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

GC74

Member
We've been mobbing ewes and lambs up as soon as possible and rotating ewes and lambs to last 3 years, ewe weights at weaning have gone up and lamb weights at weaning have gone down, shifting them 1 to 3 times per day is to hard on lambs, they just can't compete with the ewes for better quality parts of the pasture when shift rapidly, next year we're going back to more mobs and shift them every 3-5 days.
How big is the difference in weight if you don't mind me asking?
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
bugger using hedges around me for chipping bedding and burning, there all made up of some sort of hawthorn and are right old prickerly barstewards best off pilled up and burnt on site..
the stuff i put under cows for the first time this year had a little hawthorn amongst it so i was undecided whether is should risk it or not for stuff sticking in cows, but i did with a extra thick layer off straw on top
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
bugger using hedges around me for chipping bedding and burning, there all made up of some sort of hawthorn and are right old prickerly barstewards best off pilled up and burnt on site..
the stuff i put under cows for the first time this year had a little hawthorn amongst it so i was undecided whether is should risk it or not for stuff sticking in cows, but i did with a extra thick layer off straw on top
I spose if I was doing the job myself I could put everything bar the thorn through the chipper and use the thorn to build a Lion proof barrier round the farm yard (y)
 
I don't have have any cattle in my system and the more I read I can't help but think cattle are "required" in intensive grazing.......and struggling to see the best way to have ewes with lambs at foot🤔
Yes. One of my ideas under consideration, if the cattle/grazing trial is a success, is to up cattle numbers at home to reap the benefits and rent some ground for the sheep. We'll see.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
No it has to be 2 presents unless the kid specifically asks for one big present instead of 2. Every other kid gets a present on their birthday and at Christmas why should a December born kid be any different? Maybe when they are older and understand money and value and don't mind waiting till Christmas to open their birthday present or open it on their birthday and have nothing to open at Christmas.
Yes I am still annoyed about it. So is every other December born person I've ever spoken to about it.
Brother's birthday is Jan the 10th. He's over 50 now and still goes on about it
 

GC74

Member
Lambs are down about 15% ewe weights are up slightly, 2%. The lamb weight/ewe weight ratio has been consistent for as long as I've measure it, last 3 years it has lowered.
15% is quite a bit of a difference........but my old man always said if you want test a sheeps performance put another one close beside it.
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Brother's birthday is Jan the 10th. He's over 50 now and still goes on about it
I don't blame him. It's pretty sh!t when you just get told on your birthday that you can have your present next week. Takes all the fun out if it when your a kid. It carries on when your older as well because none of your friends want to go out and celebrate your birthday, like you do theirs, because they are off to some works do instead.
Won't make any difference to me now but I hope Dave will pay attention.
 

bendigeidfran

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cei newydd
We've been mobbing ewes and lambs up as soon as possible and rotating ewes and lambs to last 3 years, ewe weights at weaning have gone up and lamb weights at weaning have gone down, shifting them 1 to 3 times per day is to hard on lambs, they just can't compete with the ewes for better quality parts of the pasture when shift rapidly, next year we're going back to more mobs and shift them every 3-5 days.
Talking to a sheep farmer who just started
Mob grazing his ewes, said first year he put 500 twins together, it was a complete disaster in the growth rate of the lambs.
Ewes were fine and he had more grass.
He thought that they spent to much time after every move looking for mum.
He runs them in two mobs now, it just means more fencing.
 

bendigeidfran

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cei newydd
I don't blame him. It's pretty sh!t when you just get told on your birthday that you can have your present next week. Takes all the fun out if it when your a kid. It carries on when your older as well because none of your friends want to go out and celebrate your birthday, like you do theirs, because they are off to some works do instead.
Won't make any difference to me now but I hope Dave will pay attention.
Sister's birthday is on the 19th, she hasn't complained once as far that im aware.
Im shure when she went out partying it didn't bother her what others were celabrating.
 
Just going back to the idea of how hedges could be managed holistically,
I've a couple of mates who are looking in to the idea of making machines that can collect and bind hedge timber, ready to stack to dry before feeding chippers for biomass boilers.

