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

Try shooting back to about page 666 Barry 👹

This residual meant I was back around in about 80 days, easily could have slowed them down and saved a whole extra lap

that's a lot of work saved/created
Looks a similar residual to what I left on the rented ground next door when the sheep were in for the last time before March. It was quite wet as well but they gave what was left a good trample. Might be my imagination but I thought you had taken it down more tightly than that?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes, we did. After the first few weeks we grazed quite a bit tighter than that and it worked heaps better. Should have just gone with that gut feeling for a start!
Leave ⅓ by eye and you're almost grazing twice as fast as you need to be, it's not like "grass grows grass" when there's 5 hours of sun per day. That's roots!
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
Had a bit of a play about with the designs tonight @exmoor dave, @NZDan and anyone else who's interested. View attachment 929829
All these blue blocks are 4ha/10 acres in area, the ones with ponds are slightly larger to make 4 grazeable hectares.
Maximum of 50 metres across the lanes by 810 m long. The block "at the back" is 100x400

They run with the prevailing weather and over the contours as opposed to with them, as was my original plan.
Working on the 0.1ha cell size, means each lane is 40 paddocks long for easy maths; after having a play this year I'm comfortable with the idea of 40, 80, and 120 day rest periods depending on severity of graze, time of year etc etc.

What's your thoughts?

Key points are we must provide easy access to the town's water tanks, so will need to break the lanes to form an open track from the cattleyards up to there, this might make loading cattle into the system a tad easier as well.
Also, I want to run wide rows of trees along the run of the lanes to help with the summer shade dilemma, 50 metres along the ground represents about a 4 metre contour (roughly) so this gives options regarding the trees and shrubbery we use .

Don't be shy to criticise this as I need to test out weaknesses before we set to .


How hard/awkward would it be to get any stock back to the yard in a rush if the weather turned and you had to like you do occasionally if you were at the furthest point from the yard or if there was a lame animal to walk back for any reason? Is this were the break access to the towns water tanks could come in handy? but it may not be the shortest route? Or would you just cut and join hotline to create shortest route for a lame animal?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
How hard/awkward would it be to get any stock back to the yard in a rush if the weather turned and you had to like you do occasionally if you were at the furthest point from the yard or if there was a lame animal to walk back for any reason? Is this were the break access to the towns water tanks could come in handy? but it may not be the shortest route? Or would you just cut and join hotline to create shortest route for a lame animal?
Easier than it is now, because at present they have to go through several gateways to get around solid fences.
With just wires in the way and a good number of pogos, it's "as the crow flies"

..same as vehicles, set them up to hop fences and you aren't taking the same track every time you go to the mob... so you don't get shitty gateway syndrome, there are no gateways
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
DOH as Homer Simpson says.

I completely forgot about the idea of pogos 🙈

would you have to relax some tension in the hot wires for this as I thought that they would be fairly tight being near permanent fixtures or will the ends be on some bungee type thing to allow for this.
I suppose you can even pogo for vehicles to get up to the water tanks.

Sorry for the daft questions lol
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
DOH as Homer Simpson says.

I completely forgot about the idea of pogos 🙈

would you have to relax some tension in the hot wires for this as I thought that they would be fairly tight being near permanent fixtures or will the ends be on some bungee type thing to allow for this.
I suppose you can even pogo for vehicles to get up to the water tanks.

Sorry for the daft questions lol
It's all good, no such thing as daft questions!
They have tension spring assemblies, similar to the ones they use under pivot irrigation but lighter duty (because 1.6 is lighter than 2.5 HT)
 

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
We're going to lock some ground up for deferred grazing this summer, mostly likely dryer sunny faces and two small paddocks that are always poor. It'll be interesting to see how they respond.
Last year I took a poor paddock right down in the dry of summer and then left it out of the rotation . The abundance of great grass that came up with a bit of moisture was impressive.
 
Speaking of Zietsman, I've been rewatching (and recording) his videos on YT, particularly the Living Web Farms from 2013. It should be required viewing. In a different video he talks of farmers producing animals for feed lots, that breeding programme also produces that farmers replacement cows, what sense is there in that, we grow grass but produce an animal that can't eat enough grass therefore requires high supplementation with grains.

Farmernomics.
 
