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

[DanM]

idea is to make quality silage, and use the acres, to cut young and fresh, and not to cut those grounds again, just graze them, and hope the cattle help build up the fertility.
y/s would be aut, and spring calves, so not to too much silage. But l know what you mean, we have some really good silage, this winter, and the cows are milking really well, which in turn, means less cake. We don't know what the weather will do, or the effect of less fert, so that has to be considered. The best silage will come from our own leys here, so the theory is, keep some of the youngest in, till after 1st cut, on that pp, they wont eat a lot, then get all the y/s up on them, and multi cut here.
It's a stab in the dark really, going forward looking to reduce fert anyway, so have to start somewhere, seems like half a sensible plan, that may, or not work. It's trying to make each block of land, suit the stock that will use it, the pp, will do the y/s well, and the better grass here, will suit the milkers better. And, in due course, we will find out if it works ! If it doesn't, back to the drawing board, the important bit, is having a plan.

Whilst I agree entirely with a multi cut, high quality silage making regime, where silage is required. I also agree with @Samcowman and would be questioning how to turn those yearlings out earlier and be grazing them, rather than feeding silage to make silage. It’s counterintuitive. Feeding silage to build covers, to facilitate better grazing and for longer into next winter, is a very different matter. Potentially saving you far more money and preserving your existing silage stocks for the milkers

 

[Crofter64]

They don't eat more when its cold do they ?

When its cold like this they get the best I have and bulge out like the michelin man.

 

[som farmer]

Russ is a good sort

good, though l hope it doesn't get that cold here.
he has his cover crops drilled through quite a lot of residue, be quite interested to see what method he used, perhaps we ought to be more 'adventurous' with our vady.
unless l didn't hear him say, wondered what forage crop that was, plenty there, and leaving residue behind, one thing with both mob grazing, and 'in-situ' catch crops, cattle neatly spread there pats about, feeding rape here, it really is surprising how many pats there are, across a field, and cheaper than hauling it up there. But l really don't want it that cold !

 

[som farmer]

Whilst I agree entirely with a multi cut, high quality silage making regime, where silage is required. I also agree with @Samcowman and would be questioning how to turn those yearlings out earlier and be grazing them, rather than feeding silage to make silage. It’s counterintuitive. Feeding silage to build covers, to facilitate better grazing and for longer into next winter, is a very different matter. Potentially saving you far more money and preserving your existing silage stocks for the milkers

it's a debateable point, and l don't know the solution. We have altered so many things, and reduced cow numbers by over half, and gone back to hol type cows, coupled with buying a lot of fodder the last few winters, l am in 'massive' heap mode. And quality is king, it may well be that l am chasing to much silage, but as N+S will mainly go on for first cut, and relying a lot on clover, after, a touch of caution perhaps.
There are some uncuttable ground there, so wont be that many still in, probably those born, from now on, not a lot. But, it's all a bit of a new system, and not quite sure how things will pan out, simply to many unknowns, and l really don't want to start buying fodder again, that is a mugs game. The end game, is to be as self sufficient as we possibly can be, food wise, and with dairy, that means quality. Just as dairy means housing for most, most of our ground, we cannot out winter stock on, although we do out winter some on kale.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

do you run on solar power, digested waste, or beer ?
is that as tight as you graze, or about 'right'.

Not too sure what you mean by "tight" in this context, so I will get it clear and then reply (rather than guessing)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

good, though l hope it doesn't get that cold here.
he has his cover crops drilled through quite a lot of residue, be quite interested to see what method he used, perhaps we ought to be more 'adventurous' with our vady.
unless l didn't hear him say, wondered what forage crop that was, plenty there, and leaving residue behind, one thing with both mob grazing, and 'in-situ' catch crops, cattle neatly spread there pats about, feeding rape here, it really is surprising how many pats there are, across a field, and cheaper than hauling it up there. But l really don't want it that cold !

Off top of my head, his winter covercrops are mainly winter rye, with clovers, radish, turnips, kale, vetch, timothy, winter peas in there as well. He just grazes the previous cover out (in these ones, he had corn in one and a sorghum-sudan-based cover next to it, and a cocksfoot/timothy one next to that.

