger a pasture or a breeding animal in under a decade and the likes of Rowarth get their pay from reinforcing the view that all is well; just make sure you keep the fertiliser going on to replace the nutrients you sell off - it would be better for the landscape (in very many cases) if it were to revert to matagouri and neither of those two things occurred.

The freshwater reform thing could be good but are more likely to be punitive and very costly. Driving around you see plenty of waterways already fenced off
and then you see a mob of cows in a creek over there
and then you see a dead sheep in the one over there
and then you see waterways fenced off somewhere else

so it's really only the d¹ckheads letting the water quality down, and most of those live in the cities, towns and villages. The stuff that goes down the stormwaters, drains, sewers, and runs off roads can't be fenced off

I thought bringing her up would give you a chuckle

onesiedale · Sep 21, 2020

Henarar said:
Wouldn't a lot of these folk simply be better off with less animals?
You know better not more.

But looking at the picture, the ground doesn't look too heavily stocked. It just looks mis-managed. Like KP says, another fence to keep them moving forward and a plan 'B' for the odd wet week and that ground would be ready for the spring a couple of months earlier.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

onesiedale said:
But looking at the picture, the ground doesn't look too heavily stocked. It just looks mis-managed. Like KP says, another fence to keep them moving forward and a plan 'B' for the odd wet week and that ground would be ready for the spring a couple of months earlier.

It's almost like they don't expect it to get wet over winter and spring down here.
A massive surprise it is not, but the thing it really boils down to is "time management"

Walk down one fence and move it forward, move the other fence up on your way back.
Instead of wading through sticky goop, you're on dry footing if you do it right, and it gives you a chance (especially with cows) to look over their business ends while you go

At our last place, I could feed 750 cows their tucker in 4 hours, and ride my 2-wheeler around them - and we got plenty of rain.
I'd usually go out in the afternoon again:
Stand up any standards they'd leant over
Flip the rings over the next day's bales
Take any plastic out before it got trodden in
And move up the backfences.

That took 1½ hours (we ran mobs of 100)

On my weekends off, it took the other 3 guys 4 hours to feed them, by which stage they'd be "stuffed" and wouldn't go out again, and it would take them half the next week to get their backfences up because they were having to move them so far that would wear them out as well

I like to run a tight ship, that is all it is

Karliboy · Sep 21, 2020

Rob Garrett said:
11 acres (4.45ha)
18 cows + calves, 7 heifers, 1 bull = 44 head
Want to keep them mid Oct to end Nov, say 45 days
So 44,500 square meters divided by 45 days = 989 square meters/day?????
Is that .09 ha then? Standing room only!
How do I measure that out (meters X meters)?

id struggle to keep my 29 head on my land for much above 22 days even more so if it went wet as the wastage would be so much more than what they are eating with short foggy grass like you have let alone 44 head.
my next 20 dayish round ill be roughly 0.5 acre daily moves depending on grass growth between now and starting

hendrebc · Sep 21, 2020

som farmer said:
4 years ago, we drilled, an all singing and dancing, high sugar grass ley, we had plenty of holstiens then, they hated it, unhappy, bawling, and completely stripped all reachable hedge, day 2, we put a bale of straw out, they ate that, before starting on the grass, milk dropped 200 litres, then gave up with dairy, and put y/stock on it, they kept getting out, so we baled it.
As we did a major turnover of hols to xbred, the xbred's loved it, and milk went up. For the hols, it was just to pokey, and gave them acidosis, learn't a very good lesson on that. Seeing we have been really short of grass, all summer, what grass there has been, has been excellent, but, we have fed 100 ton of hay all summer, for two reasons, first to try and slow the grazing round, and secondly, to try and keep the grass in the cows longer ! We are told to utilise grass, at the 3 leaf stage, which, some of the time, when we have had some rain, we have achieved, and left longer residuals, but that good grass, flies out the back end, telling me, they need 'something' to slow it down.

What would happen if you grazed so you had the dying 4th leaf in the rotation as well and used that to replace the hay? They say you shouldn't let the 4th leaf come up or it kills the first leaf in the tiller and decreases the quality of the grazing. But otf your having to feed hay anyway when you graze at 3rd leaf stage it might not be a bad thing to let it come through?

