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

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
It is a different "energy", eh?
Current moving up the tree from the roots as they respond to photoperiod increasing has long baffled me... sure, an animal has a nervous system, but how do plants "know"?
Do plants actually have something that evolved to become a nervous system? And if so, what? 🤷‍♂️

(and, why do we, with our satellites, platemeters and big brains, not know? 😅)
Common sense? Or Quorum sense -
Screenshot_20210310-075337.png
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
It is a different "energy", eh?
Current moving up the tree from the roots as they respond to photoperiod increasing has long baffled me... sure, an animal has a nervous system, but how do plants "know"?
Do plants actually have something that evolved to become a nervous system? And if so, what? 🤷‍♂️

(and, why do we, with our satellites, platemeters and big brains, not know? 😅)
If you think plants are clever, you don't want to get into an argument with mushrooms
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Common sense? Or Quorum sense -
View attachment 946319
That's what I was getting at - why community dynamics are so important within the whole under management.
We may suggest new plants and animals to the biome but it's not up to her to accept everything we put there.
It's not up to us to use brute force and "just grow corn, dammit"

once you begin herbiciding and pesticiding and fertilising and giving your biome a haircut, hooking out docks with a fork because "the animals don't really like those, much" then you irreparably damage your relationship with "landscape" because you forget who the boss is

and via quorum sensing, everything knows what you may or may not think is 'best practice', you damage your relationship with life on your land when you use tools on the land that everything co-evolved perfectly well without.
They've shown house plants respond with alarm when you put boiling water down the plughole and harm the bacteria there - life is cool AF how it is so interconnected

Hence I just shrug it off when neighbours ask why I don't want to be The Number 1 threat to living creatures on our landscape anymore, "what's the worst that could happen?" 🤷‍♂️

I don't ask why they think want to craft their landscape into something it never wanted to be like, because although they might not be able to see very well, they WILL lash out until they hit something, I've seen them farm!
And I've heard their language.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
if i start sowing thistles that really will get thé neighbours talking!
You could try tagasaste, lupin, sweet broom etc?
All perennial fabaceae but all flower at much different times of the year and the tagasaste often flower right through winter here, or never really go away as far as birds/bees go.

I say thistles by way of saying, "don't seek to reduce what you can already have" and thistles can allow bees to fill their hives at the perfect time
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Very reasonable questions tbh......
Yes, especially if you see nothing missing on our land.
Brent says, "Oh, you guys have heaps of grass" and all I can think is it's just as well, 'coz we have f**k all else out there! 🤣 Literally it's just grass, which is why it's either cold and windy, or hot and burning

All the trees and rushes and tussocks and basically everything else has left the building.

Short green grass. Cattle.
That's all we got!

And as you know of our area, it really needs peppertree and tussocky size plants there as well, or it would never have had them here before they set it alight. These are the type of things we need to think about next, not making the grass really short with a mower and mulching insects

It's just a context thing, we don't want to keep changing the plasters if we can actually fix things, plasters get expensive after a few years
 
And as you know of our area, it really needs peppertree and tussocky size plants there as well, or it would never have had them here before they set it alight. These are the type of things we need to think about next, not making the grass really short with a mower and mulching insects

It's just a context thing, we don't want to keep changing the plasters if we can actually fix things, plasters get expensive after a few years
didnt you rip out/burn your gorse?
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
I never realised you were right next to Tokyo, always "paradigms" 🤣 but that's quite a big little village!

Good stuff (y)
only about 15k population now it used to be high 20s when the town was full of mills for the cotton industry and corn milling before that. when dad was a kid he says most days you could not see the other side of town for smog just the dozens and dozens of mill chimneys poking out of the top.

As you can see its quite a challenging landscape right rom the valley bottom up to the top field with the 2 turbines. surrounded by crag rats. i certainly cant leave much electric fencing gear laying around or it would be gone if the cattle were not in the field with it looking after it
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
didnt you rip out/burn your gorse?
Yes! I'd probably burn it again if required, but then I look at the DoC land and doubt they'd enforce the requirement to "control/eradicate noxious weeds" looking at the sanctuaries the gov't have.

I am hopefuly that other legumes of similar stature will replace the need for gorse to come up, and not getting into the riparian areas with a digger/dozer is a good start for the healing process

edit

it's probably at the stage now, that I could just control it with the brushcutter, it really didn't like what we did to it and the grass is really thick - both a good place for it to reestablish but also a good mulch layer to keep it away - we'll wait and see. We'll probably mulch patches with wool and plant it out with kowhai trees etc, basically very similar plants to gorse but without the invasive qualities, and without the prickles.
 
