Fenwick
Member
- Location
- Bretagne France
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
- Location
- somerset
always told, and do, high tensile extremely tight, either plain, or barbed, never goes slack, l tell a lie, we had 1 length HT plain, go slack, the anti cull buggers cut it, whipped all the insulators off the posts, in a 2/250 meter length, one could only hope it scared the sh1t out of them, cows were out though.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I think we used to strain normal HT to 200kg and then back it off to 160 . This wire maybe only needs 15kg of tension, which is just a fraction of the 350kg or whatever it takes to snap the wire, as you said it will snap at a knot
I'd prefer that to replacing a strainer post!
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That's certainly true with large wire, like 'number 8', hairy cattle give it hell whether electric or not. It's how I learnt to tie a Tex Brown, tightening up #8 wire fences the cows had stretched
Fenwick
Member
- Location
- Bretagne France
So thé springs give out before thé wire? does that mean you are then springs as well as repairing broken wire?
I've started using clipex strainer posts. incredibly expensive, but they do work well. certainly not likely to break one anytime soon. and no more messing around with braves.
Walwyn
Member
- Location
- West Wales
Catching up with this thread, still trying to wrap my head around this holistic grazing in a dairy situation. Few pages back @Kiwi Pete spoke about 40m² per cow to fully feed in early rotations, that would be a mighty strong cover in a "conventional" viewpoint. How do we get to that kind of cover without early housing or delayed turnout? Or am I still viewing this with a reductionist viewpoint?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Wire will still break, more likely the termination on the post will give out. These springs have an inner wire to protect them from being overstretched - you put the inner and spring on one wire, but put the other wire through a loop in the inner and tie onto the spring, it will break there
Rod Dumbreck
Member
I spotted some cables in a picture Pete posted up the thread , which were inserted into the springs to stop them over stretching, so in the event of a mishap it was just the wire to reattach. (Id post a link if I was more tec )
Had to google that knot. Looks good if I could manage it, I’ve never been very good at tying knots.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Watching Dr Fred Provenza just now on a FACTS webinar:
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
I wondered what Santa did the rest of the year!
- Location
- somerset
it's called an incredible balancing act. It goes against the grain when you get the cows in, and think i gave them to much ! But the grass they have trod on, is usually the grass they dislike, if you graze down tightly, all that happens is they graze the liked grass tighter, and leave the disliked alone, bit simplistic, but that's the gist of it. The trodden in grass, feeds the soil, the longer residuals allow the grasses to put a bit into it's roots, N and conventional thinking supports leaf growth, not root, support that root, the grass becomes 'stronger', having had 3 dry summers, rye grass was dying of, last summer, we left the longer residuals, and ended up with good leys, this spring, rather than thin ones. With a mixture of paddocks and strip grazing, with back fences, we try not to let the cows have more than 1 feed, and off, don't always achieve it, but we do try.
We judge by eye, better than the plate meter, and perhaps more, by what's left. That's what we try and do, and now focusing on drought resistant grasses, and now herbs. I expect someone on here, can explain it better than me, but we are not going back to prior, and we are fairly well stocked. It's hard, getting your head round 'you get more, from less'.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That's them! They have a big loop with a curve to slide along the wire and a neat end to tie to
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
From the same webinar:
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Are you familiar with a ' spring rotation plan '?
You'll really only need to know when your pasture balance date is (when you are growing and grazing the same DM, depends on stocking rate and calving date but it is predictable)
Draw a straight line graph, say you have a planned start of calving on the 15th of August in NZ, and a balance date on the 15th of October, you had a theoretical 100 day recovery at PSC and will be on what fastest rotation speed? 21 days? 33 days?
Yes you will need strong grass, ie save a few paddocks at the backend to go into, so you have 3500kgDM/ha to calve on (you probably don't calve on grass) and for the colostrum cows, springing cows etc, but you'll also see that you need to be considering area rather than cover/food available to get you through that crucial spring period when growth increases exponentially but demand jumps up faster.
It's when you graze large areas of low cover that you come badly unstuck in late spring, because you are grazing far too fast, so if you are going to do this type of spring plan then try the fast speed of 21 days x PGR and then try 35 days, you'll be amazed at the difference in covers and how that area allocated shrinks.
