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

[som farmer]

by feeding those lego bricks, you are 'saving' poaching, that can't be bad, plus bringing in some extra p + k, those lego bricks were the ideal way, to feed cattle outside, in winter, bales on trailor, chuck the flaps out, as you drove along, if like me, tractor in bottom gear, me on the trailor, to save wages, but you didn't end up with the mess around round feeders.
Had a look at our hay, cut thursday evening, new growth between the swathes, is already sprouting 2ins tall, beginning to realise, we haven't got enough stock, and we cannot afford to buy, at these prices, for stores, l just cannot see a profit in them. Was also told, second and third quality milkers, have risen £400 a head, in the last couple of months, perhaps top quality milkers, will reach £3,000 by the autumn, as predicted by some ! But there are still cows out there, worth the money, by not calving the autumn group till november, they haven't quite risen by so much, and we have about 20, on their way, £850, delivered. But milkers at £2000 even, with land at £280 to rent.................
For reference, we had 29.74 ppl for june, that will be +0.8, for july, +better constituents, that is actual money paid into bank, not before the 'bits', taken off, as some like to quote.

 

[Walwyn]

The general concensus is that "KISS" is best.

Don't use rings, don't unroll bales - just cut the net a few inches away from the ground and shoulder the bale over so you can get it out.

Depending on numbers, probably the best bet is to give your herds a group of bales for 3 days, as opposed to a daily allowance

I've seen timelapse video on FB where the bales were just laid out in a staggered grid and the cattle just had at them for a few weeks, which laid a superbly even layer of litter down. Bales about 30 feet apart?
Cows will spread it about that far, not much further as you get "holes" where there's all this traffic and no hay.

Possibly a good approach would be: shut the field up in the spring, cut the hay and (if your climate allowed) just leave the bales where they fall out of the baler.
You could then maybe bring more bales in to fill in the gaps once you had a handle on regrowth and bale count relative to your stock numbers, say you had a target of 3 bales per head or W.H.Y., then you have summer to source the hay you need to get through.

It's basically the same as giving the field a sabbatical, but with net gains (eg you'd grow more feed per hectare by cutting the hay than just leaving it to shade itself out, and more again via the imported bales) which make the diesel and effort worthwhile.

I know a lot of people try to do it all with imported hay but that quickly gets expensive, Mark Anderson said the costs of their operation are getting close to the cost of wintering the cows on beet + baleage so it is up there.
But don't short yourself on hay, I mean putting the bales 100m apart is going to hurt a lot of soil in between, which is probably not ideal... we all know how R1's love to roam

It will be predominantly bought in hay. Going to be going into winter with more stock than planned due to TB restrictions. Hay is relatively cheap DM to buy when we have to buy something, plus starting to see it as an opportunity to import some nutrients. If we can keep R2s out until Christmas it makes housing more manageable alongside dry milkers.

Fields I'm planning on using are planned to be grazed (maybe cut) early august, should get at least a 4000 cover on them by Nov. Is hay going to be enough alongside the grass to keep R1s ticking along? R2s less concerned as they're usually too fat.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

by feeding those lego bricks, you are 'saving' poaching, that can't be bad, plus bringing in some extra p + k, those lego bricks were the ideal way, to feed cattle outside, in winter, bales on trailor, chuck the flaps out, as you drove along, if like me, tractor in bottom gear, me on the trailor, to save wages, but you didn't end up with the mess around round feeders.
Had a look at our hay, cut thursday evening, new growth between the swathes, is already sprouting 2ins tall, beginning to realise, we haven't got enough stock, and we cannot afford to buy, at these prices, for stores, l just cannot see a profit in them. Was also told, second and third quality milkers, have risen £400 a head, in the last couple of months, perhaps top quality milkers, will reach £3,000 by the autumn, as predicted by some ! But there are still cows out there, worth the money, by not calving the autumn group till november, they haven't quite risen by so much, and we have about 20, on their way, £850, delivered. But milkers at £2000 even, with land at £280 to rent.................
For reference, we had 29.74 ppl for june, that will be +0.8, for july, +better constituents, that is actual money paid into bank, not before the 'bits', taken off, as some like to quote.

Crikey! Those are expensive cows.

