Forage rape grazing questions

[AM Farms]

First post so apologies,

As the title suggests - a local arable farmer has very kindly let us have a try on 20 acres of forage rape for our ewes and finishing lambs this winter as the chap he drilled it for is a bit short on numbers. We have been doing our reading on supplying them with some forage, minerals,strip grazing etc and although it appears a bit mind boggling (we have never grazed fodder crops before, grass only) we think we are getting an idea.

A couple of questions I just can't seem to find an answer for - what do you do if there is no runback area? and do you use ring feeders or just feed the forage loose so they can lie on a bit of it? All of the fields in-question were DD into Barley stubble. I have no knowledge of what variety FR.

Any advice would be appreciated so we don't screw this all up first time out

Many thanks

 

[michael N123]

If your feeding bales ask the farmer where we wants them

nothing worse than trying to plough a field where someone has moved the feeder 50 times and there’s old hay dragging in the plough…. Some people would rather the feeder in 1 place and tidied into a muckspreader in spring

 

[Derrick Hughes]

This is all new to me
I fattened lambs for years on rape ,just turned them in , they ate s bit of grass on the headlands for a week until they got on it , only isue I had especially with ewe lambs was getting to fat if you did not check them regular, feeding bales is a new thing. , never heard of back then , they would not eat bales anyway
Drive on

If it's in barley stubble there will be some barley in it that will pacify the worriers

 

[AM Farms]

This is all new to me
I fattened lambs for years on rape ,just turned them in , they ate s bit of grass on the headlands for a week until they got on it , only isue I had especially with ewe lambs was getting to fat if you did not check them regular, feeding bales is a new thing. , never heard of back then , they would not eat bales anyway
Drive on

Thank you ! Very hard to sort through the mountain of knowledge to get a straight answer

 

[andybk]

wouldnt feed bales with winter fodder unless snow , thats just making work and a mess , good idea to split into couple (or more) blocks so you can graze one bit and have a fresh bite to turn them into if it gets messy , can then move them back when it shoots again for a second go , keep rotating till its all gone , working out stocking numbers is hardest part , as a thin crop will just disappear with a hard frost and to many sheep
Edit: You will need twice (or more ) acres than you think you will need or half the stocking rate

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Thank you ! Very hard to sort through the mountain of knowledge to get a straight answer

Look out, the knowledge will bite back in a mo
No one has re inveted Rape & Ryegrass this year yet though and charged an extra 15 quid for it's fancy new name

 

[Hill Ground]

First post so apologies,

As the title suggests - a local arable farmer has very kindly let us have a try on 20 acres of forage rape for our ewes and finishing lambs this winter as the chap he drilled it for is a bit short on numbers. We have been doing our reading on supplying them with some forage, minerals,strip grazing etc and although it appears a bit mind boggling (we have never grazed fodder crops before, grass only) we think we are getting an idea.

A couple of questions I just can't seem to find an answer for - what do you do if there is no runback area? and do you use ring feeders or just feed the forage loose so they can lie on a bit of it? All of the fields in-question were DD into Barley stubble. I have no knowledge of what variety FR.

Any advice would be appreciated so we don't screw this all up first time out

Many thanks

Just chuck em in there!!!

Be wary of the stocking density the seed manufacturers quote though, we never got anywhere near those.

I always fence of 1ha or a known amount to start, let them clear it, then you can calibrate from there!!

 

[neilo]

As above, I never feed bales on roots, but mostly as our (heavy) ground won’t stand it. Bale feeders just create somewhere to congregate and get covered in mud, whilst poaching the ground to buggery, without the damage done by actually getting the bales there.
If I was on light soils and wanted to make the crop last longer, then I might consider it though.

Similarly ‘run backs’. If you let them run back through a gateway to a grass field then that gateway will rapidly become a deep, long bath of liquid mud.

If they’ve not seen roots before, then I always fence them on a small patch until they’ve bared it off. That way, they’ve learnt how to eat green leaf AND roots, otherwise they will graze all the high protein leaves off first and be left with a field full of lower protein, lower mineral roots.
After that, fence them on blocks that last them about 4 days ideally, or a week if you’re a bit lazier. The size of that block will depend on sheep numbers, the crop and how much is wasted in a wet time, but you’ll soon learn to judge that.

 

[AM Farms]

As above, I never feed bales on roots, but mostly as our (heavy) ground won’t stand it. Bale feeders just create somewhere to congregate and get covered in mud, whilst poaching the ground to buggery, without the damage done by actually getting the bales there.
If I was on light soils and wanted to make the crop last longer, then I might consider it though.

Similarly ‘run backs’. If you let them run back through a gateway to a grass field then that gateway will rapidly become a deep, long bath of liquid mud.

If they’ve not seen roots before, then I always fence them on a small patch until they’ve bared it off. That way, they’ve learnt how to eat green leaf AND roots, otherwise they will graze all the high protein leaves off first and be left with a field full of lower protein, lower mineral roots.
After that, fence them on blocks that last them about 4 days ideally, or a week if you’re a bit lazier. The size of that block will depend on sheep numbers, the crop and how much is wasted in a wet time, but you’ll soon learn to judge that.

Thank you!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

As above, block grazing [square shape] works much better than strips.
Pasture is often better the other way round as it's 'functional' and handles traffic.
Rape is little like pasture, in wet conditions they have little standing and if strip grazed tend to carve it up by roaming up and down the new strip and utilisation suffers as a result.

If you do have electric fence just think about best and worst case scenarios - eg snow, breaking out etc.
Week-size breaks are great until they help themself to 3 week's worth in the first 3 days and sour it all, then smaller breaks would have been great.
On your own place with a big mains fencer and sheep that don't poke at all is a different beast to sheep that only see polywire on their way through it, as they tow it around, whilst ignoring a feeble pulse from the cheapest fencer you could find

 

[unlacedgecko]

As above, block grazing [square shape] works much better than strips.
Pasture is often better the other way round as it's 'functional' and handles traffic.
Rape is little like pasture, in wet conditions they have little standing and if strip grazed tend to carve it up by roaming up and down the new strip and utilisation suffers as a result.

If you do have electric fence just think about best and worst case scenarios - eg snow, breaking out etc.
Week-size breaks are great until they help themself to 3 week's worth in the first 3 days and sour it all, then smaller breaks would have been great.
On your own place with a big mains fencer and sheep that don't poke at all is a different beast to sheep that only see polywire on their way through it, as they tow it around, whilst ignoring a feeble pulse from the cheapest fencer you could find

You must have been watching from the hedge when I grazed Welsh sheep on tack 7yrs ago.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

You must have been watching from the hedge when I grazed Welsh sheep on tack 7yrs ago.

It's great fun removing polywire from swede-tops and kale/rape stems.....

As you go along untangling the plaits and wraps it makes you wonder how the hell they did it so well, like those string pictures we made back in craft class, but with a bit more artistic licence.

Even thinking about multistrand fences and brassica crops without a hefty energiser powering things makes the vein in my temple poke out a little - if ever there was an example of "buy once, cry once" it's in this context ??

The best time I ever had involved a 4 strand deer fence, a 15TDM/ha kale crop and 1800 red hinds, first time I said "never again!!" but they did it 3 days in a row.
The joy I felt to see them behind the fence that next day is indescribable even now