Sheep
Member
- Location
- Northern Ireland
Yes, Northern Ireland only as far as I'm aware.
Where to start improving farm
- Thread starter will6910
- Start date
Yes, Northern Ireland only as far as I'm aware.
- Location
- West Yorkshire
I don’t know much about this and I hope I’ve been reading your posts correctly but if you have suddenly stoped using fert/till and been spraying for various weeds in recent years from what I understand your soil health ( the soul of your land) will be quite sick from taking all these drugs/chemicals away from the land. (A little like a drug addict going cold turkey)
if this is the case the balance in the soil will be upset and will take a while to recover. Please don’t take all this as gospel from me as I have only a small 70 acre beef farm and currently trying to get away from all inputs as such myself and I can see things working.
Electric fencing is great and use what you have got to its full potential seeing as you have it. Splitting paddocks etc.
There’s some great folk on here that will help you in regards to the above but it will take a little time.
@Kiwi Pete
@CornishTone
@Yale
@hendrebc
@Agrispeed
@bitwrx
And many many others that I can’t remember tags for of the top of my head as I’ve had a beer.
But I’m certain you can make this work as you are committed to what you doing
(Hope you don’t mind me tagging you guys)
if this is the case the balance in the soil will be upset and will take a while to recover. Please don’t take all this as gospel from me as I have only a small 70 acre beef farm and currently trying to get away from all inputs as such myself and I can see things working.
Electric fencing is great and use what you have got to its full potential seeing as you have it. Splitting paddocks etc.
There’s some great folk on here that will help you in regards to the above but it will take a little time.
@Kiwi Pete
@CornishTone
@Yale
@hendrebc
@Agrispeed
@bitwrx
And many many others that I can’t remember tags for of the top of my head as I’ve had a beer.
But I’m certain you can make this work as you are committed to what you doing
(Hope you don’t mind me tagging you guys)
I don’t know much about this and I hope I’ve been reading your posts correctly but if you have suddenly stoped using fert/till and been spraying for various weeds in recent years from what I understand your soil health ( the soul of your land) will be quite sick from taking all these drugs/chemicals away from the land. (A little like a drug addict going cold turkey)
if this is the case the balance in the soil will be upset and will take a while to recover. Please don’t take all this as gospel from me as I have only a small 70 acre beef farm and currently trying to get away from all inputs as such myself and I can see things working.
Electric fencing is great and use what you have got to its full potential seeing as you have it. Splitting paddocks etc.
There’s some great folk on here that will help you in regards to the above but it will take a little time.
@Kiwi Pete
@CornishTone
@Yale
@hendrebc
@Agrispeed
@bitwrx
And many many others that I can’t remember tags for of the top of my head as I’ve had a beer.
But I’m certain you can make this work as you are committed to what you doing
(Hope you don’t mind me tagging you guys)
Thanks for ur reply. Farm was dairy farm in 80s but cows sold in 1990 so haven’t really been to much fert sown, but prob would have plenty muck and slurry as rented all out for quite a while then had mushrooms grown here so the compost would been spread a lot in the 90s then I got cattle in early 2000s so been cattle slurry but wasn’t a lot as only had maybe 20. Now hen muck since 2009 so have prob had to much hen muck as the P high now. Haven’t sprayed to much in recent years but need to as weeds are awful most years
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Weeds are a great sign - that's why I said "water pipe" as it sounds like most things are already there.
If you can get plenty of water to the whole area, box your stock together and rotate them, eg have them grouped as tightly as possible.
This then means your farm is effectively much bigger, as less is being grazed today, which then means more energy from the sun on any given day.
Often it's all that's needed to turn the picture inside out, the plants get proper recovery instead of "not quite enough but the cows need fed" IYSWIM? Hence your weeds, they are telling you this, reading the land is becoming a lost art.
And then the extra energy supply means the health of the whole system improves, which takes your mental health with it
or it did for me. PM anytime.
Having just come home from listening to Doug Avery for 2 hours I’d say getting a positive attitude and leaving family issues behind is part of your ‘shift’.Weeds are a great sign - that's why I said "water pipe" as it sounds like most things are already there.
If you can get plenty of water to the whole area, box your stock together and rotate them, eg have them grouped as tightly as possible.