Funny how I get a feeling for his farm even though I've never been there

he just has a little JD5300 and a no-till grain drill, nothing over the top, like me he used to do alot of tractoring and now averages about an hour per month (plenty)

 

[som farmer]

Not too sure what you mean by "tight" in this context, so I will get it clear and then reply (rather than guessing)

brown earth, docks taken down to crown, and only thistles left standing.
obviously doesn't suite older hols though, but when we have done it with more xbred cows, and hfrs, makes you cringe at how little you give them, but they look fantastic.
The 'ideal', is to move the back fence, with the main one, got to give them a little run back, so it is really on/off, and it is the stronger, better grasses that come back, to much run back, and they would nibble the fresh regrowth, of those better grasses, so no gain, weed grasses take over, but like everything on here, recovery and rest time is king. That confuses me a bit, with the set stocked ground, in theory, they should keep nibbling off the 'better' grasses, so the sward should deuterate, and yet they do/look well on it. Love to 'control' grazing there, but l/lord wont have elec fences.
Some of that, might well be down to the type of stock, they don't have to milk on it, just grow, comes back to my comment, match up the cattle needs, to what you have.

 

[Samcowman]

brown earth, docks taken down to crown, and only thistles left standing.
obviously doesn't suite older hols though, but when we have done it with more xbred cows, and hfrs, makes you cringe at how little you give them, but they look fantastic.
The 'ideal', is to move the back fence, with the main one, got to give them a little run back, so it is really on/off, and it is the stronger, better grasses that come back, to much run back, and they would nibble the fresh regrowth, of those better grasses, so no gain, weed grasses take over, but like everything on here, recovery and rest time is king. That confuses me a bit, with the set stocked ground, in theory, they should keep nibbling off the 'better' grasses, so the sward should deuterate, and yet they do/look well on it. Love to 'control' grazing there, but l/lord wont have elec fences.
Some of that, might well be down to the type of stock, they don't have to milk on it, just grow, comes back to my comment, match up the cattle needs, to what you have.

Set stocking point is that it takes years to deteriorate as the favoured grasses get grazed out but also you lose out on productivity with it

 

[som farmer]

Set stocking point is that it takes years to deteriorate as the favoured grasses get grazed out but also you lose out on productivity with it

probably been years, l ploughed 1 field 1996 for them, can't recall any since, some overseeding perhaps, would love to rotationally graze it, but criss crossed with foot paths, that are very well used. Which can be good and bad, but the locals stop and talk to us, like the cattle, and ring up if anything wrong, or they are out - foot path gates left open ######.
So return to the good old days of set stocking, haven't any choice really, having said that, cattle did really well this year , on it. Dry cows, bullers and calves.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

brown earth, docks taken down to crown, and only thistles left standing.
obviously doesn't suite older hols though, but when we have done it with more xbred cows, and hfrs, makes you cringe at how little you give them, but they look fantastic.
The 'ideal', is to move the back fence, with the main one, got to give them a little run back, so it is really on/off, and it is the stronger, better grasses that come back, to much run back, and they would nibble the fresh regrowth, of those better grasses, so no gain, weed grasses take over, but like everything on here, recovery and rest time is king. That confuses me a bit, with the set stocked ground, in theory, they should keep nibbling off the 'better' grasses, so the sward should deuterate, and yet they do/look well on it. Love to 'control' grazing there, but l/lord wont have elec fences.
Some of that, might well be down to the type of stock, they don't have to milk on it, just grow, comes back to my comment, match up the cattle needs, to what you have.

Now I've got you. Really, I don't worry too much what they do, because the rest period is there.

Also, each grazing is different each time, so there is quite a bit of variability and variation - sometimes they eat the thistles, sometimes they don't

we just work out how many shifts per day or week they'll get, how many paddocks total they'll have in their rotation, and get to it

what we are seeing is that the stock manage the grazing and we just manage the shifting and the recovery

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Considering everyone is beginning to moan about how dry it is


again


I thought I'd pull out the last of the dinosaur fence and see what the posts looked like

the reality is that the top 5cm is dry-ish

 

[Fenwick]

How have you planned your rotation this year @Kiwi Pete ?

Last year we shortened the rotation in spring, leaving stockpile for the summer and thereby increasing the length of rotation through the dryer months. A- P then A - Z

It worked well enough, but Ii would of liked to of has some stalky grass for the winter as my beautiful leafy grass ran through the cows a bit quick.

This year I was wondering about just rotating around normally A-Z. The stockpile will develop ahead anyway.

Anyway I'm waffling, I wondered how you go about it?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

amazing what pops up that wasn't paid for

it's not looking too bad, really

 

[Kiwi Pete]

How have you planned your rotation this year @Kiwi Pete ?

Last year we shortened the rotation in spring, leaving stockpile for the summer and thereby increasing the length of rotation through the dryer months. A- P then A - Z

It worked well enough, but Ii would of liked to of has some stalky grass for the winter as my beautiful leafy grass ran through the cows a bit quick.

