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

[Samcowman]

Try shifting more on gut fill than what the platemeter tells you.
Once the mob are eating the litter, their gut triangle hollows out fast, and that's an indication you were slightly too late... but it's often the best indicator to use.
'Amount-based management' really only gives you about enough feed, where time based management is quite a different concept - probably quite foreign if you're used to the former method, but grazing is simply time and space

Only use the platemeter as a guide here. Tried doing it properly a couple of years ago and didn’t have enough time to do it properly. Will use it as a start to get an idea for the size of first break then observe from then on.
The ‘Triangle of Death’ as we heard at Groundswell @holwellcourtfarm

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Only use the platemeter as a guide here. Tried doing it properly a couple of years ago and didn’t have enough time to do it properly. Will use it as a start to get an idea for the size of first break then observe from then on.
The ‘Triangle of Death’ as we heard at Groundswell @holwellcourtfarm

Yes, you can't have things in that death spiral for too long before it bites you "directly in the buttocks"

that's where many farmers are comfortable, I mean sheep might survive off a good view but they don't "perform", it gets expensive making them perform, and it shortens their useful life (more cost)

... and we all know what pays the cost, the land must

 

[onesiedale]

I think it is. It was for us, because I am "a closet scientist" I tried a variety of little tests and never really tried to build the height of the grass too much, because we really needed to work on the lack of diversity in a lot of our pastures, and just help them build "resilience"
then there's wiggle room in the system, when you're dealing with mainly rg/wc pasture then it gets to about the time you guys are at and all goes to boot in a week.
Can you graze it all, in a week or 2?

I know we can't.

That, and seeing the wrong type of sward changes, is why we decided to make a meal of utilisation, and build resilience that way, by using those extra bites (compared to Siobhan's one bite) to buy extra recovery time.
We still use a plan as a guide, because it isn't planned grazing without a plan, but we've never had this much pasture cover, or so much quality feed for winter, or so many cattle grazing happily going into May (equiv of your November time).
That's purely "non selective grazing" at work. All that needs to match it, is the appropriate recovery time.

This isn't too hard for us to figure out - because nobody here houses sheep and 99% put them on a crop for 100 days (at least half of May, June, July, and into August) after they wax their pasture cover.

Density does the same job for us - we slowed our rotation so that we can wax a cell then rest it for a similar timeframe to them

Taking this back to your question, if we work off this plan (rotations from 40-160 days long) and then halve the utilisation rate - what else do we halve? Our stocking rate is basically our profit, so we could halve that.
- Do the same work for half the pay, twice as often
- We could halve the pasture intake and supplement the mobs and get rid of that pesky profit altogether

Or we could use an artificial "non selective grazing" eg make silage, house the cattle, feed the cattle, then spread their muck - and live off depreciation and capital gains

That's why we need to do a financial plan pretty early on and work out what we're actually getting out of bed for, just like that grazing plan helps us work out the relationship between where we are and where we want to be

Thanks KP.
Page 1000! I've bookmarked this post because I just know I've got to sit down and read it again later when I'm not busy. You're ability to make us think never fails!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Thanks KP.
Page 1000! I've bookmarked this post because I just know I've got to sit down and read it again later when I'm not busy. You're ability to make us think never fails!

After 1000 pages there's definitely a book in here somewhere. It just needs a little editing

It'd be right up the street of a publisher like Chelsea Green. It'd find a place on my reference bookshelf.

 

[som farmer]

Only use the platemeter as a guide here. Tried doing it properly a couple of years ago and didn’t have enough time to do it properly. Will use it as a start to get an idea for the size of first break then observe from then on.
The ‘Triangle of Death’ as we heard at Groundswell @holwellcourtfarm

plate meters are great for us to learn how much grass is there, you soon learn that. In terms of what grass we actually need, they rely on a chart, basically go in at 3000, come out at 1500, It doesn't work so well in thin leys, or when you want to leave longer residuals, and cattle don't actually do, what it says they should. That triangle is the ultimate guide, it is the only visible sign that tells you, not enough, or too much, and cows being cows, some fields they bite right down, and others they just munch what they need, for our dairy, strip grazing and back fence gives us flexibility. We have patches of ground, where the cows will graze right down to the bare earth, not enough area to treat as separate blocks, but have to be fed with 'other', why, l don't know, l do know that they are outcrops of sandy soil, which are also very acidic, 4.5 ph, another enigma ! But to judge how much to give cattle, is really only experience, with a bit of luck thrown in.