Spring Rotation Planner Tool - DairyNZ | DairyNZ
The Spring Rotation Planner (SRP) takes the guesswork out of grazing management during and after calving.
www.dairynz.co.nz
- Location
- somerset
we buffer fed bought hay last summer, to keep the rotation longer, and to eke out the grass. Rotation length is basically as long as we can, 30 days early, then 35 seems a nice 'safe' round. Weather will interfere, and with max milk from forage, need to keep an eye on grass quality, it's getting the right balance. In fact that sums up this thread, getting things to balance, or getting nature back in balance, @holwellcourtfarm post above, explains everything has it's place, and it's the diverse mix, that makes it come together, just like making some fancy cake mix !
- Location
- Quebec, Canada
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Walwyn
Member
- Location
- West Wales
Yes, follow a spring rotation planner now, balance day is usually around 5th of april, however bloody cold here this year. We are probably calving too early and tight to what we used to and hence getting into a shortage now, fortunately have forage on hand but gonna move calving later next year as feel we're hitting peak before the grass is really there.Are you familiar with a ' spring rotation plan '?
You'll really only need to know when your pasture balance date is (when you are growing and grazing the same DM, depends on stocking rate and calving date but it is predictable)
Draw a straight line graph, say you have a planned start of calving on the 15th of August in NZ, and a balance date on the 15th of October, you had a theoretical 100 day recovery at PSC and will be on what fastest rotation speed? 21 days? 33 days?
Yes you will need strong grass, ie save a few paddocks at the backend to go into, so you have 3500kgDM/ha to calve on (you probably don't calve on grass) and for the colostrum cows, springing cows etc, but you'll also see that you need to be considering area rather than cover/food available to get you through that crucial spring period when growth increases exponentially but demand jumps up faster.
It's when you graze large areas of low cover that you come badly unstuck in late spring, because you are grazing far too fast, so if you are going to do this type of spring plan then try the fast speed of 21 days x PGR and then try 35 days, you'll be amazed at the difference in covers and how that area allocated shrinks.
Spring Rotation Planner Tool - DairyNZ | DairyNZ
The Spring Rotation Planner (SRP) takes the guesswork out of grazing management during and after calving.
It was the 40m² max area a cow that got me thinking as to my eyes that's a min cover of 4500 and then being able to give that enough time to recover. Perhaps I'm trying to keep too many cows
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That's right, the thing is if you're going pretty much totally forage-fed then you need to have at least a small spring stockpile of feed carried over the winter months - because you simply won't grow enough if you deck every acre before dry-off.Yes, follow a spring rotation planner now, balance day is usually around 5th of april, however bloody cold here this year. We are probably calving too early and tight to what we used to and hence getting into a shortage now, fortunately have forage on hand but gonna move calving later next year as feel we're hitting peak before the grass is really there.
It was the 40m² max area a cow that got me thinking as to my eyes that's a min cover of 4500 and then being able to give that enough time to recover. Perhaps I'm trying to keep too many cows
That leaves you the options of either making up the difference with silage, molasses etc... or giving them more area
the bigger the cow, the bigger that gap is, is the usual way it goes..
..because if you do the maths on various opening pasture covers then that 40m² I used as an example of stock density is ½ of the 17kg a little girl needs, more like ⅓ of what a gurt big holstein needs.
but that's really why the pasture-only operators have lots of tiny cows! It's a different road to profit. This changes as you shift away from that model, eg if you were using cubicles then less cows is less cost so they then get bigger.
It follows through the season but stands out more in the shoulders, those extra days you aren't topping the herd up mean the cows work for you
since you're a bright spark, how much area do you need to allocate to hit 200 tonnes of cows per hectare - and stay there? Our drystock system is geared for 20 tonnes on a tenth, to achieve it, this is why "we do youngstock"!
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- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
These calves were hungry, so it took them 4 minutes to work out that black thing has water in it, and within seconds they were working the valve - I stood on the pipe so I could feel the wee 'water hammer' as the valve opened and shut
Not very flash grub but at least it will fill them up without bloating them
Not very flash grub but at least it will fill them up without bloating them