Considering the whole ReGen Ag thing, that's something I've been confused over for some time, that it appears there are ecologists playing at being farmer usually (and good for them) having other sources of income or savings and then your average struggling farmer. For quite a while I've been throwing it back and forth the Savory way of grazing and the Zeitsman way of grazing, I feel the Zeitsman way is winning. That's not to say I discount the Holistic Management, I don't, I think it's incredibly useful. But, I believe it's something Sean McGloin of NOTS said (possibly) during Biofarm 2020 that nature could/should be a byproduct of farming, coupled with an exchange on the Working Cows podcast that's been irritating me, Stan Parsons wants to save you ranch, while Alan Savory wants to save the world.

I'm one that doesn't believe I need to feed the 9bn, or save the world. I think my farm can be a tiny part of both, but that my farms primary purpose is to provide for my family - that is it's mission statement, it's context. It's the reason I lean towards Zeitsman, that yes, my farm, and many other farms, must first be saved to enable use to act positively towards the world and it's population.
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
You can abuse a piece and mow it right into the dirt and as long as moisture comes along in a timely manner you’re fine.

If significant moisture fails to materialize then your crispy grass will further crispify and given long enough will reach the point that it struggles to even allow moisture in. It’s like betting your chips at a card game. Sometimes the next flip pays off for you, sometimes in kicks you right out of the game for a while.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Speaking of Zietsman, I've been rewatching (and recording) his videos on YT, particularly the Living Web Farms from 2013. It should be required viewing. In a different video he talks of farmers producing animals for feed lots, that breeding programme also produces that farmers replacement cows, what sense is there in that, we grow grass but produce an animal that can't eat enough grass therefore requires high supplementation with grains.

Farmernomics.
Not with you there, is he saying the replacement cows can't eat enough grass and need grains just to grow or rear a calf?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Considering the whole ReGen Ag thing, that's something I've been confused over for some time, that it appears there are ecologists playing at being farmer usually (and good for them) having other sources of income or savings and then your average struggling farmer. For quite a while I've been throwing it back and forth the Savory way of grazing and the Zeitsman way of grazing, I feel the Zeitsman way is winning. That's not to say I discount the Holistic Management, I don't, I think it's incredibly useful. But, I believe it's something Sean McGloin of NOTS said (possibly) during Biofarm 2020 that nature could/should be a byproduct of farming, coupled with an exchange on the Working Cows podcast that's been irritating me, Stan Parsons wants to save you ranch, while Alan Savory wants to save the world.

I'm one that doesn't believe I need to feed the 9bn, or save the world. I think my farm can be a tiny part of both, but that my farms primary purpose is to provide for my family - that is it's mission statement, it's context. It's the reason I lean towards Zeitsman, that yes, my farm, and many other farms, must first be saved to enable use to act positively towards the world and it's population.
Holistic management is only as good as the information, observation, belief and passion you put into it.

And, it has to keep changing, based on observation. I think many get slightly hoodwinked by "a step" and tend to sit on it. Hard to climb stairs if you're sat on your ass. Put all your effort into the grazing, you can overlook the other part of it - more rest!
That's a general observation: yes, create animal impact but don't forget the other things in the HM toolbox.

Hence it might look like we're doing a sudden "U turn" here, we went for quantity this year and last because of @Blaithin, as much as anyone.
Looking at the litter levels she was demonstrating, I realised I needed to make that happen for my water cycle to function well.

Now we've got better water percolation and extra diversity, got our heads above water financially and we're comfortable with using density (which is another step) then we can see (via monitoring diversity of species, thanks again) that we can jump to another level of plant rest.
Observation is the big clue, our grazing is too "lax" and thus our recovery is still too short. Because our recovery is too short, our grazing has to be lax.

But, because we are in a summer safe area and we've done the work with putting litter down, the next phase is to create "what we want our sward to be like" and slow the grazing cycle down to achieve it.
We're still favouring weeds with our too-fast grazing, but feel it was a step we needed to take.

If we just jumped into "total grazing" without repairing the broken water cycle first, we'd be in a hell of a mess by next month because we'd be reliant on rain that may, or may not come next month.
Push recovery out to 3 months, there's much higher chance of getting it.
Add to that an almost full-of-water soil profile, and the risk is reduced even further.
 

DanM

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Country
Holistic management is only as good as the information, observation, belief and passion you put into it.

And, it has to keep changing, based on observation. I think many get slightly hoodwinked by "a step" and tend to sit on it. Hard to climb stairs if you're sat on your ass. Put all your effort into the grazing, you can overlook the other part of it - more rest!
That's a general observation: yes, create animal impact but don't forget the other things in the HM toolbox.

