I was just going to ask the same thingOh god, I'm under scrutiny now
My only worry would be teaching the ewes to push under electric fence wire for when they are back behind electric themselves.
I was just going to ask the same thingOh god, I'm under scrutiny now
We had no trouble with that at all because the sheep were used to popping under fences all the time.I was just going to ask the same thing
My only worry would be teaching the ewes to push under electric fence wire for when they are back behind electric themselves.
Hmm, I think that might be more than my brain can cope with. Cattle following immediately behind the sheep was the plan, keep it simple and extend the recovery period.If I was doing it again I would try to have sheep / cattle / lambs / calves in a rotation, so for example you're grazing cattle a month behind the sheep and the lambs a month behind the cows
that way your pasture is as 'clean' as possible for the younger stock to enjoy fresher grub but the land is only seeing ewes or adult cattle every few months - giving some of the benefits of long recoveries without youngstock working too hard or sucking the life out of things with frequent selective grazings
Hmm, I think that might be more than my brain can cope with. Cattle following immediately behind the sheep was the plan, keep it simple and extend the recovery period.
Would probably depend on which the priority stock were. Let the sheep pick out the good bits then the cattle a day later to level it.Surely better to have sheep follow cattle as they prefer shorter grass? Or do you mean per rotation?
As @Samcowman says, let the sheep pick out the cream cakes and sweeties with the cows behind to clear the plate. Google 'John Ritchie leader follower grazing'. It's an excellent article.Surely better to have sheep follow cattle as they prefer shorter grass? Or do you mean per rotation?
Exactly. Whichever group is in front would be the ones that require the best performance.Depends on what sheep and what cattle
Yes, and why the ones following need to be overgrazingExactly. Whichever group is in front would be the ones that require the best performance.
can wind some up nicely@Kiwi Pete you'd love the chat going on in the All Things Dairy thread atm.
That section makes we want to sneak away to the bathroom with something sharp you can tell a dairy farmer, but you can't tell them much@Kiwi Pete you'd love the chat going on in the All Things Dairy thread atm.
I'm probably "a purist" in some respects.can wind some up nicely
the trouble with many of the spring grazers, they need to be 'purists', any deviation, is automatically 'wrong'. Whilst on this thread, we are not purists, and quite happily try other methods, which, some do, and some don't work.
A localish, 400 cow grazing herd, has/is coming on the mkt, and was chatting through some figures, oad milking, tight block, cows av 15litres, max cake 500kg/cow, if they upped that cake, to 1 ton/cow, we reckoned the milk would go from 6,000 l/day, to 8,000,- 2000 litres at 45ppl, pre a sale, would make a huge difference, even more if he milked them x2 a day, till the sale, but he is a purist, and wont change anything. We have had plenty of out of his sync cows, and all would do 8 +, or, more than double their yield, for an extra 1250 kg cake. It might be my maths, but, this year, for a change, might just be the one, to use a calculator, and not a 'rule book'.
It is damnably difficult to grow grass without moisture. Looking at some of our 135+ day rested areas "in a normal autumn" they would have grown as much in 35 days.... however there is an extra 100 days to think and plan, in there.I thought I might update you lot up north as to the situation over here.
Last night it rained here (6mm), after 7 weeks without a drop, and 7 weeks ago we only had 4mm.
We are offically under drought conditions for the last two weeks.
My little stream which runs through the front of the farm has stopped. This is only the second time anyone can remember this happening (going back to about WW2). The last time was in august only 3 years ago.
Today, the 17th of May we will hit 30°C.
I thought it might be a good warning shot for those just north of me of the times ahead.
As I have mentioned before I am geographically a lot closer to many of you than some of you are to each other.
In fact it is one of the reasons I still follow this group, as the weather here is far more similar to yours than it is to the rest of france.
I have farming freinds down south that have relocated north.
We have put so much in place over the last two years to create some resilience for unusual weather patterns. But I am unsure if we are going fast enough.
Its a pants time of year to not have water as it is now when we should be building up a feed wedge for this summer.
Anyway I am not in panic mode. I have my hollistic plan, and therefore a drought reserve, which gives me some time to react.
Thanks to that I have feed options (both stockpile and stored) and cattle prices are high should I want to unload a few; and thanks to my plan I don't have to wait until its too late to start destocking. It is nice to have options.
(prefer to have some decent rain though)