But I'm wondering if maybe exporting that timber is a missed opportunity, why not cut out any bigger timber for the farms own fire use, then chip all the rest (rather than the traditional bonfire approach), to be either be piled, composted, then spread evenly across the land or target certain areas?

Or spread chips straight to the land? But I'm sure I've read somewhere that can cause some Carbon/ nitrogen balance problems?

Although we don't have a huge number of hedges personally (USA army remodelled the farm in WW2)
typical exmoor farms are heavily hedged with beech hedges on top of 6ft high banks, so really those hedges can't be allowed to grow to larger trees, as they can topple the bank.
You could try an old idea I saw in a book.
Base of a compost heap was made using a layer of branches and cuttings the thickness of the guys thumb. Built up to about a foot thick, then straw and dung, some lime and anything else organic, some soil from ditches (wanted to build a few silt traps on the farm, but don’t have it now) got added and kept moist but not wet.
I think they were also put down as a track to drive on so they would get crushed open a bit and to protect the soil a bit too.

also there was a Good bit in the book about sacrificial parts of fields. He would build his haystack in a corner that was to be a crop the next year and then let his cows just go at it.
It was long grass stacked in layers, so they had to pull at it. He said that they didn’t “waste” too much.
in the spring he pushed it all up (well would have been done by hand) and made his compost heap there.
I did the same years ago at home with bales, the cows were stripping and treading a lot of the straw we were feeding them, so I kept them on the same patch and it built up a thick Matt of hay straw and dung... but I failed to make use of the muck and it lay heaped up for years and lost most of its value.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
For our soils (silty sans and sandy silt, low to very low CEC) The reccomonded maximum dose is 1ton/ha/year on the siltiest soil, and 500kg year on the sandiest, (depending on the starting PH) . This could be doubled for those on heavy clay.

I was always told that too much lime at one time can block other elements, though i can't remember which.

As far as diverse (natural or otherwise) prairies are concerned a too much lime in one go alters to quickly the habitat for species to adapt and the production may even decrease the first year or two, though it will increase in later years.

Ideally for our cultures and hay fields, it would be good to add 200 - 300kgs a year every year. (less depending on the addition of fym) In order to replace what we are exporting.

For the prairies that are only ever grazed we are able to maintain a PH through biological activity. Sometimes even raise it a little. :)
Each time we put in a culture or cut hay we bring it down a touch.

We hadn't limed our farm for over 20 years, but we have been eating into our captial for our cultures, and got caught out this year on the hemp (likes a more neutral ph). I have now limed our away fields. I think it cost about 1300€ for 20 tons delivered and spread. The return on investment will be about a year.

For the prairies we have some that are at 6.7 on a granit base! 👍 And some very productive prairies at 5.7.
We don't use art. fert. Which is a bugger for acidifying soils.

I might lime some of our pastures next year at 300kg/ha for all of those under PH.6 that are unproductive. Maybe with lithothamne or perhaps dolomite to increase the olgio-elements. But I don't like the idea of these big machines driving on my pastures.

Either way as far as inputs are concerned, it's damned cheap for the effect it has. As it gives you access to a captial you already have (assuming you have it) , rather than buying in captial from elsewhere.

Liming revolutionised my part of the world where we are on naturally acidic soils. Liming actually reduced significantly the number of people dying of starvation on my peninsular a couple of centuries back.

Sounds like I have rights in a liming company, and I do think it is really important!
But for a bit of perspective with the liming this year, that averages 12kgs/ha/year over the last 20 years.


Courtesy Dr. Elaine Ingham

"First of all, it really doesn’t matter what kind of clay you have. The local, indigenous biology knows how to deal with it. Don’t add lime, don’t add gypsum. They’ll only exacerbate the problem.

"I know I’ve said that if you absolutely have to add lime, that you cannot put more than 100 lbs per acre. Please recognize that most chemistry reports will be recommending 6,000 lbs of lime per acre and 1,000 lbs of gypsum per acre. There is no way that 100 lbs of lime is going to, in any way, seriously influence the flocculation of your clays. I was trying to make the point that it’s just not possible to get soil structure built by adding lime or gypsum. If you add lime or gypsum in at the recommended rate suggested by agronomists, you will just kill all of the good biology in your soil. Typically in about two weeks, all of the excess lime and gypsum will leach out of the soil and into your groundwater, causing a lot of damage to all of the biology downhill from where you applied it.

