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

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
we used to move our 400 gallon troughs, paddock to paddock, thanks to e'bay, no more, but we used a net work of pipe, blue mdpe, so you can see it better, with cheap fittings, and end stops, through the paddocks, and trenching it in, when we cultivated the paddock. 20mm pipe is pretty cheap, £47.30 x 100 m, tees £3.30 and stops £1.30, through pipestock, inc vat and delivered next day, saves an awful lot of fiddling around, seen water troughs made from 205 litre barrels, and most dairy farmers, will be pleased to give you more than you want - not returnable.
The only 'bad' thing, was getting geared up to make some water troughs, out of large tyres, got the tyres, no longer need them ! Was looking forward to doing that.
Next job, marteye, see how our cows sell, sons there, l fell over, and can't go #####!
@crashbox
we used to drill out the low pressure 'nozzles' in the ball cocks, to get a bit more water through, they are to thin now, to do that, and no longer need to. Ball cock brass arms, keep an eye on cost of replacements, it is nearly cheaper, to buy the whole valve, some places. Again, search on e'bay, you can get ballcocks, in a small plastic box, you can bolt on to your trough, 10in x 4in x4 in, never used them, but a pal swears by them, for sheep, or smaller lots of cattle.
 
Last edited:
we used to move our 400 gallon troughs, paddock to paddock, thanks to e'bay, no more, but we used a net work of pipe, blue mdpe, so you can see it better, with cheap fittings, and end stops, through the paddocks, and trenching it in, when we cultivated the paddock. 20mm pipe is pretty cheap, £47.30 x 100 m, tees £3.30 and stops £1.30, through pipestock, inc vat and delivered next day, saves an awful lot of fiddling around, seen water troughs made from 205 litre barrels, and most dairy farmers, will be pleased to give you more than you want - not returnable.
The only 'bad' thing, was getting geared up to make some water troughs, out of large tyres, got the tyres, no longer need them ! Was looking forward to doing that.
Next job, marteye, see how our cows sell, sons there, l fell over, and can't go #####!
What cows are you selling?
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
What cows are you selling?
spring calving milkers, all fine, need to lessen the work load, our help is leaving, zero chance of replacing him, with a useful chap, simply not any out there locally, no cottage either. We are TB free, neighbour isn't, test coming up, if we went down, we would have ended up at around 400 head, by the earliest date, we could be open again, that's me, with a blue badge, and son. Pro-active move, and to be very honest, the extra time without them, spent on the aut calvers, will give us a better yield, and it fits nicely with going more extensive farming, and growing more feed, to negate buying more conc in. We grew 14 ac s/barley this year, 1st for 20yr ? Rolled 10t last week, £20.50t to roll, that 10t, would cost upwards of £3000 to buy conc back in, not so simple as that, there's other costs, but there's another 30t to go yet, and 71, 6, string bales of straw.
18 acres of w/wheat, and 9ac of s/barley, planned for this year.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
we used to move our 400 gallon troughs, paddock to paddock, thanks to e'bay, no more, but we used a net work of pipe, blue mdpe, so you can see it better, with cheap fittings, and end stops, through the paddocks, and trenching it in, when we cultivated the paddock. 20mm pipe is pretty cheap, £47.30 x 100 m, tees £3.30 and stops £1.30, through pipestock, inc vat and delivered next day, saves an awful lot of fiddling around, seen water troughs made from 205 litre barrels, and most dairy farmers, will be pleased to give you more than you want - not returnable.
The only 'bad' thing, was getting geared up to make some water troughs, out of large tyres, got the tyres, no longer need them ! Was looking forward to doing that.
Next job, marteye, see how our cows sell, sons there, l fell over, and can't go #####!
@crashbox
we used to drill out the low pressure 'nozzles' in the ball cocks, to get a bit more water through, they are to thin now, to do that, and no longer need to. Ball cock brass arms, keep an eye on cost of replacements, it is nearly cheaper, to buy the whole valve, some places. Again, search on e'bay, you can get ballcocks, in a small plastic box, you can bolt on to your trough, 10in x 4in x4 in, never used them, but a pal swears by them, for sheep, or smaller lots of cattle.
Those brass ballcock arms - do your ones arrive with a "flat bit" ½way down, so that they can choose to snap there instead of where the hole for the splitpin is?

