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

[Poorbuthappy]

Generally I'm going for what's been talked about on here as total grazing. Resting for long enough that it's clean enough to take right down to nothing.

Now that the 'power' has come back into the ground, will start trying to extract a little more from it. After all although it's nice to see improved ground, we're improving it for ourselves to benefit not to save the planet. I'm confident that any 'damage' inadvertently done can be put right.

Can you do that total graze with ewes and lambs? Mine get incredibly fidgety if its got much stem.
How often are you moving them?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

this

About 70% of what we're grazing at the moment is "new grass" so timeframes apparently matter more than methodology.
The cowpats don't get the same attention from birds when you reduce the parasite load by slowing down to a crawl, so they turn into little "hills" of grass instead of being exploded by bird activity

.. this would have been the most unlikely season ever here to get a successful 'grass to grass' thing to work with drills and sprays so (to me anyway) it demonstrates just how well it must have worked in tough environments over time.

We did do some "frost" seeding although it didn't really get much frost-action, and it worked well - just not "fast" and again it took a slowing-down to really see much evidence of that effort.

But, you wouldn't drill corn, combine it every 3 weeks for the next year and expect much out of it... well you can expect it, but you won't get it.

I think overseeding etc can be really successful to the extent that I comfortably took all the other options out of the toolbox with the farm redesign.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Can you do that total graze with ewes and lambs? Mine get incredibly fidgety if its got much stem.
How often are you moving them?

Sheep are made for the job, to be honest here damn near all sheep farms here are 80% there, they just don't have any plan to mob-up the sheep or rest their pastures nearly enough to get the benefits of it - hence the grasses are beat down and seed at 4 inches tall from the stress of too-short rest periods and nonexistent herd effect.

They could look at any gateway and observe the effects of improving herd effect, but they want peer-reviewed science and a fertiliser bill.

Makes me wonder how they learnt how to make toast the way they like it

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Sheep are made for the job, to be honest here damn near all sheep farms here are 80% there, they just don't have any plan to mob-up the sheep or rest their pastures nearly enough to get the benefits of it - hence the grasses are beat down and seed at 4 inches tall from the stress of too-short rest periods and nonexistent herd effect.

They could look at any gateway and observe the effects of improving herd effect, but they want peer-reviewed science and a fertiliser bill.

Makes me wonder how they learnt how to make toast the way they like it

I thought you got rid of them cos they didn't fit the system?
The cattle are easy.
Mob stocking sheep seems to me to need small paddocks with full stock fences

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I thought you got rid of them cos they didn't fit the system?
The cattle are easy.
Mob stocking sheep seems to me to need small paddocks with full stock fences

All it really needs is mobs that fit the paddock sizes and that infrastructure is usually in place - but running 14 mobs instead of 1 or 2 stops it "happening"

I really got rid of the sheep for the reason that it's easier to do "regenerative grazing" without the constraints of "farming" - fitting farming around the grazing principles brings results.
Fitting grazing principles around farming brings excuses and reasons why it can't work, and excuses don't make me rich.

And, sheep have been stuffed by farmers pushing for performance under open grazing conditions and using "bandaids" too much - I prefer dairy calves because they haven't been wrecked so much (other than hoof conformation via a lack of culling for that) so they stay out on the land the whole year other than the day they're PD'd.

Once they learn "we're a herd" then a piece of white baler-string does the work of a team of dogs,, they don't get nailed by flies or need dragged to the dead-sheep hole.

But if sheep are what you want to be doing, they are fine

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://www.facebook.com/RealWealthRanching/photos/a.818798968744842/1077846486173421

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Richard is about 40 minutes drive from here

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Generally I'm going for what's been talked about on here as total grazing. Resting for long enough that it's clean enough to take right down to nothing.

Now that the 'power' has come back into the ground, will start trying to extract a little more from it. After all although it's nice to see improved ground, we're improving it for ourselves to benefit not to save the planet. I'm confident that any 'damage' inadvertently done can be put right.

Season makes a difference too I think.