Hence it might look like we're doing a sudden "U turn" here, we went for quantity this year and last because of @Blaithin, as much as anyone.
Looking at the litter levels she was demonstrating, I realised I needed to make that happen for my water cycle to function well.

Now we've got better water percolation and extra diversity, got our heads above water financially and we're comfortable with using density (which is another step) then we can see (via monitoring diversity of species, thanks again) that we can jump to another level of plant rest.
Observation is the big clue, our grazing is too "lax" and thus our recovery is still too short. Because our recovery is too short, our grazing has to be lax.

But, because we are in a summer safe area and we've done the work with putting litter down, the next phase is to create "what we want our sward to be like" and slow the grazing cycle down to achieve it.
We're still favouring weeds with our too-fast grazing, but feel it was a step we needed to take.

If we just jumped into "total grazing" without repairing the broken water cycle first, we'd be in a hell of a mess by next month because we'd be reliant on rain that may, or may not come next month.
Push recovery out to 3 months, there's much higher chance of getting it.
Add to that an almost full-of-water soil profile, and the risk is reduced even further.
What are you seeing/thinking as “lax” about your grazing over last 12 months?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
What are you seeing/thinking as “lax” about your grazing over last 12 months?
Good question!

Mostly a timing thing because I didn't trust the plan.
Ended up speeding up the grazing over winter when I should have held them back a little more.

That meant I was itchy to sell heifers in the spring when I really should have kept them on, which was compounded by the bank saying "not this time" not only to us, but a couple of potential grazing clients.

So I mucked up a bit, it's meant almost a whole extra rotation due to being understocked, backwards as it sounds... because to get "non-selective trampling" with too few animals we made the grazing selective.

Not bad, but I'm a tough crowd
 

Fenwick

Member
Location
Bretagne France
That's interesting Pete. I mentioned some time ago about the Johan Zietsman book and he really advocates non-selective grazing. His basic method is as tight as you can, as many moves as you can and keep going until first paddock is ready to graze again and go back there, locking up the rest of the ground which is then your drought/winter reserve and gets the benefit of an extended growth period between grazings. Make sure that a different area benefits each year. I'm paraphrasing but I like that basic simplicity of that.

This is going to be our plan for 2021. We just can't keep up with the grass in the spring. So the options are to cut or to defer, and I don't like tractors.
However it is the total grazing in the summer that I am having trouble with. Because then your back in the cycle of praying for rain. But then both Jaime and Zietsmann have done this in far, far more brittle climates than we have here.


It's still just "time and space". This option just allows more time.

Obviously you don't want to drive animal performance too low, but whatever keeps profit/hectare up?

This "option" allows more time which itself allows more options. Such as DDing into pasture for some graze later in the year.

The animal permance aspect is important though, their is a balance to be found. I have never whatched the condition of my cattle as closely as when trying to toal graze.


Last year I took a poor paddock right down in the dry of summer and then left it out of the rotation . The abundance of great grass that came up with a bit of moisture was impressive.

If that moisture does come...... Well, of course it does come, it's just a matter of time.
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Had a bit of a play about with the designs tonight @exmoor dave, @NZDan and anyone else who's interested. View attachment 929829
All these blue blocks are 4ha/10 acres in area, the ones with ponds are slightly larger to make 4 grazeable hectares.
Maximum of 50 metres across the lanes by 810 m long. The block "at the back" is 100x400

They run with the prevailing weather and over the contours as opposed to with them, as was my original plan.
Working on the 0.1ha cell size, means each lane is 40 paddocks long for easy maths; after having a play this year I'm comfortable with the idea of 40, 80, and 120 day rest periods depending on severity of graze, time of year etc etc.

What's your thoughts?

Key points are we must provide easy access to the town's water tanks, so will need to break the lanes to form an open track from the cattleyards up to there, this might make loading cattle into the system a tad easier as well.
Also, I want to run wide rows of trees along the run of the lanes to help with the summer shade dilemma, 50 metres along the ground represents about a 4 metre contour (roughly) so this gives options regarding the trees and shrubbery we use .

Don't be shy to criticise this as I need to test out weaknesses before we set to .
What are your plans for the creek on the left of the block? Graze through it or fence it off and just walk them through it when moving between cells?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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

    Votes: 6 3.2%

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

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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/
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