😡😡😡😡😡😡

Makes my heart beat a little faster just thinking about those 😭😭 luckily one of the manufacturers makes a stubby version to suit the more compact housings on concrete troughs, and they last much longer.

Jobe megaflow valves I think were invented by someone as despairing and desperate for "better ways" as I am, I only wish I had bought 30 of them when I went dairying and just taken them with me as I went
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Had a chat with my mate Simon today regarding a reseed and what we'd do for a perennial cocktail in lieu of ryegrasses

it'll be something like:
4kg cocksfoot
6kg tall fescue
4kg brome
4kg prairie grass
2kg timothy ---- these together will add up to about the equivalent plants/ha as 22kg of diploid PRG
and then
2kg red clover
2kg white clover
1kg chicory
1kg plantain
10kg oats

it'll be quite a slow-to establish mix compared to a normal ryegrass reseed as the tall fescue and timothy both take a while, hence putting the wee dribble of oats and prairiegrass in for a bit of quick cover

I'm going to disc up the rutted old laneway and smooth a couple of other bits out and we reckon a double pass (diamond drill) will be enough cultivation.
Now that these big paddocks have had a graze and some lime they actually give the appearance of being better than they are, if I hadn't counted up grazing days then I wouldn't know just how underperforming they are, only 350 cgd where other areas are 450+
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Had a chat with my mate Simon today regarding a reseed and what we'd do for a perennial cocktail in lieu of ryegrasses

it'll be something like:
4kg cocksfoot
6kg tall fescue
4kg brome
4kg prairie grass
2kg timothy ---- these together will add up to about the equivalent plants/ha as 22kg of diploid PRG
and then
2kg red clover
2kg white clover
1kg chicory
1kg plantain
10kg oats

it'll be quite a slow-to establish mix compared to a normal ryegrass reseed as the tall fescue and timothy both take a while, hence putting the wee dribble of oats and prairiegrass in for a bit of quick cover

I'm going to disc up the rutted old laneway and smooth a couple of other bits out and we reckon a double pass (diamond drill) will be enough cultivation.
Now that these big paddocks have had a graze and some lime they actually give the appearance of being better than they are, if I hadn't counted up grazing days then I wouldn't know just how underperforming they are, only 350 cgd where other areas are 450+
that's an awful lot of chicory, we are finding it 'takes' over, and bolts, perhaps it's our outstanding skill at farming, but seems to germinate at 200%, we are thinking 1-200 grams/ac in future, plantain, on the other hand, we are finding to be much more usable, cows clear it, but they are fussy over chicory. That is this autumn, summer been ok.
The jobe valves are knocking on £45 each, if we are talking fast flow ones, tend to use them, and a mvf cheapy at £20ish, up on the top troughs, where pressure is lower. Bottom tanks, job to stop the water, with your thumb over the pipe.
 
Last edited:

Tyedyetom

Member
Livestock Farmer
that's an awful lot of chicory, we are finding it 'takes' over, and bolts, perhaps it's our outstanding skill at farming, but seems to germinate at 200%, we are thinking 1-200 grams/ac in future, plantain, on the other hand, we are finding to be much more usable, cows clear it, but they are fussy over chicory. That is this autumn, summer been ok.
The jobe valves are knocking on £45 each, if we are talking fast flow ones, tend to use them, and a mvf cheapy at £20ish, up on the top troughs, where pressure is lower. Bottom tanks, job to stop the water, with your thumb over the pipe.
I used what chicory seed I had left in a bag for a reseed a few years ago and worked out to be 50grams per acre and it’s still looked a decent amount
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
that's an awful lot of chicory, we are finding it 'takes' over, and bolts, perhaps it's our outstanding skill at farming, but seems to germinate at 200%, we are thinking 1-200 grams/ac in future, plantain, on the other hand, we are finding to be much more usable, cows clear it, but they are fussy over chicory. That is this autumn, summer been ok.
The jobe valves are knocking on £45 each, if we are talking fast flow ones, tend to use them, and a mvf cheapy at £20ish, up on the top troughs, where pressure is lower. Bottom tanks, job to stop the water, with your thumb over the pipe.
this might show what l mean, by taking over, there is no way this, can work, with increasing the length of the grazing rotation. We perhaps should have topped it after the last grazing, about 4/5 weeks ago. The plantain is fine, cows will munch that off, might leave the flower stalk, but that's for seed ! What it doesn't show, is the rye grass full of rust, and we know what the cows will think of that. You can see our maize, at the top of the photo, it's actually nearly 150ft lower, but it is looking like a 18 ton crop, not bad, as the rye/vetch came off at 15t.. The downside, the maize won't be ready, in time to plant the rye, so ww instead
IMG_0323[1].JPG
IMG_0322[1].JPG
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
How long do you expect the oats to last for?
oats wont last to long, several farmers have been encouraged to plant oats and vetches, please please think long and hard about that, we used to grow it, and it regularly went flat, as in using an acrobat to try and lift it to mow, oats do not tend to have strong stalks, they tend to buckle under the weight of the vetch. We grew them with rye, this year, and cut early, the rye is much better at standing, even so, l was getting very twitchy.
 

Fenwick

Member
Location
Bretagne France
Can you get the little hooks as replacement
I dont know, but i'll ask. Only had one hook break so hadnt really given it much thought.

Big difference in prices between the uk and france. For once its in my favour.

that's an awful lot of chicory, we are finding it 'takes' over, and bolts, perhaps it's our outstanding skill at farming, but seems to germinate at 200

crazy stuff chicory. @kiwipete, I agree with @somfarmer you could half the dose and it would still be the dominant plant in the field.

The downside, the maize won't be ready, in time to plant the rye, so ww instead
Suprised to hear that, rye can be sown up until christmas no problem.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Chicory.. yeah, it is on the high side. It doesn't go great-guns here but neither do the thistles anymore.
We may need to cut the odd lane for hay in the future which is why we went for lots of chicory, hopefully we can get a belter next year and make some good seed hay, spread the love around. I'm not particularly "in love" with the extra complication of haying and carrying the stuff around, but it is possible

How long do you expect the oats to last for?
Just a nurse crop to help things get away,, have generally done this in the past and ducks hammer the oats, leaving most of the other stuff alone
I just don't want to get a good strike then have summer sizzle it, it was either going to be oats or a forage brassica, thought oats might handle a bit more traffic
 
Last edited:

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
I dont know, but i'll ask. Only had one hook break so hadnt really given it much thought.

Big difference in prices between the uk and france. For once its in my favour.



crazy stuff chicory. @kiwipete, I agree with @somfarmer you could half the dose and it would still be the dominant plant in the field.


Suprised to hear that, rye can be sown up until christmas no problem.
this is hybrid rye, and the 'experts' tell us it HAS to go in early, well maize isn't going to be fit, till mid/late oct, so don't fancy taking the risk, and would have preferred an analysis of rye/vetch silage. Less cows, and extra ground, takes the pressure off a lot. But then, might not be able to afford, or get N, oh shite, back to normal grass shortage ! lets hope not.
 

Brad93

Member
Couple of photos from yesterday’s move. Came into the field today and I was very glad to have set up the next electric fence for the lambs to move onto as they got into the next days paddock (but not moved further than that). There seems to be a bit of cover left over but perhaps that’s a good thing? Wondering whether to split the paddocks slightly smaller and just go ahead with daily moves to keep everyone happy, given the time of year will leaving longer covers pay dividends later on in the year?
 