As I've seen, plenty drag the electric fencing out of the back of the shed once they're running out of cover and then decide it all "sucks" and gives poor return on time/energy. But if they put the same input into it during the growing season it would do more than keep the wolf from the door, things would transform quickly and give lasting benefits in the way of plant physiology/ landscape function / reduction in costs.

It's just hard to get out of the old habits (like taking area out for cropping, baleage, reseeding) when everything is parked all over the rest of it, using every part of the available energy to grow lambs fast

 

[Henarar]

Are you saying you've gone completely against the idea of trampling Pete?

I don't think you can can you ?
Its bound to happen, more so in any system grazing higher covers unless you can invent the hover cow and even then they will still sh!t on some which will end up in the ground.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Are you saying you've gone completely against the idea of trampling Pete?

Sorry, missed the alert for this one.

Depends what "trampling" looks like really.

Putting mobs into hay paddocks and leaving most of it lodged, yeah I had given that idea up before I started. That's more an idea for annual covercrop grazing. We can't do that for long.

Perennial pastures I like to nip off fairly well, because there's next time and next time and next time. One-hit wonders, then yes leave a sheet of residue.

At the density we run it's guaranteed that some will get stomped down but it's not the goal - getting decent harvest efficiency and trampling "what is left uneaten" is closer to my intention.

Something like this is OK, it was pouring down when they were in here, probably 30mm in 6 hours?

 

[Woolless]

well, we don't follow the 3 leaf jobbers, and we have started to feed hay to the cows, to eke out the grass, are we following the wrong path ?

l get a lot of stick for feeding/leaving longer covers, but, if we didn't, we would have been feeding extra 2/3 weeks ago. There again, perhaps we should have fed hay, several weeks ago, certainly improves constituents in the milk, and therefore price. The other effect it would have, is it would make the cows lazy, instead of 'foraging', they would wait, impatiently, by the gate, to come in for their 'buffer' feed, which would soon turn into the diet feeder, straights, and silage.

One hears a lot about how holstiens won't graze, load of codswallop, they will, just as uncles jerseys would graze standing hay, all a dry summer, and milk off it, it is only what cattle are 'taught' to eat. Just like those jerseys, if that is all there is to eat, they will eat it, and adjust to it, give them a choice, of a nice buffer feed, they will take the easy root, and wait, by the gate, milk drops, more buffer, until you are feeding a full ration 365 days.
There might be a 'moral' there, there is, perhaps we don't think about it, but we all 'train' are stock, to eat what we produce, in our systems, so they adapt, and produce from that, its that 'training', that makes or breaks our systems, worth pondering on that.

So the 3 leaf jobbers, are perfectly correct, because that is what their cows, have been trained to eat, and like uncles jerseys, standing hay, is what they had become used to.
Always surprises me with hay, you can cut grass, cattle would turn their noses up at, and with the help of sun, you turn it into something they love, funny animals, cows are.

My cows are taking a little while to 'learn' their new job. Previously when let into a new break, it would be heads straight down. Now, on sheep leftovers, they do a circuit of the new paddock just to check that there's not six inches of fresh stuff in one of the corners.

Ref old machinery, I would be confident that my Ford 4000 and 6610 are appreciating, or at the very least holding their own, in value. As my dad pointed out, this is of limited comfort when one will hardly start and the other one cuts out after ten minutes

 

[som farmer]

after last weeks heat wave, and the lack of the promised rain, we have been assessing our options, there is very definitely less grass, than a week ago, and what we have now, wouldn't last long at all. We found out the hard way, letting the cattle eat it right down, doesn't work, so, big decisions. What we have decided to do, is feed our red clover ley, companion rye grass is just headed and deaded. Bit of a risk with bloat, so carefully does it, we have given them 4 acres of hill, to run on, mainly plantain and clover, grass long gone. This is one of our cut only leys, so fudged that, but its maize next year.