"All you need to do is till in a ton per acre of good compost. Please make sure that the compost is biologically complete. And that should solve your problems with compaction in that clay."

Maybe this explains how we "get away with putting no lime on" and why our residue isn't causing an acidifying effect on the soil? 🤔 It'll be coming up 30 years since this place was limed, and yes it "looks it"
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
We've been mobbing ewes and lambs up as soon as possible and rotating ewes and lambs to last 3 years, ewe weights at weaning have gone up and lamb weights at weaning have gone down, shifting them 1 to 3 times per day is to hard on lambs, they just can't compete with the ewes for better quality parts of the pasture when shift rapidly, next year we're going back to more mobs and shift them every 3-5 days.
How much are you leaving behind them, Dan?

It's good that you know your weights (and have data to bounce it off) because 'at least you know'

That's why we have so many cattle in with ours, in a nutshell we found the same thing a couple of years back when we had a lambing, they literally flew for a start and then hit the wall - we have a bit of a "gap" between when the grass is starting to lose quality and when the clover cranks up.
(Basically the last 4-5 weeks)
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't have have any cattle in my system and the more I read I can't help but think cattle are "required" in intensive grazing.......and struggling to see the best way to have ewes with lambs at foot🤔
Mix it up - plenty of people set-stock their sheep over lambing and rotate a large mob of cattle around to "grow better lambs" by preserving pasture quality.
That's probably how I'd do it if I was a sheep farmer TBH.
You get the simplicity as well as the livestock performance, eg you aren't f**king about with multiwire sheep fences when attempting to get tailing, spring drilling and other farmer's jobs done.

You have to pick the best tool and best approach to address your concerns - although I've said many times sheep pee me off because they eat the litter, when we switch to all-cattle we'll have to change how we graze or else our farm will be full of yorkshire fog and ragwort.

Recipes simply fail over time.
 

GC74

Member
Courtesy Dr. Elaine Ingham

"First of all, it really doesn’t matter what kind of clay you have. The local, indigenous biology knows how to deal with it. Don’t add lime, don’t add gypsum. They’ll only exacerbate the problem.

"I know I’ve said that if you absolutely have to add lime, that you cannot put more than 100 lbs per acre. Please recognize that most chemistry reports will be recommending 6,000 lbs of lime per acre and 1,000 lbs of gypsum per acre. There is no way that 100 lbs of lime is going to, in any way, seriously influence the flocculation of your clays. I was trying to make the point that it’s just not possible to get soil structure built by adding lime or gypsum. If you add lime or gypsum in at the recommended rate suggested by agronomists, you will just kill all of the good biology in your soil. Typically in about two weeks, all of the excess lime and gypsum will leach out of the soil and into your groundwater, causing a lot of damage to all of the biology downhill from where you applied it.

"All you need to do is till in a ton per acre of good compost. Please make sure that the compost is biologically complete. And that should solve your problems with compaction in that clay."

Maybe this explains how we "get away with putting no lime on" and why our residue isn't causing an acidifying effect on the soil? 🤔 It'll be coming up 30 years since this place was limed, and yes it "looks it"
Whats the problem that lime and gypsum is exacerbate? And how do you till in the compost when you aren't doing any tillage? Also if the indigenous biology knows how to deal with it why would add any in compost?
 

GC74

Member
Mix it up - plenty of people set-stock their sheep over lambing and rotate a large mob of cattle around to "grow better lambs" by preserving pasture quality.
That's probably how I'd do it if I was a sheep farmer TBH.
You get the simplicity as well as the livestock performance, eg you aren't fudgeing about with multiwire sheep fences when attempting to get tailing, spring drilling and other farmer's jobs done.

You have to pick the best tool and best approach to address your concerns - although I've said many times sheep pee me off because they eat the litter, when we switch to all-cattle we'll have to change how we graze or else our farm will be full of yorkshire fog and ragwort.

Recipes simply fail over time.
Yes but my old girls only think of themselves and getting them to leave something for cattle would take some serious talking!!!!!!
 

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