Yeah, working on 'time in a break, divided by average cover, times the stock density' as a bit of a recipe for poaching, I don't want to have them too long in a cell (sacrifice paddock syndrome) but need to balance that against increasing the recovery time.
That's why we're supplementing more to keep them happy, than actually slowing them down much by putting a good fraction of their intake out there in front of them as you could in the dry

With tall grass, I'd be a lot happier to go on a longer rotation than 80 days, 120-160 would be a lot better over winter I think.
Just that one winter pass, total grazing, good recovery, beautiful!
But we aren't in that position, not this year, we began our winter round a month earlier than the plan, but that doesn't bring spring forward at all....

Interesting to hear your milk price, not too bad at all! Works out a bit less than the forecast NZ price for the coming season, but hard to properly compare a per litre (+) price to a per milksolid price (+/- for volume)

Here's a round-figure rumble for you though - say an average kiwi cow gives the farmer 380kgMS @ $7 = $2660... we're charging him over 25% of his cow's income, just to graze her calf for the year.
Effectively those little calves in the paddock give an equivalent income as a 10 litre-per day cow, but without all the pesky milk-harvesting, money for jam

 

[Walwyn]

The other little mobs are doing OK. View attachment 974300Because of the limited growth in the autumn, we made the call to buy in a little feed - luckily the wee bike handles bale carting duties alright because I'm giving each mob a conventional (idiot brick) per day for the next few weeks.
The odd thing is, even with giving them hay, the whole "day's work" is done in under 30 minutes, we weren't getting one mob fed in 30 minutes a day last winter and there were a lot more trips out there. A lot more!

PS the 80 day rotation that we planned ended up at 67 days with speeding them up during the wettest days, so we're going to be grazing very fast by spring, faster than I would like.
I may yet pull all these calves out of the system in 6-7 weeks and increase the recovery by grazing them around the paddocks for a few weeks, just to get back on track with the recovery period we want.
We need much stronger covers next year, something to work on for sure... the annuals last year of course helped delay the day we would run out of grub, to a point where growth is picking up again.

We could of course increase the amount of supplementation to keep them slow, but this causes the grazing/impact to become less even, so removing them for a few weeks may be a better course to take in the interests of maximising our spring growth

Would the ubco be capable of pulling couple 100ms of 25mm and micro troughs? My 250 has got a bit poorly this week and exploring options.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It will be predominantly bought in hay. Going to be going into winter with more stock than planned due to TB restrictions. Hay is relatively cheap DM to buy when we have to buy something, plus starting to see it as an opportunity to import some nutrients. If we can keep R2s out until Christmas it makes housing more manageable alongside dry milkers.

Fields I'm planning on using are planned to be grazed (maybe cut) early august, should get at least a 4000 cover on them by Nov. Is hay going to be enough alongside the grass to keep R1s ticking along? R2s less concerned as they're usually too fat.

Yes, especially if the grass is good quality leafy grass. You know your farm, possibly the big key is to not 'shut the gate' too early, and take it down well when you cut it so everything in the paddock is fresh green stuff (long residuals are no real help in permanent tame grass pasture systems)

They might not grow as fast on it, but they'll motor in the spring because they'll have such good capacity for that early, watery grass - they almost get a potbellied look but they grow better because of it

 

[Walwyn]

Yes, especially if the grass is good quality leafy grass. You know your farm, possibly the big key is to not 'shut the gate' too early, and take it down well when you cut it so everything in the paddock is fresh green stuff (long residuals are no real help in permanent tame grass pasture systems)

They might not grow as fast on it, but they'll motor in the spring because they'll have such good capacity for that early, watery grass - they almost get a potbellied look but they grow better because of it

Just noodling this out, if bales gridded 10m apart be 100/ ha ~ 30000kg DM/ ha. ~ 400m²/ day for 86 R2s - 1200 m²/ 3 days. Guessing that density possibly too high in our maritime climate or perhaps not . Can see how it works in frozen parts of America.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Would the ubco be capable of pulling couple 100ms of 25mm and micro troughs? My 250 has got a bit poorly this week and exploring options.

Maybe on the flat - empty pipe is easily towed along IME.
This wee machine is a great 'zip about' machine but in saying that, the power isn't like a motorbike. It's all torque without the power, just as you'd expect from a couple of little electric motors... you'd probably do better for a tow vehicle TBH.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Just noodling this out, if bales gridded 10m apart be 100/ ha ~ 30000kg DM/ ha. ~ 400m²/ day for 86 R2s - 1200 m²/ 3 days. Guessing that density possibly too high in our maritime climate or perhaps not . Can see how it works in frozen parts of America.

It could be on the high side - it'd depend on quite a few things. I'm confident you'll all have a great time learning
You could let them have a row at a time, and just move the backfence up according to the weather?

