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

crashbox

Member
Livestock Farmer
Any "alternative" tips on sorting a weedy reseed?

Got one here, normally avoid spring reseeds but didn't have a lot of choice. Herbs and clover so spray not an option.

My thought: let it get strong then mob stock it on AM and PM shifts with yearlings to bash down the weeds...
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Any "alternative" tips on sorting a weedy reseed?

Got one here, normally avoid spring reseeds but didn't have a lot of choice. Herbs and clover so spray not an option.

My thought: let it get strong then mob stock it on AM and PM shifts with yearlings to bash down the weeds...
Not that I have any good suggestions, but what kind of weeds are the problem?
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Any "alternative" tips on sorting a weedy reseed?

Got one here, normally avoid spring reseeds but didn't have a lot of choice. Herbs and clover so spray not an option.

My thought: let it get strong then mob stock it on AM and PM shifts with yearlings to bash down the weeds...
That’s what I would do. I had one last year that was a spring seed and dirty and just strip grazed them down it. Looking strong this year
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I think you're right. These things have happened before. All the old timers here will talk of the great drought of 76. or the great flood of blah bla.

But its now most years, so it's becoming the norm.

You don't have to listen to the experts. We can see it on our farms. Things flowering earlier, and the first cut of hay is nearly always in may. When before you would be impressed to do any hay before july.

As farmers we can see the species change, we are outside all the time. Animals from down south now settling here over winter. Other species are moving north.



Far from that yet. I have grazed some summer stockpile and I have plenty of hay left over from last year.
If I forcast feeding hay this summer (which is easy to do when we are grazing stockpile) then the date will be set for the animals to go then.

The animals which potentially may have to go have already been chosen.

Besides stocked feed is going to be costly to make this year. So a couple of animals less while the price is high may not be a bad thing.

and it is only may. So if it gets to raining, I might still end up with too much grass. Such are the joys of farming.
Maybe we are "the experts"??

I mean our newsreader in the city isn't affected by whether our forecast is good or bad, but if I get it wrong my ass gets wet or burnt

"a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one"
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
But with rotations like that you will not achieve 100 (or a long) days rest?
I would just run them all together as long as the cows behave themselves and not hurt the sheep and lambs.
Running a single herd/mob saves so much time and you can still maintain the longest possible recovery period.
With a fulltime job to me labour is more of a restriction than space.
Yes, so would I. I thought the idea was to take something simple and effective (flash grazing with all the animals we can muster) and then make more work and lengthen the graze period 'as a solution'

I would aim for a minimum 6 weeks between grazings, but that's because I see how much grass regrows overnight here

edit

maybe that's my purist part coming through, we had OK results with 10-12 grazing days per year, but it's much better as you trim that down.. eg at least a hundred dollars per acre "better" in terms of extra grazing days, factor in no silaging and its more like $240/ac/year

and less workload

maybe the leader-follower thing works better if you give the leaders a few hours' head start then combine them, then skip the sheep ahead through the gate / fence again and repeat?
 
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Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Annual meadow grass and chickweed mainly.
Also bare patches from lack of take, that more weeds will appear in...
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FB1C60C4-B288-4A9E-B01E-6E8F99152A7C.jpeg

this is the field I said about. Did think I could have been in here earlier but actually it’s looking ok. This group of 30 cows and their calves are having half an acre/day.
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
many farmers looking at that, would call it a mess, while we might know better, it would put many farmers off trying it. And perhaps that's a reason for the low acreage grown.
it would be interesting to see photo's of grazing land, pre fert usage.
Guessing at it really still. No fert on here and they are harvesting approx 3000kg DM/hectare this visit. The thistles will be grubbed out when I remember the grubber to keep it a bit tidier.
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Yes, so would I. I thought the idea was to take something simple and effective (flash grazing with all the animals we can muster) and then make more work and lengthen the graze period 'as a solution'