This year I was wondering about just rotating around normally A-Z. The stockpile will develop ahead anyway.

Anyway I'm waffling, I wondered how you go about it?

We began far too fast, as I went into earlier. I was planning to not go under 6 weeks and it really took us shifting to some set-aside to get out there, because I felt I could feed the stock better with less pressure on them, "starting from nothing".
I don't think I'd want to repeat that in future, it's far better having them consolidated and having more empty cells and more rest.

On the plus side, "The Man" came to check his heifers today and was greatly impressed by not only how his heifers look, but how much feed we have.

Said "thank you so much" about a dozen times and asked if we were happy to take on his calves again next year we have one empty out of 91 and no deaths... not a bad result

We will basically plan to "always be grazing stockpile" in future, as I can't see any solid or valid reason for the "quick spring whiparound" after various tests, trials, and observations; all fingers point to 60 days minimum

 

[Woolless]

We began far too fast, as I went into earlier. I was planning to not go under 6 weeks and it really took us shifting to some set-aside to get out there, because I felt I could feed the stock better with less pressure on them, "starting from nothing".
I don't think I'd want to repeat that in future, it's far better having them consolidated and having more empty cells and more rest.View attachment 1012277
On the plus side, "The Man" came to check his heifers today and was greatly impressed by not only how his heifers look, but how much feed we have.

Said "thank you so much" about a dozen times and asked if we were happy to take on his calves again next year we have one empty out of 91 and no deaths... not a bad result

We will basically plan to "always be grazing stockpile" in future, as I can't see any solid or valid reason for the "quick spring whiparound" after various tests, trials, and observations; all fingers point to 60 days minimum

That's interesting Pete. So that 60 days plus old grass is still obviously doing those heifers really well? How do you think sheep would do on it if they went in first and had the pick?

My thoughts would also have been that a quick graze round early on would have paid dividends, improving quality foremost but maybe that quality isn't really required?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

View attachment 1012275View attachment 1012271View attachment 1012272
amazing what pops up that wasn't paid for View attachment 1012276

it's not looking too bad, really

Did you sow the oats, or are they not even oats?

Always impressed with oats ' ability to get hold of the nitrogen, is it because of amf or any other reason does anybody know?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

We began far too fast, as I went into earlier. I was planning to not go under 6 weeks and it really took us shifting to some set-aside to get out there, because I felt I could feed the stock better with less pressure on them, "starting from nothing".
I don't think I'd want to repeat that in future, it's far better having them consolidated and having more empty cells and more rest.View attachment 1012277
On the plus side, "The Man" came to check his heifers today and was greatly impressed by not only how his heifers look, but how much feed we have.

Said "thank you so much" about a dozen times and asked if we were happy to take on his calves again next year we have one empty out of 91 and no deaths... not a bad result

We will basically plan to "always be grazing stockpile" in future, as I can't see any solid or valid reason for the "quick spring whiparound" after various tests, trials, and observations; all fingers point to 60 days minimum

Can you explain what you mean and what you will do differently next time?

Edit, I think I know what you mean but surely getting the animals out ahead of the spring flush and slowing down for the second round means more grazed forage?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

That's interesting Pete. So that 60 days plus old grass is still obviously doing those heifers really well? How do you think sheep would do on it if they went in first and had the pick?

My thoughts would also have been that a quick graze round early on would have paid dividends, improving quality foremost but maybe that quality isn't really required?

For me it's more about earlier turnout and more grazing days.

 

[Henarar]

That's interesting Pete. So that 60 days plus old grass is still obviously doing those heifers really well? How do you think sheep would do on it if they went in first and had the pick?

My thoughts would also have been that a quick graze round early on would have paid dividends, improving quality foremost but maybe that quality isn't really required?

be good for ewes and not so good for lambs I would have thought

 

[Kiwi Pete]

That's interesting Pete. So that 60 days plus old grass is still obviously doing those heifers really well? How do you think sheep would do on it if they went in first and had the pick?

My thoughts would also have been that a quick graze round early on would have paid dividends, improving quality foremost but maybe that quality isn't really required?

Quantity always has quality in it if it was grazed properly last time. I would say sheep would be fine, my mate Shane is out to about 100-120 days with sheep (behind a single wire I should add!) and this past couple of years they've sent better than 30% of lambs off the weaning draft, as good as the guys who have 'em licking dirt for a living.
Obviously depends on the sheep.