Attachments

  • C728AD3E-35BC-49F5-B487-403585244A66.jpeg
    C728AD3E-35BC-49F5-B487-403585244A66.jpeg
    390.3 KB · Views: 0
  • AA936C9C-B5DC-45E5-9733-612F6299818E.jpeg
    AA936C9C-B5DC-45E5-9733-612F6299818E.jpeg
    430.4 KB · Views: 0

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Couple of photos from yesterday’s move. Came into the field today and I was very glad to have set up the next electric fence for the lambs to move onto as they got into the next days paddock (but not moved further than that). There seems to be a bit of cover left over but perhaps that’s a good thing? Wondering whether to split the paddocks slightly smaller and just go ahead with daily moves to keep everyone happy, given the time of year will leaving longer covers pay dividends later on in the year?
Once upon a time I would have gone with the leaving longer residuals as the more summer-safe option, but what would you say would be your "longest expected crunch period" is?

I now think that if your dry is a short-term hiatus then you can go either way - you can opt for longer residuals or longer recoveries, but you need to decide which one you're doing!

As you get out into longer-term droughts then you really can't build a viable plan based on predictable regrowth, it has to be a time-based plan with less emphasis on grazing to residuals, more emphasis on grazing to the calendar.

There's a sort of middle-ground in between holistically-planned and rotational grazing systems which is more site-specific, adaptive grazing and I think the only real way to get the best feel for it is to just try a few things in and around what you're doing.

Leave a paddock half-grazed. Leave the animals twice as long in one paddock and skip it altogether next round.
See what the difference is.
Make a paddock half the size and twice the size - see what the difference is over time

the other obvious thing is that in a real sense we live fast lives. A year is a really short time and also a long time.
Some of our best intentions were possibly our biggest mistakes and it took a bit of time to actually see the impact of those.. but the thing is we can keep adjusting things.

Say you left a bit behind now and it doesn't get consumed until 2025 and the experts all say you lost C as it oxidised and blah blah blah - I say big deal. It might have been just what a dungbeetle needed to survive the winter or give you a "iffy bit" to mob your sheep up on in a storm and far exceed the losses the experts cracked on about.

We don't know what we don't know, but it's fun trying to guess this stuff 🙂🙂🌿🌱
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
oats wont last to long, several farmers have been encouraged to plant oats and vetches, please please think long and hard about that, we used to grow it, and it regularly went flat, as in using an acrobat to try and lift it to mow, oats do not tend to have strong stalks, they tend to buckle under the weight of the vetch. We grew them with rye, this year, and cut early, the rye is much better at standing, even so, l was getting very twitchy.
Oats are a great crop in so many ways but they do like to have a lie down after all that work....
Leave a paddock half-grazed. Leave the animals twice as long in one paddock and skip it altogether next round.
See what the difference is.
Make a paddock half the size and twice the size - see what the difference is over time

Say you left a bit behind now and it doesn't get consumed until 2025 and the experts all say you lost C as it oxidised and blah blah blah - I say big deal. It might have been just what a dungbeetle needed to survive the winter or give you a "iffy bit" to mob your sheep up on in a storm and far exceed the losses the experts cracked on about.

We don't know what we don't know, but it's fun trying to guess this stuff 🙂🙂🌿🌱
We humans find it so hard to vary things like that. Psychologists have found it time and again. We are actually so predictable after a bit of observation time.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
the last year of growing oats/vetches, put us off for life, and when l was younger and stupider, used to buy straw in the swathe, and had great fun trying to bale oat straw, and seeing how much was left behind, by the combine. On the other hand, l am told oats are great for calves feed, whole.

l think one could say, we are definitely not predictable, we follow the mantra, if you are in a hole, stop digging, and if careful costings show we need to change, we change. We did make a massive mistake, swopping aut to spring calving, but the excuse, weather/climate ! And now swopped back

