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

[ShooTa]

bit of rappa and bit of taragate - im digging the taragate alot - dad bought a whole system about 20 years ago - the endposts poly stakes and 3 600m reels 2 of poly and 1 of metal - and they are the basis of our system - which i added 1 600m rappa and 1 400m taragate at the start of the year - most of our fields are narrow and as such ive been bouncing them down using 1 reel triple looped. A failing of the whole farm is lack of free water and fences Badly in need of fixing- so im often fencing the fencelines aswell which slows everything,

but as winter is coming (end of the GoT too) and i want to not back fence weve invested in a few more reels. in that vid ive run the 600m eout almost end to end of the lower part of our parkland (wide open fields and small paddocks suck to plan) so i can run them up one side and back down the other leaving the battery unit in the middle of the long run (speeds the moves alot) so now all i do is unhook, rehook then drag water - and im refilling 200ltrs every 4 days atm due to the morning dew.
my new setup is adding 3 more taragate reels but only of 2 100m +1 200m and 3 reels of rappa for the same as most of our fields are sub 100m - just waiting on the rappas and picking up some hanging posts for the reels.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

bit of rappa and bit of taragate - im digging the taragate alot - dad bought a whole system about 20 years ago - the endposts poly stakes and 3 600m reels 2 of poly and 1 of metal - and they are the basis of our system - which i added 1 600m rappa and 1 400m taragate at the start of the year - most of our fields are narrow and as such ive been bouncing them down using 1 reel triple looped. A failing of the whole farm is lack of free water and fences Badly in need of fixing- so im often fencing the fencelines aswell which slows everything,

but as winter is coming (end of the GoT too) and i want to not back fence weve invested in a few more reels. in that vid ive run the 600m eout almost end to end of the lower part of our parkland (wide open fields and small paddocks suck to plan) so i can run them up one side and back down the other leaving the battery unit in the middle of the long run (speeds the moves alot) so now all i do is unhook, rehook then drag water - and im refilling 200ltrs every 4 days atm due to the morning dew.
my new setup is adding 3 more taragate reels but only of 2 100m +1 200m and 3 reels of rappa for the same as most of our fields are sub 100m - just waiting on the rappas and picking up some hanging posts for the reels.

How do you like the Taragate reels, one of the few brands I haven't got here?
Love triple geared reels.. I do have the old school type non geared ones for winter, when I tend to be on wheels more, but prefer to plod around on foot and the gear reels are lifechanging for that.
I made some hanger posts for my single reels and just welded chain links onto some light duty angle-iron, which is quite handy and quite cheap too

 

[ShooTa]

@Kiwi Pete - i really like the one ive got so far - i did drop it early on which snapped the guide unit thingy - but some glue and tape fixed it quick, so yeah dont drop them from height onto concrete.
quite often my otherhalf helps with the setups and she'll pick that reel every time. Theres certainly a knack for reeling in the 3:1's - if you have the line too slack when reeling in and have the winder canted then it can get a hell of a snarl......but thats the same with all of them including the non geared.
welding is something i cant/havnt tried yet suprisingly - ive got a friend whos willing to give me some training tips but havnt made our schedules work yet.

 

[DanM]

Afternoon. Was asked here a month or so ago; “with the amount of clover, would we be left with bare soil post grazing??”
Well we’ve just grazed the same block and moved off today....

The clover seems to have shielded the grass allowing it to recover post extreme dry. Trying to leave plenty as soils still warm and with more rain due in southwest hoping to get over again pre Xmas.
Moved onto cover on left of fence

 

[ShooTa]

i see youve also got that very very spiny spindely narrow grass- looks good - its nice to see what stake points your using too (im using 1 up on each of yours.. might try em lower next week.

 

[Agrispeed]

Got to have 3:1 reels

If you work it out at saving 2 mins per reeling then Its a saving of 12 hours a year, and thats only one reel twice a day. I normally do at least 2 sometimes more. I reckon I'm worth minimum wage so thats saving £90.