I would aim for a minimum 6 weeks between grazings, but that's because I see how much grass regrows overnight here

edit

maybe that's my purist part coming through, we had OK results with 10-12 grazing days per year, but it's much better as you trim that down.. eg at least a hundred dollars per acre "better" in terms of extra grazing days, factor in no silaging and its more like $240/ac/year

and less workload

maybe the leader-follower thing works better if you give the leaders a few hours' head start then combine them, then skip the sheep ahead through the gate / fence again and repeat?
In the end it all comes down to context. If like @Boso you are limited by time then one big group fits even if it slightly reduces performance on some stock. If you have a bit more time and really want those dairy bred R1s to perform being the most sensitive stock on farm followed a day later by bigger cattle then that’s fine as well.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
In the end it all comes down to context. If like @Boso you are limited by time then one big group fits even if it slightly reduces performance on some stock. If you have a bit more time and really want those dairy bred R1s to perform being the most sensitive stock on farm followed a day later by bigger cattle then that’s fine as well.
in other words, the system is flexible :)
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
Not particularly noticeable in the pictures but the pp is really thick here and cows seem to be really enjoying it. Perhaps a little immature yet as dung is still a little loose but its spring so its perhaps going to happen. Had a very growthy few weeks here, quite wet and mild. Everyone seems to be mentioning drought conditions lately. Frankly had enough rain here for quite some time, a couple of fields are on a fine line with being wet but they are fairly hopeless cases anyway!

this group is a little experimental this year, there is 46 cows and calves here. Planning on turning two bulls into them this year to see how ‘mob breeding’ goes!!?? There is a lot of questions, how will they get on? Will they be more interested in themselves than the cows?? How do you tell calves apart when they’ve calved….do we need to??? But if you don’t try you’ll never know!

6B50AD95-41CB-47B8-AF90-84382589A5AD.jpeg
5BB019A1-B5FF-49B3-A660-4ED54C7E7FEA.jpeg
35FC2CB6-9D5B-44E1-B207-6909ED6E48B2.jpeg
 
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Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
How long before they come back around to this paddock?
for the bulls together if one is big and one a. 2 year old they will fairly happy. The problems usually come with 2 evenly matched mature bulls that haven’t been together before l, but not always. Usually run bulls in pairs here without problems. Doesn’t matter if you can’t tell the sire of the calves. Even for a sire scheme I just have the boss bull as the registered sire then write on the passport name A or name B.
With a new bull quite often I will let him have a couple of weeks maybe with a group so I can see what the calves are like that are definitely his.
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
How long before they come back around to this paddock?
for the bulls together if one is big and one a. 2 year old they will fairly happy. The problems usually come with 2 evenly matched mature bulls that haven’t been together before l, but not always. Usually run bulls in pairs here without problems. Doesn’t matter if you can’t tell the sire of the calves. Even for a sire scheme I just have the boss bull as the registered sire then write on the passport name A or name B.
With a new bull quite often I will let him have a couple of weeks maybe with a group so I can see what the calves are like that are definitely his.
Yes we’ve tried to amalgamate bulls at times but have fought too much, think they were too evenly matched. Going to try with a fairly mature bull and a home bred bull who we used for the first time last summer.

This is the first grazing of this field and i would imagine there is somewhere in the region of 50 days hopefully before they return. 🤞
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
How long before they come back around to this paddock?
for the bulls together if one is big and one a. 2 year old they will fairly happy. The problems usually come with 2 evenly matched mature bulls that haven’t been together before l, but not always. Usually run bulls in pairs here without problems. Doesn’t matter if you can’t tell the sire of the calves. Even for a sire scheme I just have the boss bull as the registered sire then write on the passport name A or name B.
With a new bull quite often I will let him have a couple of weeks maybe with a group so I can see what the calves are like that are definitely his.
How many cows would you be putting to two bulls?
 

jack6480

Member
Location
Staffs
Hello could someone please give me a rough estimate of how many acres would be needed to successfully keep 120 ewes plus 150 lambs happy. As my plan at this year seems to be lacking in both length of rest plus slow grass growth
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Hello could someone please give me a rough estimate of how many acres would be needed to successfully keep 120 ewes plus 150 lambs happy. As my plan at this year seems to be lacking in both length of rest plus slow grass growth
That's a bit of a how long is a piece of string question.
But say 5 ewes an acre til weaning as a ball park. More if using much fert or particularly good ground. Less if poorer/ dry ground, or very big ewes.
Also depends what you have in front of you at the start.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 81 42.2%
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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.6%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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