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

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Why would there be anything wrong? one hectare with more than enough work for one person where is the wrong ?
Nothing wrong with making a living off of 1 hectare as long you weren’t trying to force it by doing it with sheep or sucklers.
Pretty sure I’ve seen a Country Calender with a guy from the north island (nz) doing high value crops only using battery powered tools or manual tools.
like the old market gardening which used to be everywhere but using modern tools.
Nothing new in farming.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
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Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
lot of ewes wouldn't jump out though !!!!!
It's amazing how animals can jump but don't, we had a calf hop off the truck a bit spooked, went over a couple of gates animals 6 times the weight just look at, wriggled through a fence, got a zap on the rump and away he went, 3 fences later we lost him.

Left a few gates open, next day back in with the others, happy as can be. But it still shocks me when they just climb a fence or a gate, as they don't so much
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
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have let them chill out, spread across 3 small paddocks of tired lucerne, they can come in here for something a bit nicer before they go into their paddock over the road, which has gone crazy since being half-grazed last time (smashed the trough and then escaped, so I didn't have them finish it)

It's hardly earth-shattering tucker but quite green and fresh, it'll have had around 4½ months I reckon.
Buzzed through here about the 3rd week in October.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
It's amazing how animals can jump but don't, we had a calf hop off the truck a bit spooked, went over a couple of gates animals 6 times the weight just look at, wriggled through a fence, got a zap on the rump and away he went, 3 fences later we lost him.

Left a few gates open, next day back in with the others, happy as can be. But it still shocks me when they just climb a fence or a gate, as they don't so much
most stock have ability to jump, surprisingly high, but never try.

we had a litter of pigs that went feral, just couldn't keep them in, caught all but 3, which sort of got left, no trouble.

til we started lambing, at it was a choice of shoot, or catch, fair size by now. Caught them in an old bull pen, 1 stayed there, 2 didn't, 4ft walls, with 2 bars on top

caught then again, in the cattle box, and abattoir. Told them what they were like, so straight into 'killing pen', 5 ft solid sides.

went to collect them, and had to listen to the rampage they made. They went over the side, into the cutting room, cutting beef up. Hit the siren, all workers to one end, and descend en masse. They had a go at anyone to close, evil buggers, anyway dealt with, beef sorted. And the workers enjoyed it, really livened up their day.

meat was a funny colour, and smell, so given away, lambs and afterbirth, didn't fancy it.

the remaining 1, made 1250 sausages, nowt wrong with them.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes this didn't require any paperwork other than the ASD forms that come down on the stocktruck, I'm not going into the EID debate that wants to start up any time it's mentioned on here, but they just get "wanded onto the truck" and then Evelyne puts that data into the stockbook and records them as being on this property with the NAIT system

With loading stock out to the processor, all I need to do is check everyone has an EID tag before they go, and they'll do the NAIT transfer for me.

Paper forms are still handy though, I know that we had 262, 118, 271, 280, 134 arrive on the 8 loads, and all the animals are accounted for.

Bit of an advantage as I didn't know how many were in my care last time so just guessed (about 700) and then guessed how much area per day to give them (about 4ha/day)
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
forget about feeding. You have to harvest it first. That would be ajob and a half.
haymaking is not so bad now, unlike those 1,000,000's of little bales we handballed over the decades. Quite like a £1 for every one l handballed !!!

3mm mower
6 rotor tedder
4m rake
big round baler
fore end loader

its easy, if the weather play's ball, then if that fecks up, the wrapper !

we are making an increasing amount of hay, mainly 2nd cut, so lighter, saves on wrapping.

but, anything fed in situ, has to be less work, if you can.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
You on daily shifts, Pete?

Looking pretty crisp but there's a nice wedge of feed there. Imagine if you had to dunk out hay for that lot!
Not daily shifts, more like weekly shifts . Ignore the paddock in front, it had kale in there this time last year and still haven't planted anything in them.

I did put up an 'lectric fence today though....more as a way of protecting the trough that's on a "pedestal" (or to be more accurate, has a lot of erosion around it).

Suppose the little ones will last 7-10 days in their new paddock ? but it's more about water quality than "feeding them",, feeding these was all taken care of by the end of August, when I elected a slow rotation instead of being all over everything "helping"
..."those farmers" are all feeding out silage and have been for a while

R2 heifers have been in their paddock too long, let them through into their next paddock where they proceeded to f*** their trough over on its side and made a lake, so they have had the run of two and just stay in the first one.
Will bring them back across the road (hence the fence today) and they'll be handier to the yard for scanning in a fortnight.
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it's not an arrow-straight fence but I had my reasons ! Only had to bounce on a few posts but most slid in easily, it's lost the tightness already.

As you say, crispy
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still quite a lot of good protein in there to help digest that standing hay, this is as short a recovery as I really feel comfy with as an extra month on top, it's probably had a rain on it.

Think 1st October or so we came out of here ...so 5½ months is our 18 day round, and 15 months is our 40 day round ?
Takes the seasons right out of the equation
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 117 38.4%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 117 38.4%
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    Votes: 42 13.8%
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    Votes: 6 2.0%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 5 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 18 5.9%

Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published

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Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer from July will give the sector a clear path forward and boost farm business resilience.

From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024

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Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...
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