This would let the density slip back, but lower density isn't going to be overly detrimental because:
- you won't overgraze the grass (it's grazed, and then effectively excluded from further grazing by the litter on top.
- If you're already block grazing these cattle, then that herd mentality is instilled in them and giving them a big area with a bale each for a month will generate different behaviour for a short time, but the novelty of being all spread out will wear off and they get around in a group or groups because that's what they know

I'm certainly no expert on it, I've not even really considered it properly - for here - rather watched other people do it with great results.
In your case balegrazing reduces cost and complication, but in our system it would increase those IYSWIM

 

[som farmer]

Crikey! Those are expensive cows.

Yeah, working on 'time in a break, divided by average cover, times the stock density' as a bit of a recipe for poaching, I don't want to have them too long in a cell (sacrifice paddock syndrome) but need to balance that against increasing the recovery time.
That's why we're supplementing more to keep them happy, than actually slowing them down much by putting a good fraction of their intake out there in front of them as you could in the dry

With tall grass, I'd be a lot happier to go on a longer rotation than 80 days, 120-160 would be a lot better over winter I think.
Just that one winter pass, total grazing, good recovery, beautiful!
But we aren't in that position, not this year, we began our winter round a month earlier than the plan, but that doesn't bring spring forward at all....

Interesting to hear your milk price, not too bad at all! Works out a bit less than the forecast NZ price for the coming season, but hard to properly compare a per litre (+) price to a per milksolid price (+/- for volume)

Here's a round-figure rumble for you though - say an average kiwi cow gives the farmer 380kgMS @ $7 = $2660... we're charging him over 25% of his cow's income, just to graze her calf for the year.
Effectively those little calves in the paddock give an equivalent income as a 10 litre-per day cow, but without all the pesky milk-harvesting, money for jam

just the normal market price, went to a dispersal sale last week, obviously a young couple that had to sell, pity, but the cows looked smart, jersey and jerseyx, the tail end ones, empty, calved march, peaked at 1400 guineas, age was totally, ignored, as was cell counts, whole av £1075, 250-350, over what was normal.

 

[som farmer]

just the normal market price, went to a dispersal sale last week, obviously a young couple that had to sell, pity, but the cows looked smart, jersey and jerseyx, the tail end ones, empty, calved march, peaked at 1400 guineas, age was totally, ignored, as was cell counts, whole av £1075, 250-350, over what was normal.

bout the same as we thought then ! There was a sting in the tail though, normal travel time to mkt, would be about 1 1/2 hours, took us nearly 5 1/2 hours to get back, a 70 mile hack, to get out of the traffic, main road closed, due to an accident, but, we did see the sea !

 

[jonnyjon]

It's 26° here, at least, cattle don't have any shade, should i be concerned? Quite a bit of panting going on

 

[som farmer]

It's 26° here, at least, cattle don't have any shade, should i be concerned? Quite a bit of panting going on

open field, or sheltered ? We do try and give some shading, not always possible, up on our top grounds, they are perfectly happy in the breeze, in a tight circle. Otherwise, plenty of rock salt, and plenty of water.

 

[jonnyjon]

open field, or sheltered ? We do try and give some shading, not always possible, up on our top grounds, they are perfectly happy in the breeze, in a tight circle. Otherwise, plenty of rock salt, and plenty of water.

Open field, they have water with salt in it, forecast says 26, feels more like 30°, no breeze

 

[Karliboy]

If you're already block grazing these cattle, then that herd mentality is instilled in them and giving them a big area with a bale each for a month will generate different behaviour for a short time, but the novelty of being all spread out will wear off and they get around in a group or groups because that's what they know

interesting how you talk about heard mentality and behaviour, as since my lot have gone back to the hill they have been really on edge to the point of they even cock tails and ears and run at the sight of me walking up to see them. (No problems last week behind a wire)
I thought the other day as they came back down storming past the farm there was a dog about but I saw nothing at all and even checked around with drone quick sticks
(it’s a bloody handy toy for that.) after talking to my good mate up the road his dairy heifers been up to mischief to so I’m a bit lost as to if it’s the loss of herd confinement behind the wire or to the sudden changes of temperature this week to hot and sunny bit they normally wouldn’t care about that behind a wire even if it was to be a thunder storm.
they have only been of hill and behind a wire for 50ish days and it’s not as they don’t know what/where the hill is and they always remember what a wire is year on year even at turn out.
It’s all a bit weird really.

