Grass vs cake

[Ffermer Bach]

Even on grazing ground, you need to replace the nutrient offtake, or you will be steadily depleting reserves. This place was set stocked for years before I arrived, with no fert inputs at all on the grassland. P&K indices were 0 or 1, across the board, pH was 5.1-5.4 and grass was all old twitch and buttercups. That won't grow or finish stock.

Now, after liming & feeding it some, and reseeding where I can, I can grow lambs as well on some fields as well as they do on ad-lib pellets in a shed. Unfortunately I don't have enough of those acres though, and still have plenty of sh*te that I can't improve.

Even with a tripling of fert costs, grazed grass is still a fraction of the cost per kg of DM of bought in concentrates, which are also climbing in cost of course.

how come you can't improve it?

 

[livestock 1]

how come you can't improve it?

I’m my situation there’s a lot of acres which can’t carry much per acre and it’s an expensive hobby if you tried to do it all at once. Because it takes a number of years to see the return we just do so much every year. I can usually rent land for less than it costs me to improve our own but I’ve decided that’s not the way forward although that’s what we did a lot of previously

 

[Agrivator]

Just to illustrate what I was thinking about. The picture is a paddock of about 2 acres where for quite a few years we have fattened batches of around 50 lambs on hoppers. When some are sold some more are added . It's pp I don't know when it was seeded, it's never had any artificial fert. You can see from the background it's not in the sunny lowlands. The last lambs came off on 30th Nov.
View attachment 1010439

The North Pennines???? You could have no end of football pitches, and still room for a race-course.

 

[glensman]

Just to illustrate what I was thinking about. The picture is a paddock of about 2 acres where for quite a few years we have fattened batches of around 50 lambs on hoppers. When some are sold some more are added . It's pp I don't know when it was seeded, it's never had any artificial fert. You can see from the background it's not in the sunny lowlands. The last lambs came off on 30th Nov.
View attachment 1010439

That looks very similar to where I live.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

That looks very similar to where I live.

I know that area very well. I lived near Ballymena until I was 15

 

[neilo]

how come you can't improve it?

The centre of the farm was a 16th century deer park, with a maize of busy footpaths across it.
I can’t reseed it or split it up much with electric fences for rotational grazing. The best I can do is spray out weeds, improve fertility, and then try to re-establish clover. I’ve done/doing that, but without removing the twitch there’s not much more improvement to be had.
Makes for a lovely sheltered lambing paddock though.

 

[Al R]

The centre of the farm was a 16th century deer park, with a maize of busy footpaths across it.
I can’t reseed it or split it up much with electric fences for rotational grazing. The best I can do is spray out weeds, improve fertility, and then try to re-establish clover. I’ve done/doing that, but without removing the twitch there’s not much more improvement to be had.
Makes for a lovely sheltered lambing paddock though.

Similar to me, we have 120 acres under habitat, they were nightmares to plough due to no depth of soil (bedrock everywhere) and beyond awkward shapes that make topping hard work so their under Glastir Option 15 and they’ve been unploughed for 30 years, It all has clover and is good land for singles and welsh but you won’t fatten twins on it, proper storing land, yet over the hedges and fields between which we’ve kept young is seriously good land!
The way lamb prices are now it’s touch and go about whether it’s worth it but I’m also limited to what I can do due to being organic so can’t spray the old PP off and DD cereals/green crop in like I’d love to do.

When we moved here uncle told the ploughmen to plough every square inch they could for spuds, he let the 3 of them crack on and they all went through the coastal footpaths to the cliff edges there were no fences here then. They quickly realised that only 250/380 acre was worth ploughing So the bad bits were put back to grass

 

[neilo]

Similar to me, we have 120 acres under habitat, they were nightmares to plough due to no depth of soil (bedrock everywhere) and beyond awkward shapes that make topping hard work so their under Glastir Option 15 and they’ve been unploughed for 30 years, It all has clover and is good land for singles and welsh but you won’t fatten twins on it, proper storing land, yet over the hedges and fields between which we’ve kept young is seriously good land!
The way lamb prices are now it’s touch and go about whether it’s worth it but I’m also limited to what I can do due to being organic so can’t spray the old PP off and DD cereals/green crop in like I’d love to do.

