- Location
- Cornwall.
What a lovely sight. 
3 year herbal ley break crop
- Thread starter dontknowanything
- Start date
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Cattle not liking the chicory so far...going to keep them tight until they start eating it, and hopefully develop a taste for it.
Baling Hay
Member
Is the chicory far forward? Has it gone stemmy?
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
One or two bits, but most hasn't bolted
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Grazing going very well now. I'm leaving them on each cell a little longer than I think is ideal, but I want to get all the blackgrass & charlock, and I know it will be probably at least 100 days until they are back here anyway.
Big thanks to @The Ruminant for pointing me in the right direction re fencing for temporary water walkways, it works brilliantly, and makes back fencing trivial as a bonus.
And finally, a short video of what for me is the sound of mob grazing
And finally, a short video of what for me is the sound of mob grazing
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
That looks great what was the tip about the water then? Here's some of my cows. I'm up to 150 cows and 455 fat lambs on .77 ha a day now.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
It's not rocket science, but my feeble brain didn't see it. It's just a way of setting up the fences in an L shape when you are working towards the water trough, so that there is always a pathway to it. Will draw a picture if you want?
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Do you find a lot of poaching along the path way? I've go quite a bit from when it was wet a couple of weeks ago. I need a longer pipe on the mobile trough so I can move it with the mob. The water point is every 150 meters so I recon a 90 meter pipe will work. I've also got cows standing in the tyre trough makes it dirty but no damage to the trough.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Not bad poaching, but then I only have 20% the numbers compared to you. There is of course some damage, but I think after a 3 month rest it will have recovered well. It is also nothing compared to the permanent walkways I had been using for the last couple of years. The way mine is set up they should only be using one walkway for a maximum of 4 days, although this has been stretched a bit at the moment.
When yours escaped, were they still within a larger fenced area? I wouldn't have been as relaxed as you if they were free to roam the county...
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Yep they were thankfully. They did it again about the same time as @Barleycorn had his adventures but I just called them and they came running after me while my wife drove behind the stragglers with the kids in the car.
I'm making a mess after 2 days.
I'm making a mess after 2 days.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Your problem is that you're not a hobby farmer like me.
- Location
- Romsey, Hampshire
I have found that run backs to water troughs recover eventually, even when quite poached.
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
I hope so I can see some small signs of recovery in places. I also think the run backs would develop a different grass structure over time that would tolerate the traffic. Just looks a mess at the moment. The regrowth looks great the clovers are racing away. Must be enjoying the light as the ungrazed stuff is up to the fence posts in places.
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
We were filming today in a soil pit and I took this
Baling Hay
Member
Was that a red clover root then?
Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
Yep with nodules along way down too.
Just getting going on twice daily moves on our big mob, on permanent pastures where we mob grazed last year, and I can't help noticing that the runbacks to the water tanks have some of the lushest and densest grass, some of them were chewed up pretty badly in the wet times last summer. Permanent pasture may be more forgiving than ex-arable land, but I wouldn't worry too much.
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
Had a friend over for the weekend, and he brought a drone with him. Took this video this morning, doesn't show anything ground breaking, but I thought it was fun anyway. Cows were a little spooked!
dontknowanything
Member
- Location
- Cambridge
1 day. They seem to like the charlock, flowers and all. Ideally I'd like a few more animals on that area actually. Here's a before and after.