Last edited:

bendigeidfran

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cei newydd
I've turned out some of my last year's weaned calves last week. 6+ weeks earlier than normal. They're still running back into the shed for now while they transition to grass but they will most likely be out properly by the end of the week when I get the rest of them away from their mothers to join them.
Less than a month of the winter here that there haven't been any cattle out at all. The cows came in off their deferred grazing mid February. Everyone thinks I'm mad :rolleyes: 🤪🤪
What were the main changes to your grazing/ management compared to other years?
Going to do it again next year?
How's the soil /grass looking after the cattle?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
only about 15k population now it used to be high 20s when the town was full of mills for the cotton industry and corn milling before that. when dad was a kid he says most days you could not see the other side of town for smog just the dozens and dozens of mill chimneys poking out of the top.

As you can see its quite a challenging landscape right rom the valley bottom up to the top field with the 2 turbines. surrounded by crag rats. i certainly cant leave much electric fencing gear laying around or it would be gone if the cattle were not in the field with it looking after it
Yes it looks like a great grazing landscape, a bit of a challenge but something for all weathers!

Great when the seasons roll around and you can see your boundaries from afar, that's (usually) a good measure of how you're doing! You look well placed for springtime.
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
What were the main changes to your grazing/ management compared to other years?
Going to do it again next year?
How's the soil /grass looking after the cattle?
All of 2019 early 2020 I did what would probably be called normal rotational grazing with fairly short grass and short rotation lengths. After the lambs were weaned I left things get a bit longer, grass and rotations. Some fields weren't left too long before I had to come back to them but one steep dry 10, acre field I left from the end of August and put the cows in there early November. It was proper standing hay by then some of it was seeding again. I just strip grazed that with 19 cows (supposed to be 20 but one went in the cull pen) because it was the only way I could do it with water and they had a bale of hay or silage a day too. It wasn't ideal strip grazing it but it worked better than expected and lasted longer than I thought it would. Cows gained condition. Haven't been digging holes there yet but it looks to be greening up a bit now. There's a lot of tractor wheelings there I expect those to be quite compacted and where the ring feeders were are a bit of a mess in the odd place but it's not too bad. The tractor was worse than anything the cows did. Will do more this year and all the cows and in calf heifers can go with them. I don't think I'll wean the calves before putting the cows on it either like I did this time. I'll leave the calves on them for longer and see how it goes. It would be easier to bring the bull in than wean and the claves would do better. I think the advice to wean early for the calves to do better has a lot to do with what they get fed after. For someone with a simple system of average silage or ok hay to give them it's not as good as we are told it would be. If you feed them heavily with concentrates your probably better weaning early but I don't and have no intention of doing so. So they can stay on their mothers for longer.
I did both ways this year. The ones that went on the deferred grazing were weaned (April and mid may calves) and the other younger ones (mid may and June born) were left on their mothers with no cake just milk and hay. I weaned those yesterday and put them all together and they were bigger than most of the ones that were older and had better quality silage and 1-2kg of cake a day. I don't see why they wouldn't hurt out with their mothers on deferred grazing and silage till February next year so I'll do that this time with all of them. The field I have earmarked for it this time is 24 acres and there will be 40 odd cows there if I include some in calf heifers. And the calves from the cows. It's in full view of the main road and my neighbours yard too so everyone will know I'm mad 🤪 🤪 who knows how it will go but if I don't try I'll never know. But with everyone watching you can be damned sure I won't mess it up ;)
With the earlier turnout I just started closing up fields for winter earlier. Started about the 20th of October so there is plenty of cover there now. It's still a bit immature if I'm being honest but I don't have enough sheep to graze it all and I don't want it getting away from me too early. So I've started now so I have a wedge and not a load of mature grass that needs grazing really quick before it goes over the top for the ewes and lambs. Is it the right thing to do 🤷‍♂️ I'm damned if I know but you have to try these things. And it gives the neighbours something to talk about 🤣🤣
 