This then means your farm is effectively much bigger, as less is being grazed today, which then means more energy from the sun on any given day.
Often it's all that's needed to turn the picture inside out, the plants get proper recovery instead of "not quite enough but the cows need fed" IYSWIM? Hence your weeds, they are telling you this, reading the land is becoming a lost art.
And then the extra energy supply means the health of the whole system improves, which takes your mental health with it
Leave them clearly in your rear view mirror and look forward,formulate your plan and stick with it and your confidence will build.
You are doing a great job and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.Surround yourself with like minded people who you can bounce off.
Weeds are a great sign - that's why I said "water pipe" as it sounds like most things are already there.
If you can get plenty of water to the whole area, box your stock together and rotate them, eg have them grouped as tightly as possible.
This then means your farm is effectively much bigger, as less is being grazed today, which then means more energy from the sun on any given day.
Often it's all that's needed to turn the picture inside out, the plants get proper recovery instead of "not quite enough but the cows need fed" IYSWIM? Hence your weeds, they are telling you this, reading the land is becoming a lost art.
And then the extra energy supply means the health of the whole system improves, which takes your mental health with it
Thanks. Only few of the paddocks have 2 drinkers in them
What you could do is the paddocks that have less drinkers (troughs from where I come from) is some temporary troughs made out of 55 gallon drums cut in half lengthwise, with a ballcock. Then get some 15-25mm pipe and tee from the nearest Waterline and then the stock have access to water. It will save them from walking also because the trough can be moved for every break. I will try and get a picture.
The hollistic grazing/management thread has lots on it to do with temp leccy fencing and water lines, also pasture management. So have a look over there, you probably already have.
Thanks. Cause iv had such little numbers all time usually I have used Empty big 80kg lick buckets as water drinkers and just used drums of water to fill them. Tomorrow when I’m more awake il try get above view of my few fields to post pic to show sizes and all I have to work with
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I have 17 main paddocks here, and all the troughs are shared between paddocks (ie, they are right by the gateways, to save pipe
What happens over time, is the stock naturally graze away from this point, and then return - so there's lovely lively grass around the gateways, but it peters out the further you go down the paddock.
It makes the feed grown much less, so I tend now to run a length or two of pipe away, and put water at the other end (and fence off the permanent trough so they don't hang around it.
The effect has been quite dramatic, that extra herd impact around the water is the equivalent of feeding a bale of hay there, so I tend to move it around each time to spread the effect. You can do the same with salt/mineral blocks, even something like an old tree stump will help bunch your cattle and sheep up and this will get the soil biology whirring, which will then correct any compaction issues - it just takes time
Same with turning your plants around, if they are nailed all the time then they simply grow lower, away from teeth... so again you can spend money or simply take your time, let them come up a little more each grazing.
They do have a memory, and simply need a change of management 99% of the time to express themselves and "be all they can be".
It's a fairly common flaw that we livestock farmers love our stock too much, and don't love our plants enough - we need to share the love around and nurture those little plants just the same as our lambs and calves... and stop the grass abuse!
In fact here it is here. Fields out lines roughly are min. 6 around farm yard, then have 2 across main road of of a acre and abit each I think maybe more, then a 2 acres roughly on its own divided from rest with roads. Biggest is 11 or 10 acres then 6 acres beside it, rest roughly between 3 or 5 acres not sure at min exactly what each is
I have 17 main paddocks here, and all the troughs are shared between paddocks (ie, they are right by the gateways, to save pipe
What happens over time, is the stock naturally graze away from this point, and then return - so there's lovely lively grass around the gateways, but it peters out the further you go down the paddock.
It makes the feed grown much less, so I tend now to run a length or two of pipe away, and put water at the other end (and fence off the permanent trough so they don't hang around it.
The effect has been quite dramatic, that extra herd impact around the water is the equivalent of feeding a bale of hay there, so I tend to move it around each time to spread the effect. You can do the same with salt/mineral blocks, even something like an old tree stump will help bunch your cattle and sheep up and this will get the soil biology whirring, which will then correct any compaction issues - it just takes time
Same with turning your plants around, if they are nailed all the time then they simply grow lower, away from teeth... so again you can spend money or simply take your time, let them come up a little more each grazing.
