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

Crofter64 · Sep 18, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
I have had quite a few 'top of the line' Gallagher reels sh!t their planetary gearsets this year. And break pawls etc.
So no amount of money means they'll last forever, the big bonus is that I can get parts for them at the local depot and be like new again in an hour, which is pretty handy. And now I have super-smooth reels full of ugly old poly, full of "knuckle-cracker" knots should stop being so tight but they never break through the old stuff, always the new

Cattle broke 4 this summer.I have one yearling steer who checks the fence everyday, neck first, and if there isn’t a decent shock he keeps going. He has caused no end of trouble. I tossed some twine when, thanks to him, I found that because of all the knots some bits nomlonger carried a charge. Question is, what do I do with the bugger? Send him off or ignore it, winter is a couple of months away

and I won’t be pasturing them any more

Kiwi Pete · Sep 18, 2020

Crofter64 said:
Cattle broke 4 this summer.I have one yearling steer who checks the fence everyday, neck first, and if there isn’t a decent shock he keeps going. He has caused no end of trouble. I tossed some twine when, thanks to him, I found that because of all the knots some bits nomlonger carried a charge. Question is, what do I do with the bugger? Send him off or ignore it, winter is a couple of months away and I won’t be pasturing them any more

Hmmmm. I guess, if you've put up with his testing for a year, then a couple of months extra may pay you for the hassle. That's just a guess.

What I "know", is that a lion wouldn't give too many chances, a nice slab of veal who wants to wander away from the safety of the herd....

if you get what I mean?
Your steer has clearly got a death wish, he puts himself above the herd and that is not compatible with lasting.
You are the apex predator on your ranch, so you call the shots.

som farmer · Sep 18, 2020

Crofter64 said:
Cattle broke 4 this summer.I have one yearling steer who checks the fence everyday, neck first, and if there isn’t a decent shock he keeps going. He has caused no end of trouble. I tossed some twine when, thanks to him, I found that because of all the knots some bits nomlonger carried a charge. Question is, what do I do with the bugger? Send him off or ignore it, winter is a couple of months away and I won’t be pasturing them any more

tie a chain around his neck, leaving enough of a 'tail' to touch the ground, when he puts his head down. The chain wears the hair of, so a better shock, when he puts his head down, to go under the wire, that way, good earth with the chain, cow chain is good. Used to do a few, but with mains fencing, haven't done any for years.

ShooTa · Sep 18, 2020

oh you nasty... evil....i like you.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 18, 2020

som farmer said:
tie a chain around his neck, leaving enough of a 'tail' to touch the ground, when he puts his head down. The chain wears the hair of, so a better shock, when he puts his head down, to go under the wire, that way, good earth with the chain, cow chain is good. Used to do a few, but with mains fencing, haven't done any for years.

A dog "choker chain" works really well on sheep and goats that push, too. Good trick that.

We had a cow that used to bail out of ... the bail, when she was about half milked she'd just wipe the cups off and take flight. Bloody annoying, didn't care so much for her but all the cows behind her would jiggle forward a spot and then you'd have to move all the clusters 'back one'

so we put a rope around her neck with a small car tyre on it, she would invariably end up rowing up and someone would have a foot through the tyre, makes jumping rails a tad difficult when your head and neck doesn't come too

Samcowman · Sep 18, 2020

I’ve got a steer here that’s like that. Been pretty sure it’s been him causing problems this summer because he’s always looking over the fence and testing it. Saw it with my own eyes yesterday. Shifting them from on paddock to the next he just clear walked through the wire. No flucks given. He would be inside if he wasn’t such a good leader for shifting.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 18, 2020

Touch wood, I experience very few breakouts, despite not having very high voltages compared to what the internet says 'you need'

I think it's really down to changing their mindset, if they know you'll be back soon and give them more grub then they trust the fences better.
Really don't think it would work so well if I decided that 3,4 day breaks would do them as they (obviously) have so much more time to explore, get bored etc.
I really don't know how the folk who put animals on 4 day breaks sleep at night

but I may have to do that over lambing

som farmer · Sep 18, 2020

what amazes me, greg judy has his sheep trained to 1 wire, to be fair, if connected to the overhead power lines, i could agree, but 1 ?

BobTheSmallholder · Sep 18, 2020

I had a calf that has never caused any issues before break 8 posts in 3 days by deciding he wanted to try and jump the wire (hot), got tangled every time and snapped the posts. How he never snapped the wire I don't know (£50/km from VOSS, the cheapest I could buy) but then after breaking 4 posts in 5mins right in front of me he hasn't even gone near the wire ever since! Bloody animals!

Does anyone else find that a particular animal will spend a couple of days going under/over the wire for no apparent reason and then just stop and start behaving? Our herd are good as gold 90% of the time but now and then I'll have 3-4 days where a particular animal just doesn't want to stay where it should.

hendrebc · Sep 18, 2020

som farmer said:
what amazes me, greg judy has his sheep trained to 1 wire, to be fair, if connected to the overhead power lines, i could agree, but 1 ?

Was it him who stood watching his ewes with a rifle and shot the first ones that broke out? Then never had any trouble with them again.
Seems a bit harsh...

Kiwi Pete · Sep 18, 2020

som farmer said:
what amazes me, greg judy has his sheep trained to 1 wire, to be fair, if connected to the overhead power lines, i could agree, but 1 ?

He doesn't starve them. The wire is to keep them moving forwards, and they know it.
You only need big strong fences if you park them up and they get hungry

texas pete · Sep 18, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
He doesn't starve them. The wire is to keep them moving forwards, and they know it.
You only need big strong fences if you park them up and they get hungry

It's a tricky one with here at the moment.