What it will give us, is time, time for the grass to recover, rather than overgraze it, with a bit of luck, clover might give the milk a boost, 40ppl last month, this month, will be 2/3ppl more.
I don't know, if slow growth, is down to moisture, or lack of N. PRG, is useless here, at the moment, except on the 'bottom' fields, but the other grasses, are growing, albeit slowly, herbs are fine. Up to this last couple of weeks, we were fine with the grass, a bit of hay, to slow rotation down, great. This heatwave cooked it, its not only the lack of moisture, because we face mainly south, and exposed, its the hot wind, that finishes us off.

The big question is, what will it be like next year ? Perfectly happy with what we have done, sometimes think we should go fully herbal leys, those herbs keep growing, but that is a long term aim. Not sure we can ever beat that hot drying wind, whatever we try, even the r/c ley, looks a bit sick, where the wind catches it. Perhaps this year, has given us a clue, max early growth, to its full potential, fill the clamps early, leave as much as possible to graze all summer.
Rather think our decision to return to autumn calving, was correct. But where do we go from here ? Certain we have to look after our soil, perhaps improving soil, will hold moisture better, definitely look at more 'drought' resistant plants - tracked down, and ordered some sub clover, meant to be better on dry ground, and attempt to manage grazing better, it all grew together, so had to cut some. Not sure where the standing hay, for the dry cows, will be.
But then, life is never easy.

 

[Guleesh]

Are you using the mulch to try and create a weed free bed for the spuds to plant into?

yep, potatoes did really well in the veg plot that had wool mulch on over winter so tried it on ground that pigs had dug over. As others have said, grass is a lot harder to mulch out than leafy weeds.

 

[Jonny B88]

Richard is about 40 minutes drive from here

Richard is on jims fb page with me. He puts a lot of good stuff up. He also posted a pic of his electric bike and mentioned his mate has one and thinks its great….made me wander if it was you!

 

[Guleesh]

Can you do that total graze with ewes and lambs? Mine get incredibly fidgety if its got much stem.
How often are you moving them?

Not had much success with it when they're with lambs. Of course, lambs are here in summer and everything is too lush. I understand why @Kiwi Pete has taken the opinion to sheep as he has, 'sh!t show' I think he said if I remember rightly... I kind of agree, apologies if that wasn't what you said but I took that to be the gist of it....

We're basically grazing twice a year on the bits that are performing the poorest and three times on the stronger bits. It's as simple as allowing full summer growth of plants on the worst ground in order for maximum root growth and producing maximum litter. Take everything down as hard as possible in winter.

We're not really confined, like others that can stock and destock to suit growth, we can do the same as we use the fields to support our hill and can use the hill to take the weight off the fields when needed.

 

[Guleesh]

Can you do that total graze with ewes and lambs? Mine get incredibly fidgety if its got much stem.
How often are you moving them?

My current thinking is to have most of the in bye ground maximising plant growth but then designate a different part of the ground each year to run a more standard rotation, focussing on lamb growth and little else. The fertility is there for it, but it is extractive, and will most probably require some chemical. ( that's the bit I'm still struggling with) Need to find out what we can get away with, how much 'damage' it will do and how many years to get it back on track, so we get an idea of what % of ground we can 'extract' from in a year.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Not had much success with it when they're with lambs. Of course, lambs are here in summer and everything is too lush. I understand why @Kiwi Pete has taken the opinion to sheep as he has, 'sh!t show' I think he said if I remember rightly... I kind of agree, apologies if that wasn't what you said but I took that to be the gist of it....

We're basically grazing twice a year on the bits that are performing the poorest and three times on the stronger bits. It's as simple as allowing full summer growth of plants on the worst ground in order for maximum root growth and producing maximum litter. Take everything down as hard as possible in winter.

We're not really confined, like others that can stock and destock to suit growth, we can do the same as we use the fields to support our hill and can use the hill to take the weight off the fields when needed.

I don't think I said that in as many words, but that's about it -here

we aren't really set up with sheep yards and good drafting facilities, that was a big part of the clincher.
We aren't really well set up for cattle either BUT we don't need to be, and that's the difference.