 

[Treg]

After 1000 pages there's definitely a book in here somewhere. It just needs a little editing

It'd be right up the street of a publisher like Chelsea Green. It'd find a place on my reference bookshelf.

I think there definitely is a book in here, reading different books & articles lately & think ah we've already covered this in Kps thread.
Isn't this the modern version of a book & it's interactive?

 

[Jonny B88]

I am trying to get my head around longer rotations one block with cows and calves. There is one field in particular that needs total grazing to encourage the grass over dandelions, dead nettle and docks. Particularly on this first round as the undesirables will be hit hard just as the grass growth accelerates. I can probably do 2 shifts a day reliably.
Does the brainstrust think it would be better to total graze now then build cover in the second rotation in preparation for July/ August when growth stalls? Could probably hit a 40 or so day round this time. Depending on how it goes on the bigger fields. Currently have 35 cows and calves on 0.6ha in 2x splits.

I don’t know, but what I’m trialling is grazing a mob of 30 yearling bullocks and heifers in paddocks that started out at around 0.57acres. I am trying not to take too much and leave a little but not an excessive amount behind. At a guess id say they’re going into about 3200-3500 and out at around 2000-2200 or so. Of course I could be widely off, a plate meter would be of limited use I think because in my opinion it doesn’t measure flattened grass it just assumes its gone.

last evening i felt what i moved them off was leaving too much behind so i have given them about 0.4acres. Moving every day so far. Don’t want to eat to tight as that will effect cattle performance and growth of grass.

interestingly of all the grass on the farm at the moment the stuff left behind them appears to be growing and recovering better than anything else. Growth very poor here yet.

i am also not sure how i will combat the seeding of the grass whether i keep them going around the block inside 20-30 days and then stretch it out after that by reducing paddock size. All the while leaving a little more plant behind?

 

[crashbox]

it all comes down to balance, throughout the season grass has it's up's and 'downs' growth wise, you just have to work a solution out, easier said than done, then you have to balance grass quality, to animal requirement, hence spring calving, and top grass quality. Harder for us dairy boys though, we need a season of top grass. One of the reasons i'm interested in diverse leys, can the diverse plants, give a more 'high' quality fodder, right through the season, as each plant peaks at different times. In fairness, there is a lot of grasses that spread their heading dates, even prg, and clover comes a bit later than grass, just need to cover the july/august gap.
Any one got a simple solution to keep public foot path gate closing after use, having spent 2 hours searching for 9 hfrs, in a village, it's amazing what 'funny' bits of land there is, behind all those gardens, even a wood. Located in the end, and no damage done, this time, but a lot of very well used f/paths, with little gates, so any ideas please, normal door springs don't work, last tenant tried them.

Hang the gates on at an angle so they shut by themselves, so much so that the only way to keep them open is tie them back.
We've had to do this many a place...

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Hang the gates on at an angle so they shut by themselves, so much so that the only way to keep them open is tie them back.
We've had to do this many a place...

and if it keeps happening get onto your rights of way team to help with a solution. It's their problem too. Document every escape and issue to build up a history of inconsiderate footpath users.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I've decided to keep the cattle off the grazing land for a few weeks while the grass builds a bit. The constant frosts and low rainfall has turned this year into another, like 2020, when the April/May flush just doesn't happen. We have 43 acres that isn't in the grazing rotation as it used to be cropped for hay by another farm. We stopped that last year and I grazed part of it once when we were short of grazing but made the rest into silage and hay myself.