They do have a memory, and simply need a change of management 99% of the time to express themselves and "be all they can be".
It's a fairly common flaw that we livestock farmers love our stock too much, and don't love our plants enough - we need to share the love around and nurture those little plants just the same as our lambs and calves... and stop the grass abuse!
I’d like to make farm and grass grow best it can do like it used to do
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
The biggest leap I made in the past year was to print out a grazing chart, and use it!
I find that it's much easier to rest each area correctly if the whole next few months are mapped out in advance - then if it snows or packs in, you have a whole farm full of options, instead of one half-boned out paddock to turn to mud.
Your farm looks really well laid out - but the problem is not enough paddocks, if you have 2 mobs and 6 fields then only two-thirds of your farm is getting recovery (energy input from the sun).
Imagine if you had 60 paddocks for one mob (this is where we're headed) for a minute - 59 out of 60 are drawing in solar power, and only one is being grazed.... suddenly you are 98% energy efficient instead of 66%, and that's a lot of potential to harvest more meat off your landscape.
This is why most people think I'm crazy, but I'm not the ones buying in energy at retail, and selling produce wholesale...
with wire and pipe you can basically grow 1/3 more feed for free
This is what we use. A company flew their drone over and GPS mapped the place including all the fence lines. It is indispensable to be able to manage the farm and all of its included blocks are colour coded to find them easy, with streams, rivers, houses and sheds mapped so when people (contractors etc) come onto the farm they know where everything is. The map can also be loaded onto a GPS system for spreading and the contractors for fieldwork through tracmap so we just send them a file away and they come and do the job as and when they can. I know its probably a little over the top for you but is has helped us heaps with management and maintainence of operations, especially staff because the map can be given to them and they know where to go.
I would wait till you have fenced your whole place though, otherwise you are wasting money. We had to re-fence half of the Maori block, and had to get the guy back for a couple hours while he added the new fence lines and removed the old ones.
We also have a whiteboard inside exactly the same and is handy to write stuff on. Is basically a calendar and daily operations where we write anything that needs fixing or doing and keeps us organised.
Might give you some ideas
That is brilliant.
I‘m going to have to work out our journey to getting somewhere like that,to be honest with having relatively small fixed paddocks at the moment subdivision should be relatively easy.
I‘m just going to have to stop fanny1ng around and get on with it.
I feel a winter of planning coming on
ShooTa
Member
- Location
- Denbighshire - In the vale of Clwyd!
- Location
- North Yorkshire
I'm off to see him tomorrow, can't bloody wait!Having just come home from listening to Doug Avery for 2 hours I’d say getting a positive attitude and leaving family issues behind is part of your ‘shift’.
Leave them clearly in your rear view mirror and look forward,formulate your plan and stick with it and your confidence will build.
You are doing a great job and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.Surround yourself with like minded people who you can bounce off.
He’s very good,maybe not a totally polished delivery however it comes from the heart.
Yes,mentoring each other is one thing Doug advocates.
The biggest leap I made in the past year was to print out a grazing chart, and use it!
I find that it's much easier to rest each area correctly if the whole next few months are mapped out in advance - then if it snows or packs in, you have a whole farm full of options, instead of one half-boned out paddock to turn to mud.
Your farm looks really well laid out - but the problem is not enough paddocks, if you have 2 mobs and 6 fields then only two-thirds of your farm is getting recovery (energy input from the sun).
Imagine if you had 60 paddocks for one mob (this is where we're headed) for a minute - 59 out of 60 are drawing in solar power, and only one is being grazed.... suddenly you are 98% energy efficient instead of 66%, and that's a lot of potential to harvest more meat off your landscape.
This is why most people think I'm crazy, but I'm not the ones buying in energy at retail, and selling produce wholesale...
Just checked the fields around the yard in pic are in acres, 3.80, 3.36, 4.39, 11, 6.35 and then 4.45. Other fields across roads are 1.63 and 1.60 acres then a 1.75 acre one in its own. How do I spilt thej up more ? If I have a bigger batch of maybe 40 ewes with twins I struggle to get them into the tunnel where race is
Iv the fields drew on a white board for my own use but never really knew how to use it for full benefit