But l don't think we will swop our grass/grazing policy, in a hurry. There is a lot of talk about grazing rotation length, and have read of systems, of twice a year, mob, long and short, and anything you can think off.
l think the answers lie with the ground you farm on, here, being dry, we have slightly longer rotations, and more residual, hoping we encourage root growth, so the plant is stronger, deeper rooted, and less likely to be stressed, and choosing the better plants to achieve that. But, we have had excellent results taking plants down to their roots, resulting in better swards. Every farm/field is different, and l think many of us, are guilty of choosing a blanket policy, because it's easy, we farm from some bottom wettish ground, to the top dryer fields, although those bottom grounds are currently bone dry. The only constant growth across the farm, are weeds, herbs and clover, grass is very weather led, prg goes first, and then descending down. We are pretty well at the end of our grazing season, we have 60+ dry cows, set stocked on our new p/p ground, and looking great, with more to dry off. Calving starts next month, grazing for them, is not reliable enough, and they will be on a ration, anything off lying, will graze whole paddocks, on a in/out basis. Leaves the question, how do/should we leave them for over winter, not at all sure about that, do we need a 'tidy' up, with white locusts, stock pile for winter feeding, is a non starter here. Which brings us right back to individual field management, they need different management, so why not different plants to suit ?
 

Brad93

Member
Once upon a time I would have gone with the leaving longer residuals as the more summer-safe option, but what would you say would be your "longest expected crunch period" is?

I now think that if your dry is a short-term hiatus then you can go either way - you can opt for longer residuals or longer recoveries, but you need to decide which one you're doing!

As you get out into longer-term droughts then you really can't build a viable plan based on predictable regrowth, it has to be a time-based plan with less emphasis on grazing to residuals, more emphasis on grazing to the calendar.

There's a sort of middle-ground in between holistically-planned and rotational grazing systems which is more site-specific, adaptive grazing and I think the only real way to get the best feel for it is to just try a few things in and around what you're doing.

Leave a paddock half-grazed. Leave the animals twice as long in one paddock and skip it altogether next round.
See what the difference is.
Make a paddock half the size and twice the size - see what the difference is over time

the other obvious thing is that in a real sense we live fast lives. A year is a really short time and also a long time.
Some of our best intentions were possibly our biggest mistakes and it took a bit of time to actually see the impact of those.. but the thing is we can keep adjusting things.

Say you left a bit behind now and it doesn't get consumed until 2025 and the experts all say you lost C as it oxidised and blah blah blah - I say big deal. It might have been just what a dungbeetle needed to survive the winter or give you a "iffy bit" to mob your sheep up on in a storm and far exceed the losses the experts cracked on about.

We don't know what we don't know, but it's fun trying to guess this stuff 🙂🙂🌿🌱
Thanks Pete, really interesting. I’m thinking along the lines of daily moves and alter the paddock sizing as a bit of an experiment. This should do similar to what you’re talking about and allow me to see how well each section recovers.

I’m in Derbyshire, England no particular drought problems but we have been getting the odd dry spell over spring/ early summer lately. This year it was nice that I’d save quite a few fields which gave me a very welcome buffer. All in all it’s been a great summer over here for growing grass though.

I ended up bailing large round bales, thinking ahead for winter and I was wondering whether I should be putting some bales in these paddocks which have just been grazed now? Are those bales best grazed without a ring feeder? And do they do better rolled out or just let the ewes pick at them/ drag the hayledge about? Only briefly looked into bale grazing over winter at the moment!

Had a helper today with the fencing!
 

Attachments

  • C85D1B6D-10F4-447A-8BFC-BAE3804F4E35.jpeg
    C85D1B6D-10F4-447A-8BFC-BAE3804F4E35.jpeg
    253 KB · Views: 0

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,293
  • 1
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/
Top