When we moved here uncle told the ploughmen to plough every square inch they could for spuds, he let the 3 of them crack on and they all went through the coastal footpaths to the cliff edges there were no fences here then. They quickly realised that only 250/380 acre was worth ploughing So the bad bits were put back to grass

That's about it, good for storing and singles, but that's all. I did have some of the grass there analysed a couple of years ago, out of interest (& it was foc of course). Young, fresh regrowth in early September only had an ME of 10 MJ/kg!

 

[Al R]

That's about it, good for storing and singles, but that's all. I did have some of the grass there analysed a couple of years ago, out of interest (& it was foc of course). Young, fresh regrowth in early September only had an ME of 10 MJ/kg!

It would make lovely hay with the purple fog grass, cwtch, clover, bent and other sh!te grass but since I’ve been home it’s had droughts every year which doesn’t help on such shallow soils, when we wean we put all the ewes on it with bales so they have something edible to chew.

I know when we had a lot of cattle it was good storing ground even in the winter albeit bleak.

I think a lot of farmers think they have good ground but it’s just storing ground and not actually fattening ground - hence the need for hoppers (obviously winter is different)

 

[Estate fencing.]

It would make lovely hay with the purple fog grass, cwtch, clover, bent and other sh!te grass but since I’ve been home it’s had droughts every year which doesn’t help on such shallow soils, when we wean we put all the ewes on it with bales so they have something edible to chew.

I know when we had a lot of cattle it was good storing ground even in the winter albeit bleak.

I think a lot of farmers think they have good ground but it’s just storing ground and not actually fattening ground - hence the need for hoppers (obviously winter is different)

We can’t keep any lambs on pp after weaning. Lambs do ok up to then but after they come off the ewes just stand still or go backwards, it’s all park land that can’t be improved.

 

[Woolless]

We can’t keep any lambs on pp after weaning. Lambs do ok up to then but after they come off the ewes just stand still or go backwards, it’s all park land that can’t be improved.

Discovering the same here, hard work with lambs after weaning unless they've something tailor-made to go at. Hoping that following the cows, who'll graze down tight, will help this year.

 

[M-J-G]

I get the managing without N plan, I switched over to that on some land about 15 years ago.
But taking off grass in any form and expecting soil to provide N and not have a negative effect on P&K is a big ask unless stocking rates are very low.

Obviously this happens in nature, but migrating herds are grazing grassland for a short time and then moving on and not returning for long periods.

 

[M-J-G]

Discovering the same here, hard work with lambs after weaning unless they've something tailor-made to go at. Hoping that following the cows, who'll graze down tight, will help this year.

What do you mean by tailor-made?

 

[Al R]

What do you mean by tailor-made?

Chicory/plantain/clovers I’m guessing

 

[M-J-G]

Even on grazing ground, you need to replace the nutrient offtake, or you will be steadily depleting reserves. This place was set stocked for years before I arrived, with no fert inputs at all on the grassland. P&K indices were 0 or 1, across the board, pH was 5.1-5.4 and grass was all old twitch and buttercups. That won't grow or finish stock.

Now, after liming & feeding it some, and reseeding where I can, I can grow lambs as well on some fields as well as they do on ad-lib pellets in a shed. Unfortunately I don't have enough of those acres though, and still have plenty of sh*te that I can't improve.

Even with a tripling of fert costs, grazed grass is still a fraction of the cost per kg of DM of bought in concentrates, which are also climbing in cost of course.

Has anyone done the sums on costing rent and fertiliser vs concentrate on a mega joule and kg of protein basis.

Sums like that ard above my pay grade.

 

[glensman]

I know that area very well. I lived near Ballymena until I was 15

On the North side of ballymena?
Edit (do you know where glenravel is)

 

[Al R]

Has anyone done the sums on costing rent and fertiliser vs concentrate on a mega joule and kg of protein basis.

Sums like that ard above my pay grade.

It’s more a case of can you find the land to rent.. I’ve got more acres than most would for the amount of ewes - around 3.3 ewes/acre but half of it is storing land and the last 3 years of droughts wouldn’t have helped if I was tighter stocked. No fert used though and no cake

 

[Woolless]

What do you mean by tailor-made?

Chicory/plantain/clovers I’m guessing

Yes,I had some good results from a plantain/clover mix. Also did some forage rape when we first came. Did the lambs alright, would have been a better crop if I was heavier handed with fertiliser.

 

[M-J-G]

I'm feeling a bit unprofessional by just using grass.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

On the North side of ballymena?
Edit (do you know where glenravel is)

No other side, between Ahoghill and Portglenone