All of 2019 early 2020 I did what would probably be called normal rotational grazing with fairly short grass and short rotation lengths. After the lambs were weaned I left things get a bit longer, grass and rotations. Some fields weren't left too long before I had to come back to them but one steep dry 10, acre field I left from the end of August and put the cows in there early November. It was proper standing hay by then some of it was seeding again. I just strip grazed that with 19 cows (supposed to be 20 but one went in the cull pen) because it was the only way I could do it with water and they had a bale of hay or silage a day too. It wasn't ideal strip grazing it but it worked better than expected and lasted longer than I thought it would. Cows gained condition. Haven't been digging holes there yet but it looks to be greening up a bit now. There's a lot of tractor wheelings there I expect those to be quite compacted and where the ring feeders were are a bit of a mess in the odd place but it's not too bad. The tractor was worse than anything the cows did. Will do more this year and all the cows and in calf heifers can go with them. I don't think I'll wean the calves before putting the cows on it either like I did this time. I'll leave the calves on them for longer and see how it goes. It would be easier to bring the bull in than wean and the claves would do better. I think the advice to wean early for the calves to do better has a lot to do with what they get fed after. For someone with a simple system of average silage or ok hay to give them it's not as good as we are told it would be. If you feed them heavily with concentrates your probably better weaning early but I don't and have no intention of doing so. So they can stay on their mothers for longer.
I did both ways this year. The ones that went on the deferred grazing were weaned (April and mid may calves) and the other younger ones (mid may and June born) were left on their mothers with no cake just milk and hay. I weaned those yesterday and put them all together and they were bigger than most of the ones that were older and had better quality silage and 1-2kg of cake a day. I don't see why they wouldn't hurt out with their mothers on deferred grazing and silage till February next year so I'll do that this time with all of them. The field I have earmarked for it this time is 24 acres and there will be 40 odd cows there if I include some in calf heifers. And the calves from the cows. It's in full view of the main road and my neighbours yard too so everyone will know I'm mad 🤪 🤪 who knows how it will go but if I don't try I'll never know. But with everyone watching you can be damned sure I won't mess it up ;)
With the earlier turnout I just started closing up fields for winter earlier. Started about the 20th of October so there is plenty of cover there now. It's still a bit immature if I'm being honest but I don't have enough sheep to graze it all and I don't want it getting away from me too early. So I've started now so I have a wedge and not a load of mature grass that needs grazing really quick before it goes over the top for the ewes and lambs. Is it the right thing to do 🤷‍♂️ I'm damned if I know but you have to try these things. And it gives the neighbours something to talk about 🤣🤣
Glad to hear that the younger calves left on their mothers have done so well, as that's the system I will aim for after this year.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
All of 2019 early 2020 I did what would probably be called normal rotational grazing with fairly short grass and short rotation lengths. After the lambs were weaned I left things get a bit longer, grass and rotations. Some fields weren't left too long before I had to come back to them but one steep dry 10, acre field I left from the end of August and put the cows in there early November. It was proper standing hay by then some of it was seeding again. I just strip grazed that with 19 cows (supposed to be 20 but one went in the cull pen) because it was the only way I could do it with water and they had a bale of hay or silage a day too. It wasn't ideal strip grazing it but it worked better than expected and lasted longer than I thought it would. Cows gained condition. Haven't been digging holes there yet but it looks to be greening up a bit now. There's a lot of tractor wheelings there I expect those to be quite compacted and where the ring feeders were are a bit of a mess in the odd place but it's not too bad. The tractor was worse than anything the cows did. Will do more this year and all the cows and in calf heifers can go with them. I don't think I'll wean the calves before putting the cows on it either like I did this time. I'll leave the calves on them for longer and see how it goes. It would be easier to bring the bull in than wean and the claves would do better. I think the advice to wean early for the calves to do better has a lot to do with what they get fed after. For someone with a simple system of average silage or ok hay to give them it's not as good as we are told it would be. If you feed them heavily with concentrates your probably better weaning early but I don't and have no intention of doing so. So they can stay on their mothers for longer.
I did both ways this year. The ones that went on the deferred grazing were weaned (April and mid may calves) and the other younger ones (mid may and June born) were left on their mothers with no cake just milk and hay. I weaned those yesterday and put them all together and they were bigger than most of the ones that were older and had better quality silage and 1-2kg of cake a day. I don't see why they wouldn't hurt out with their mothers on deferred grazing and silage till February next year so I'll do that this time with all of them. The field I have earmarked for it this time is 24 acres and there will be 40 odd cows there if I include some in calf heifers. And the calves from the cows. It's in full view of the main road and my neighbours yard too so everyone will know I'm mad 🤪 🤪 who knows how it will go but if I don't try I'll never know. But with everyone watching you can be damned sure I won't mess it up ;)
With the earlier turnout I just started closing up fields for winter earlier. Started about the 20th of October so there is plenty of cover there now. It's still a bit immature if I'm being honest but I don't have enough sheep to graze it all and I don't want it getting away from me too early. So I've started now so I have a wedge and not a load of mature grass that needs grazing really quick before it goes over the top for the ewes and lambs. Is it the right thing to do 🤷‍♂️ I'm damned if I know but you have to try these things. And it gives the neighbours something to talk about 🤣🤣
Good post
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
How about baling some late dry hay off of the permanent leys that were seeded years ago that you are happy with and feeding the cows a bit of supplement now and then in the newer paddocks. I have only seeded once on this farm 25 years ago. I used to only hay everything.Then I cut early and grazed the re growth. Now I just graze. By changing the grazing pattern and slowing it down I have seen species that I thought had completely disappeared return.( none of this was done on purpose, it just turned out that way)
In theory then, say you had a paddock or field that you sowed with a diverse mix, and then had satellite fields around which you then grazed strategically. Could you end up spreading seeds in there dung if they ingested some from the seeded area? Could speed up the process?
 