This time it has a reasonable bite on it as it has rested since May last year so that's now electric fenced and supporting the herd.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

it all comes down to balance, throughout the season grass has it's up's and 'downs' growth wise, you just have to work a solution out, easier said than done, then you have to balance grass quality, to animal requirement, hence spring calving, and top grass quality. Harder for us dairy boys though, we need a season of top grass. One of the reasons i'm interested in diverse leys, can the diverse plants, give a more 'high' quality fodder, right through the season, as each plant peaks at different times. In fairness, there is a lot of grasses that spread their heading dates, even prg, and clover comes a bit later than grass, just need to cover the july/august gap.
Any one got a simple solution to keep public foot path gate closing after use, having spent 2 hours searching for 9 hfrs, in a village, it's amazing what 'funny' bits of land there is, behind all those gardens, even a wood. Located in the end, and no damage done, this time, but a lot of very well used f/paths, with little gates, so any ideas please, normal door springs don't work, last tenant tried them.

Kissing gates? £200 to £300 though

 

[Henarar]

Some may remember I posted some pics of the ewes in some grazing we had taken on back allong that hadn't had anything on it for years, we have just put the theaves on it and its surprising how it had improved with just that one grazing/trampling.
We only have a few theaves so not enough to eat it off fast enough really but we didn't want to chance the ewes and lambs cos the fencing isn't great.

 

[Fenwick]

plate meters are great for us to learn how much grass is there, you soon learn that. In terms of what grass we actually need, they rely on a chart, basically go in at 3000, come out at 1500, It doesn't work so well in thin leys, or when you want to leave longer residuals, and cattle don't actually do, what it says they should. That triangle is the ultimate guide, it is the only visible sign that tells you, not enough, or too much, and cows being cows, some fields they bite right down, and others they just munch what they need, for our dairy, strip grazing and back fence gives us flexibility. We have patches of ground, where the cows will graze right down to the bare earth, not enough area to treat as separate blocks, but have to be fed with 'other', why, l don't know, l do know that they are outcrops of sandy soil, which are also very acidic, 4.5 ph, another enigma ! But to judge how much to give cattle, is really only experience, with a bit of luck thrown in.

couldn't agréé more.

i totally get thé désire to calculate everything, and feel in control. but thé réalité is that it is almost completley impractical to calculate a surface precisely. thén you would néed to bé able to calculate thé dm, which variés between species, thén thé utilisation rate, which itself is highly variable. thén thé needs if thé herd, and every cow is so différent from another! And naturally is result is imperfect. Much better to observé thé animals and thé pasture. I can obtain an imperfect result much quickly liké that.

 

[Treg]

Some may remember I posted some pics of the ewes in some grazing we had taken on back allong that hadn't had anything on it for years, we have just put the theaves on it and its surprising how it had improved with just that one grazing/trampling.
We only have a few theaves so not enough to eat it off fast enough really but we didn't want to chance the ewes and lambs cos the fencing isn't great.View attachment 958080

What are you calling "theaves"?

 

[Henarar]

What are you calling "theaves"?

Ewe lambs born last spring
@farmerclare comes from op north

 

[StormurShepherd]

Ewe lambs born last spring
@farmerclare comes from op north

Ey up our kid etc.

I'm still learning the sheep lingo and still get baffled.

 

[Treg]

Ewe lambs born last spring
@farmerclare comes from op north

Oh I thought it might have been the neighbours sheep getting in

 

[crashbox]

So here's a question... Imagine you have a permanent pasture and you want to reseed it (to get a step change in production).
What's the best way to do it without resorting to heavy tillage?
Note: I've listened to various 'regernerative' sources describing the destruction of tillage, usually arable farmers, but as a livestock farmer I find it short on detail what options/break crops we have to get from "grass to grass".
BTW I have followed @som farmer's lead, and trialled a part field with subsoiler and power harrow, as opposed to my usual plough and spring tine, for maize.

 

[Henarar]

Ey up our kid etc.

I'm still learning the sheep lingo and still get baffled.

not that far north

 

[Henarar]

Oh I thought it might have been the neighbours sheep getting in

we had a goat turn up couple days ago