I am moving dry ewes across grass that is too good, so trying to restrict them...last move was after 9 days. They don't take much persuading...behind 2 wires too.

som farmer · Sep 18, 2020

som farmer said:
tie a chain around his neck, leaving enough of a 'tail' to touch the ground, when he puts his head down. The chain wears the hair of, so a better shock, when he puts his head down, to go under the wire, that way, good earth with the chain, cow chain is good. Used to do a few, but with mains fencing, haven't done any for years.

also works with assy bulls, chain/string, through his ring, when he starts pawing the ground, steps on it, stops them. These days, i'm long past taking risks, once they start, lorry time.
reared a bull last rear, put with some hfrs in may, this year, served 2, then started bawling, pawing, and squaring up, bye bye, that was another loss !

Kiwi Pete · Sep 19, 2020

hendrebc said:
Was it him who stood watching his ewes with a rifle and shot the first ones that broke out? Then never had any trouble with them again.
Seems a bit harsh...

Perhaps. But it's a fast way to flock improvement.

Our role isn't to play doctors and vets, it's to eliminate animals that don't work before they pass on bad traits, look at all the diddleheads that have to blanket-treat flocks with drugs because they can't bear to put non-conforming animals on the truck/ put them down/ put them in the freezer.
It's almost like evolution in reverse when you put a recurring problem back in with her mates, sell her at the mart, or begin a treatment program, or I suppose even putting minerals into your breeding stock could count as that

Kiwi Pete · Sep 19, 2020

texas pete said:
It's a tricky one with here at the moment.

I am moving dry ewes across grass that is too good, so trying to restrict them...last move was after 9 days. They don't take much persuading...behind 2 wires too.

That is a tricky one, I suppose "in the wild" that good grass would just attract more and more animals. Or they'd move through it faster and leave more behind them?

Crofter64 · Sep 19, 2020

BobTheSmallholder said:
I had a calf that has never caused any issues before break 8 posts in 3 days by deciding he wanted to try and jump the wire (hot), got tangled every time and snapped the posts. How he never snapped the wire I don't know (£50/km from VOSS, the cheapest I could buy) but then after breaking 4 posts in 5mins right in front of me he hasn't even gone near the wire ever since! Bloody animals!

Does anyone else find that a particular animal will spend a couple of days going under/over the wire for no apparent reason and then just stop and start behaving? Our herd are good as gold 90% of the time but now and then I'll have 3-4 days where a particular animal just doesn't want to stay where it should.

I find everyone gets a bit naughtier when the weather cools.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 19, 2020

BobTheSmallholder said:
I had a calf that has never caused any issues before break 8 posts in 3 days by deciding he wanted to try and jump the wire (hot), got tangled every time and snapped the posts. How he never snapped the wire I don't know (£50/km from VOSS, the cheapest I could buy) but then after breaking 4 posts in 5mins right in front of me he hasn't even gone near the wire ever since! Bloody animals!

Does anyone else find that a particular animal will spend a couple of days going under/over the wire for no apparent reason and then just stop and start behaving? Our herd are good as gold 90% of the time but now and then I'll have 3-4 days where a particular animal just doesn't want to stay where it should.

Yes, they all seem to have their own little quirks.

I noticed it quite a lot spending so much time with the stock over the past year, this calf will be on its knees under the wire (Eileen) and this one will graze the same corner of each paddock first. Quite surprising just how different they all are.

One of the char heifers we had was a right little tart, took her almost 10 days to stay behind a wire, where the others all bounced out, got shocks, and got over themselves in 2 or 3 days

Henarar · Sep 19, 2020

Small field with a hedge or permanent fence round it and electric round inside that and a good fencer on it and train them in there they will find it quietly and won't try and jump as there is nowhere for them to land, we train them in the yard though.
I hate to see cows and calves strip/paddock grazed with single strand and small calves running under the wire as this is just training them to get out/not respect it when they are older.
We have about 2 miles of mains electric round inside border hedges its mainly 2.5 plain wire but some end bits are plastic its been there 20 years since we had suck cows first and found the calves would get through the hedge, I think the fencer is a 3, been ticking away all that time and nothing has broken through it but it has a natural boundary behind it.
One of the reasons I haven't started braking fields down in to smaller paddocks with electric cos I don't want to make more problems. I have have increased the numbers in each group though and try to run just two big groups and then keep any bulls or whatever that need keeping away from the main groups in small groups in the very small fields we have about the place

JohnGalway · Sep 19, 2020

Kiwi Pete said:
He doesn't starve them. The wire is to keep them moving forwards, and they know it.
You only need big strong fences if you park them up and they get hungry

I think it's (mostly) a "farmer" thing. On the Holistic Planned Grazing course it was said that generally new to farming farmers usually give stock a bigger allocation of feed in a paddock than farmers. Bad habits or a mindset of scarcity maybe.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 19, 2020

JohnGalway said:
I think it's (mostly) a "farmer" thing. On the Holistic Planned Grazing course it was said that generally new to farming farmers usually give stock a bigger allocation of feed in a paddock than farmers. Bad habits or a mindset of scarcity maybe.

Funny you should say that, I just remarked to my mate today that "I don't want them to have too much now or they'll go hungry" when he asked why I had them on such small breaks still.

Strange how the mind solves problems differently when you see the "problem" in a different light.
Weaned calves are a bit moany but they would be in a 30 acre paddock, they are talking to their mums about half a mile away. Need a bigger farm

He has about 1500 acres and probably has stock spread out on about 1300 acres, the other 200 is bare from winter cropping. I couldn't entertain that I'm afraid

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

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