Kiwi Pete said:
Likewise - I really don't know why it only seems the preserve of winter feeding, that's risky in our climate as it puts too many feet in one place for too long. Doesn't stop everyone doing it, but IMO it's still wrong if everyone is doing it and still right if nobody is doing it

I'd be more inclined to build up a standing grass reserve by feeding before it gets wet, then plastering the standing grass down when it does get wet.
Or summer feeding, summer cropping, and focus on our all-grass wintering systems

Have been thinking the same thing here. Instead of growing turnips for winter feed get them in much earlier and graze it in June or July after weaning the lambs to let the rest of the farm grow some cover for later on. Would be more reliable than growing the turnips later when the flea beetle is about. I hate flea beetle.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

som farmer said:
man is hugely successful in destroying his habitat.

Almost every other living thing on the planet lives "for" the good of the planet.

Unfortunately we got a bit too smart for that and use the planet's resources against her

Kiwi Pete · Sep 21, 2020

hendrebc said:
What would happen if you grazed so you had the dying 4th leaf in the rotation as well and used that to replace the hay? They say you shouldn't let the 4th leaf come up or it kills the first leaf in the tiller and decreases the quality of the grazing. But otf your having to feed hay anyway when you graze at 3rd leaf stage it might not be a bad thing to let it come through?

Have been thinking the same thing here. Instead of growing turnips for winter feed get them in much earlier and graze it in June or July after weaning the lambs to let the rest of the farm grow some cover for later on. Would be more reliable than growing the turnips later when the flea beetle is about. I hate flea beetle.

That's the one, having used things like plantain/chicory/rape/turnip/clover mixes for summer feeding cows in the past, I see how well that worked.
Grass quality goes down the gurgler when it gets moisture stressed so we just let it do it, and basically bedded the cows on it while they munched their way through acres of tasty stuff, and they topped up on the rough stuff then crapped all over it.
But it made absolutely zero mess, and allowed us to cut out about 90% of the N we would have (I know I've told you all this tale) used on that farm, and the end of season production was well up.
Empty rate was well down.

And we made a whole heap of bales of average quality haylage for the winter crop/outwintering system, instead of making really good quality stuff from the younger paddocks, we put the youngstock on it and they went like stink on it.
Kind of a waste using really high quality feed just to balance out kale crops, they only need fibre at that time of year, when they're dry

Samcowman · Sep 21, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
That's the one, having used things like plantain/chicory/rape/turnip/clover mixes for summer feeding cows in the past, I see how well that worked.
Grass quality goes down the gurgler when it gets moisture stressed so we just let it do it, and basically bedded the cows on it while they munched their way through acres of tasty stuff, and they topped up on the rough stuff then crapped all over it.
But it made absolutely zero mess, and allowed us to cut out about 90% of the N we would have (I know I've told you all this tale) used on that farm, and the end of season production was well up.
Empty rate was well down.

And we made a whole heap of bales of average quality haylage for the winter crop/outwintering system, instead of making really good quality stuff from the younger paddocks, we put the youngstock on it and they went like stink on it.
Kind of a waste using really high quality feed just to balance out kale crops, they only need fibre at that time of year, when they're dry

That’s something I’m getting my head around at the moment. Spraying off a grass field in the spring to be able to give you some good quality summer feed when the grass doesn’t do much for a month and a half from mid July and cattle growth rates are always disappointing this could then give you a chance for an autumn reseed. Neighbour did it on some arable ground this year and it worked really well.

Crofter64 · Sep 21, 2020

som farmer said:
there's 17 acres, next door to us, a 'bit of a mess', describes it quite well, we took it on, 20 years ago, got it looking right, spent the money on it, just got it ok, owner rung me, and said he'd let it to someone else, who had offered more cash ! Well, he just raped it, 2/3 yrs, let to someone else apparently, i'd ruined it, owner messed about, making hay, never covered the rick, made some haylage, then, he couldn't find anybody, to pay to rent, stayed empty, for 1 year, then let to a sheep man, who never paid. Then the owners all fell out, and we were asked to cut it, £17.50 an acre, we were short of grub, so we agreed. Charged him to dump his hay rick, and for 5 years, just taken 1 cut of hay, no fert/spray, gate shut with last bale, opened with next cut. Accepting it's a bit weedy, and normally wouldn't touch it, i have to say, it makes some fantastic hay, as the field, moves back to the native grasses, yield is increasing, we are going to cut it a second time, this year ! But, it's been sold now, so that will end, pity, it's right next door.

Bring brownies to the new owners. It might be sold, but it won’t be going anywhere

Generally01 · Sep 21, 2020

Henarar said:
Wouldn't a lot of these folk simply be better off with less animals?
You know better not more.

It looks like there would be a lot less mess if they just moved them a little faster and didn't let it get that bad. Personaly a have found running them through wooded areas during winter can reduce mud to almost zero especially if you keep them moved properly. Of course this depends on your rainfall etc but the leaves and other residue help prevent mud.

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

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