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
In theory then, say you had a paddock or field that you sowed with a diverse mix, and then had satellite fields around which you then grazed strategically. Could you end up spreading seeds in there dung if they ingested some from the seeded area? Could speed up the process?
Possibly.It would take some doing , as you would probably need to have them go back and forth in the same day- i.e mornings in the seeded pasture, afternoons in the one needing the seeds.Probably easiest done on a dairy.Also,you would have to be quite disciplined and wait /plan to graze the ‘ mother’ field at exactly the right time. As I mentioned in my post you quoted above what I noticed at my place was that the seeds I wanted were there all along- They were just waiting for the right conditions to re-express themselves.
On a similar note- I buy my small square hay bales and noticed over the years that they always have black medic seeds in them but have never seen black medic in my pastures. Either the seeds are completely destroyed in the manure pile, or the conditions here don’t favour black medic, or I haven’t really looked for it properly. This seed movement/ expression stuff is all quite subtle- just like tree planting. For years you look at these tiny seedlings that don’t look as though they are going anywhere at all, and suddenly you find yourself looking at a tree .[/QUOTE]
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
when it was really wet, cattle out wintering on kale/hay, started going backwards, brought them in for 4/5 days, they quickly 'filled out', and back out, kale looks 'iffy' now, cows are decidedly fat now ! We have fed standing hay, or standing with forage rape, to i/c dairy cows/hfrs, it works very well, provides bulk, will do it again when we actually have grass to leave !
 

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
All of 2019 early 2020 I did what would probably be called normal rotational grazing with fairly short grass and short rotation lengths. After the lambs were weaned I left things get a bit longer, grass and rotations. Some fields weren't left too long before I had to come back to them but one steep dry 10, acre field I left from the end of August and put the cows in there early November. It was proper standing hay by then some of it was seeding again. I just strip grazed that with 19 cows (supposed to be 20 but one went in the cull pen) because it was the only way I could do it with water and they had a bale of hay or silage a day too. It wasn't ideal strip grazing it but it worked better than expected and lasted longer than I thought it would. Cows gained condition. Haven't been digging holes there yet but it looks to be greening up a bit now. There's a lot of tractor wheelings there I expect those to be quite compacted and where the ring feeders were are a bit of a mess in the odd place but it's not too bad. The tractor was worse than anything the cows did. Will do more this year and all the cows and in calf heifers can go with them. I don't think I'll wean the calves before putting the cows on it either like I did this time. I'll leave the calves on them for longer and see how it goes. It would be easier to bring the bull in than wean and the claves would do better. I think the advice to wean early for the calves to do better has a lot to do with what they get fed after. For someone with a simple system of average silage or ok hay to give them it's not as good as we are told it would be. If you feed them heavily with concentrates your probably better weaning early but I don't and have no intention of doing so. So they can stay on their mothers for longer.
I did both ways this year. The ones that went on the deferred grazing were weaned (April and mid may calves) and the other younger ones (mid may and June born) were left on their mothers with no cake just milk and hay. I weaned those yesterday and put them all together and they were bigger than most of the ones that were older and had better quality silage and 1-2kg of cake a day. I don't see why they wouldn't hurt out with their mothers on deferred grazing and silage till February next year so I'll do that this time with all of them. The field I have earmarked for it this time is 24 acres and there will be 40 odd cows there if I include some in calf heifers. And the calves from the cows. It's in full view of the main road and my neighbours yard too so everyone will know I'm mad 🤪 🤪 who knows how it will go but if I don't try I'll never know. But with everyone watching you can be damned sure I won't mess it up ;)
With the earlier turnout I just started closing up fields for winter earlier. Started about the 20th of October so there is plenty of cover there now. It's still a bit immature if I'm being honest but I don't have enough sheep to graze it all and I don't want it getting away from me too early. So I've started now so I have a wedge and not a load of mature grass that needs grazing really quick before it goes over the top for the ewes and lambs. Is it the right thing to do 🤷‍♂️ I'm damned if I know but you have to try these things. And it gives the neighbours something to talk about 🤣🤣
Will you put out the hay bales in the autumn where you want them to prevent having to go in with the tractor every couple of days in the winter? There’s a bit more waste and hassle afterwards, but in the autumn I put out hay bales with the string still on for immediate grazing while the animals are still in the fields. There’s less hay wasted that way as the bales keep their shape longer but in the spring its a huge mess untangling the netting from the mushy hay/ manure. I also tried placing the hay in advance and just moving the ring feeder as needed. each has it’s benefits. Its a time vs compaction issue really- which is the limiting factor on your place?
 

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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