 

[som farmer]

it's like being let out from school, freedom ! On small areas they cannot 'stretch' their legs, give them that, and any excuse for a gallop is taken, just like most cattle, turned out from yards, tails up, and away they go.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

interesting how you talk about heard mentality and behaviour, as since my lot have gone back to the hill they have been really on edge to the point of they even cock tails and ears and run at the sight of me walking up to see them. (No problems last week behind a wire)
I thought the other day as they came back down storming past the farm there was a dog about but I saw nothing at all and even checked around with drone quick sticks
(it’s a bloody handy toy for that.) after talking to my good mate up the road his dairy heifers been up to mischief to so I’m a bit lost as to if it’s the loss of herd confinement behind the wire or to the sudden changes of temperature this week to hot and sunny bit they normally wouldn’t care about that behind a wire even if it was to be a thunder storm.
they have only been of hill and behind a wire for 50ish days and it’s not as they don’t know what/where the hill is and they always remember what a wire is year on year even at turn out.
It’s all a bit weird really.

That's what living a life of luxury does:

Maybe if they aren't rationed then they become irrationed

 

[Crofter64]

The general concensus is that "KISS" is best.

Don't use rings, don't unroll bales - just cut the net a few inches away from the ground and shoulder the bale over so you can get it out.

Depending on numbers, probably the best bet is to give your herds a group of bales for 3 days, as opposed to a daily allowance

I've seen timelapse video on FB where the bales were just laid out in a staggered grid and the cattle just had at them for a few weeks, which laid a superbly even layer of litter down. Bales about 30 feet apart?
Cows will spread it about that far, not much further as you get "holes" where there's all this traffic and no hay.

Possibly a good approach would be: shut the field up in the spring, cut the hay and (if your climate allowed) just leave the bales where they fall out of the baler.
You could then maybe bring more bales in to fill in the gaps once you had a handle on regrowth and bale count relative to your stock numbers, say you had a target of 3 bales per head or W.H.Y., then you have summer to source the hay you need to get through.

It's basically the same as giving the field a sabbatical, but with net gains (eg you'd grow more feed per hectare by cutting the hay than just leaving it to shade itself out, and more again via the imported bales) which make the diesel and effort worthwhile.

I know a lot of people try to do it all with imported hay but that quickly gets expensive, Mark Anderson said the costs of their operation are getting close to the cost of wintering the cows on beet + baleage so it is up there.
But don't short yourself on hay, I mean putting the bales 100m apart is going to hurt a lot of soil in between, which is probably not ideal... we all know how R1's love to roam

I did this years ago and I found that there was an awful lot of waste. They would eat it till it got to the last 8-12 inches deep, top all gone ,and then just sleep and poop on it. No real spreading around, just a big mat that takes years to break down. Even if you collect that pile in the spring the circle does not really regrow the following year verywell. They also got spoiled and would bawl for new bales, seeing them nearby and not eat up what they actually had in front of them.Maybe I didn’t do it right?

 

[Crofter64]

It's 26° here, at least, cattle don't have any shade, should i be concerned? Quite a bit of panting going on

When its too hot I let them back to the barn where they can stand under their open fronted shed.I don’t like them near the barn in the summer but without shade or a breeze I feel it keeps them more comfortable. Back fence all the way.
That’s why I’ve planted so many trees. By year 6 some of them begin to give a bit of shade. year 20 is better, but you can only work with what you have.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I did this years ago and I found that there was an awful lot of waste. They would eat it till it got to the last 8-12 inches deep, top all gone ,and then just sleep and poop on it. No real spreading around, just a big mat that takes years to break down. Even if you collect that pile in the spring the circle does not really regrow the following year verywell. They also got spoiled and would bawl for new bales, seeing them nearby and not eat up what they actually had in front of them.Maybe I didn’t do it right?

I personally would only bale-graze with cows, not youngstock, they just aren't big and tough like a cow. It takes a lot more to make a burly old beef cow miserable if her furnace is well tickled with hay.
Calves are sooky

 

[Fenwick]

I did this years ago and I found that there was an awful lot of waste. They would eat it till it got to the last 8-12 inches deep, top all gone ,and then just sleep and poop on it. No real spreading around, just a big mat that takes years to break down. Even if you collect that pile in the spring the circle does not really regrow the following year verywell. They also got spoiled and would bawl for new bales, seeing them nearby and not eat up what they actually had in front of them.Maybe I didn’t do it right?

I second this.

Especially in climates like in western europe where we dont get a deep freeze

Its a PITA unrolling bales. But the results are much better.