I like the strainrite reels, the Gallagher ones are very heavy and a fair bit more money. I'm very tempted to go to a a Kiwitech system for my young stock, as they spend part of the year behind 2 wires. Is anyone running their stuff?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I first met geared reels stopping with @Kiwi Pete

This year I've bought 6 cheap ones from Agri-Supply and they make life much easier.

http://www.agri-supply.co.uk/geared-fence-reel-3-1/

 

[Agrispeed]

I first met geared reels stopping with @Kiwi Pete

This year I've bought 6 cheap ones from Agri-Supply and they make life much easier.

http://www.agri-supply.co.uk/geared-fence-reel-3-1/

I started with those too.

The downside to a lot of the cheap reels is that they seem to be made of a hard, brittle plastic, which snaps or cracks quite quickly, the more expensive ones are a much softer, more rubbery plastic which really asorbs impacts better, like dropping them over a fence, or occasionally shedding one off a rack going down the road . The cheap ones do the job though and in the end thats all they have to do.

 

[Henarar]

how the other half live
I make do with old mig wire reels

 

[Agrispeed]

how the other half live
I make do with old mig wire reels

The killer is fields 300m+ long. Nothing worse than running short 50m from the end.

You have to have decent reels just to carry enough poly wire. I used to use 7 strand wire, and the reels were 15kg+

I use a system of long reels to make 'sides' and then cross fence with smaller reels, which are cheaper and lighter. It makes it very easy to set up several breaks at a time. I have a chap helping me on Mondays and in about 20-30 minutes we can set up 7-8 days for the young stock, where all I have to do is drop the front wire and put it back up behind them and put the trough under the wire. Takes 5 mins a day

 

[Henarar]

Nothing worse than running short 50m from the end.

sorry I was just messing about it seems to be a day for that LOL, I have a few geared reels but we do use mig reels for the sheep fence at the moment, have a very cheap little trike with a rappa system on now though, used it once and can't get the bloody thing to run now and no wet days to mess about with it

 

[Agrispeed]

sorry I was just messing about it seems to be a day for that LOL, I have a few geared reels but we do use mig reels for the sheep fence at the moment, have a very cheap little trike with a rappa system on now though, used it once and can't get the bloody thing to run now and no wet days to mess about with it

Nothing wrong with cheap reels if they work. The sh!t some people play with and then complain that strip grazing takes too long makes me want to cry. I know someone who used to take 3 hours to move two fences

I like that with the kiwitech system, the gearing is separate to the reels, making them much cheaper, there isn't really any need to buy loads of £40-50 reels if you can get a winder for £100 and reels for less than £20, which makes much more sense. I could have even more reels then

 

[dt995]

I use a system of long reels to make 'sides' and then cross fence with smaller reels, which are cheaper and lighter. It makes it very easy to set up several breaks at a time. I have a chap helping me on Mondays and in about 20-30 minutes we can set up 7-8 days for the young stock, where all I have to do is drop the front wire and put it back up behind them and put the trough under the wire. Takes 5 mins a day

After spending months drawing shapes in the fields, often changing all four sides at once I finally did very similar to the above in one field. Split it all the way down the middle and just moved a frontfence every day or two, backfence every two or three.

Makes a whole world of difference. Not all the fields lend themselves to that so easily though.

 

[Bury the Trash]

I agree about the red clover (although the newer varieties seem better?) but Lucerne is like a race car. Serious growth when everything right, but if its not happy you wouldn't even know its there. I'm trying to reduce my cutting ground, but it means I need something reasonably reliable, and red clover is a bit more tolerant of heavyish clay and wet ground, I think its a bit more competitive early on, so the potential is there to stitch in white clover and a perennial ryegrass (ryegrass seems to be the best species for intensive silage) a bit later? Plenty of P & K here, which is probably the one advantage of loose housed dairy cows!

Since the farm moved to strict cell grazing there seems to have red clover growing where it hasn't been planted, although it could've come in with muck - The patches have set seed the last couple of years and more and more is appearing which is ace

interesting the self seeding.rc

what about Timothy and rc ?
im not so keen on timoth with sheep be ok more for cattle purpose tho i guess.
Lucerne does like a certain type of ground it was on one our best fields of soil here on the farm,grew pretty well and consistantly so ime on that field.