Our cows calve by themselves, the heifers just go around and around and around and then away, so there isn't the same "work" load

they have become my 'elephants' and farming elephants is easy-peasy compared to sheeps.

@Poorbuthappy - the main thing to really consider is that grazing has only two kinds: selective and nonselective.
We can do selective grazing at any time (eg it pours with rain, or it's lambing/calving time) but it slowly erodes our wealth if we make it an objective or indeed "a goal".

That's why the goal is nonselective grazing, and why it is high on the list of goals, because we want to get somewhere with all the paddock-making and stock-shifting - otherwise it's just effort.
My observation about shutting the gate after the horse has bolted is aligned with this, it would make more sense to me to have all the ewes working hard in the summertime (post weaning) than when pregnant and when feed is scarce, or over lambing.

We rotated daily through lambing in an attempt to reduce grazing selectivity, but mainly to keep them ahead of their parasite problems and delay the "shitshow" of drenching lambs until they had left the ranch at weaning time - 'make it someone else's problem' is not a regenerative principle, but it is one of mine

Therefore we reached the understanding that we can go to one or the other extreme - do non-selective grazing + long recovery as well as possible, or the light + often grazing as well as possible.

The endpoint of nonselective grazing is "total grazing" and the endpoint of selective grazing is continuous grazing - which one works better in practice is obvious to me.

May as well not graze at all if "we want to leave grass behind", and then it's done.

Going back to the thistle observation it really seems symptomatic of "partial rest" and that's down to the overgrazing that total grazing puts to bed - you can do nonselective grazing and then screw the recovery (like most around here do) but the cycle of complete grazings and complete recovery (plus rest!!) is tranformative.

@Global ovine mentioned this years ago, I think his observation that this could be performed once every few years if done well, and I agree.

However there's always the question why we wouldn't make a habit of what works well.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Richard is on jims fb page with me. He puts a lot of good stuff up. He also posted a pic of his electric bike and mentioned his mate has one and thinks its great….made me wander if it was you!

I actually only added him on FB yesterday after finding that post that I linked here, but I have seen the odd post from him before and thought he was on the right track - it's in the questions we ask, not what we come up with?

I think electric bikes are the logical step TBH, I mean I got on mine this morning and it was frozen, no need to warm it up, just hop on and go and do and come back. If it was a petrol powered machine, at -7° I would have warmed it up and I would have been leaving about the time I heading back to work - multiply by 5 trips and you can see the savings.
Plus the lack of bits, plus the cheapness of running, plus they're so nice and nimble and quiet... I get about ten days riding for £2 of electricity.
My old bike would use that in chain-lube.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Remember a while back, I invited us to 'consider your "in-order-to"' and there will be many if we look. This picture shows us what that work can do - for example

In order to have stock density and manure distibution "handled", we made lots of contiguous and similar paddocks

In order to minimise the extractive nature of producing, we minimised producing

In order to solve "where does the fence go up?" they stay up

In order to have stock we can always lean on, we don't have lambs

In order to reduce our risk, we reduced our costs, use other peoples' money and tools where possible

In order to reduce drought risk, we graze like this so we can graze again in ten weeks or 10 months and it doesn't matter (but everything matters).

You guys will know more of my in order to's than I do, but isn't interesting to look there and see what runs us? These "mechanisms" are the degenerative part of our mindset.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Whenever these "mechanistic" thoughts turn into reality, it reinforces that we were "right" to think that nature behaves in a linear, predictable, machine-like way.

However nature doesn't always care about making us right, she keeps throwing up wildcards because that's how things came to evolve to do everything, some things catch curveballs and some things drop 'em as easily.

It's no failure to die trying. There isn't good and bad, only what is so, and death and decay are as important as life and vigour. We may decide to believe otherwise?

We might starve a profit into our business and have a massive missed opportunity, or we might cut all our silage and nature missed the weather forecast we based our "decision" on.

Nature is very fluid and gracious in her design, and I believe that we really need to understand that she is "right" and we think what we think about that.

That nature doesn't actually think shows that thinking is all our problem!