 

[hendrebc]

Nothing wrong with cheap reels if they work. The sh!t some people play with and then complain that strip grazing takes too long makes me want to cry. I know someone who used to take 3 hours to move two fences

I like that with the kiwitech system, the gearing is separate to the reels, making them much cheaper, there isn't really any need to buy loads of £40-50 reels if you can get a winder for £100 and reels for less than £20, which makes much more sense. I could have even more reels then

If your doing a lot of fencing why not get one of those rappa winders for the back of a quad? Everyone who has one seems to rave about them

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I first met geared reels stopping with @Kiwi Pete

This year I've bought 6 cheap ones from Agri-Supply and they make life much easier.

http://www.agri-supply.co.uk/geared-fence-reel-3-1/

Really??
Wow.

I have about half a dozen O'Briens reels and they are pretty good, one thing I look for is the design of the spool as they eventually crack or warp on these cheaper types
And a few Gallagher ones but the big handles are almost a nuisance as I have quite small hands, you can't hold the reel and many pigtails in one hand, but the free-est running reels and easy to get replacement bits for (here)
..and a few others as well..
I think I have 120 odd pigtails, some long and some short, and some heavy duty ones as well, and about 240 odd plastic treadins, and 25 metal treadins

@Henarar was cheeky and asked me about investing in my farm and that's really about the extent of it
polywire is "drainage"
polywire is "fertiliser"
polywire is "animal health products"
kelp is "B vitamins and trace elements"
I do need some more jumper leads though.

I have plastic insulator handles on the triple reels and leave a long tail on one strand, to join the strands together at the far end which helps spread the current load, I've had knots burn through before so I prefer to spread the current through all 3... get a bit of load on the bottom wire with longer covers.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Lost a couple of lambs today, purely to rain + wind chill, born yesterday but beyond saving by this morning. Have one wee guy in front of the fire bit of honey on the lips and hopefully he will feed.

Them's the breaks, big lambs seem to be doing

My girl mob isn't taking much off their daily allocation, really, but the boy mob is doing a great job. Or I think so, roughly taking half the sward and not making mess... 19mm today

In the bigger picture, 19mm will make more difference than an extra couple of lambs would, but I hate the death that spring brings all the same.
You always think of the "what ifs".

 

[ShooTa]

i ended up making some mexican hat connectors for joining wires - didnt take too long - couple of bits of normal electrical wire, a few bits of heatshrink and abit of stiffer wire (think it was actually undergate lead out wire) for the hat ends.

anywhosal as ive got to take the car to get a towbar fitted (old farm car is not likely to pass mot) then im going to have a wee search for seaweed locations as im near the coast for 2 hours waiting for the instal.

 

[Henarar]

@Henarar was cheeky and asked me about investing in my farm and that's really about the extent of it
polywire is "drainage"
polywire is "fertiliser"
polywire is "animal health products"
kelp is "B vitamins and trace elements"
I do need some more jumper leads though.

I wasn't being cheeky
most of the investment we have done here is in sheds
drainage is interesting we have some fields that were drained and stoned and they don't seem any dryer than others that haven't had anything done for 50 years
lack of sunlight is a problem in some fields leading to it being wet, high hedges to the south particularly alongside the streams but a mate has bought a solution

he can soon make a mess that's for sure, roll on nov 5th, good crop of firewood though, this field was to wet to drive along some places at the bottom even this year just through lack of sunshine
if you look you can see a hump across the field behind the slew that wasn't there 20 years ago and the middle of the field is very humpy now yet this field was drained properly but it don't stop it moving, we can't mow this now it will need ploughing and levelling off sometime, I am wondering if we are going to have trouble after this dry summer

 

[Henarar]

I have plastic insulator handles on the triple reels and leave a long tail on one strand, to join the strands together at the far end which helps spread the current load, I've had knots burn through before so I prefer to spread the current through all 3... get a bit of load on the bottom wire with longer covers.

the chap who puts keep lambs in here uses plain multistrand wire to join polywire runs one to the other, wrap it round a few times to get a good contact