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

[Treg]

Any rain up north yet?

We have had season-changing rainfall here. Still about 60mm shy of last year's rainfall (calendar year) but that has halved due to some decent systems brushing on the wet stuff.
Has it ended your grazing for cattle or how's it all looking?

Here, the grass is turning now. And with the rain it has meant I can tighten up the stock a little, and so I have been - not so much via fencing cells but herding them around on bigger areas.
Doesn't take dairy bulls long to get animal impact happening!View attachment 740276 View attachment 740278 and the poo says it all really - these lads are living the dream, and leaving plenty for the little guys.
Average over the 83 bulls over 18 days is 1.9kg/day.
I weighed my heifers too, just for reference, I think I will eat the herefords maybe and just breed from my 4 shorthorns and Lily the limxView attachment 740280 as I think I will have better cows than the herefords will be, they never have really caught up.View attachment 740282
Still have 10 on milk and the rest are weaned - and on the silage paddocks living it up.

But the weather is: hot, cold, fine, rainy, hailing, and windy. Back to normal.

Still strip grazing all cattle here, good grass growth for the last few weeks, I was concerned by grazing the cow's later I'd be reducing the grazing for Youngstock over the winter but it's growing back well. Cow' s with calves are in by night but weather suppose to be turning alot colder this week, though still remaining dry which helps this time of year .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What app is that Pete? It looks like a nice clear display.

It's the Yr app. Seems to be one of the more accurate ones, as in the forecast ahead is only as good as anyone's but they seem to be constantly updating the info.

I do like that view as you can see what's what. Certainly not joking about wind, at the moment, it woke me from my sleep

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Still strip grazing all cattle here, good grass growth for the last few weeks, I was concerned by grazing the cow's later I'd be reducing the grazing for Youngstock over the winter but it's growing back well. Cow' s with calves are in by night but weather suppose to be turning alot colder this week, though still remaining dry which helps this time of year .

Excellent
How do you normally plan your youngstock grazing for winter?

 

[Treg]

Excellent
How do you normally plan your youngstock grazing for winter?

Normally do fogage for Youngstock over winter, so start putting fields aside the beginning of September (usually get a good autumn flush here ) but didn't really get decent rain until October.
The Youngstock then start to join the herd Jan / Feb so only one group at turn out mid March/ April ( weaned calves in doors with turnout usually a couple of weeks after the rest of the herd ).
By strip grazing, the grass on the rest of the farm has caught up , now have grazing in front the Youngstock until Feb.
Cow's & calves are a different matter, although there's grass infront of them their more weather dependant ( as in young calves can't stand cold wind / rain- very exposed farm ( trees grow with a lean ) ) .

The plan is to keep strip grazing Cow's & calves until 1st December when then they can go on full winter ration (silage + minerals ) , if weather stays good will keep strip grazing them to save silage for March /April ( I know what weather I've got now , unfortunately I don't know what's coming in March /April & the last few years those months have got colder! ).

 

[sidjon]

yea water is getting expensive for us in the winter, we have springs in some of the fields that run in to troughs but we can't get it to the sheds.
going to look at pumping if from the stream as you can use so much per day with no licence

This maybe worth a look, gonna try it next year.
http://www.solarpumpsolutions.ie

 

[Karliboy]

@Kiwi Pete
Correct me if I’m wrong
1.9 kg per day / 83 = 23 grams per day It doesn’t sound a lot ?
Or is every beast growing 1.9kg per day? Which sounds a excessive to me.
I don’t weigh cattle so I don’t know what’s a good or bad gain for grass fed as I only sell as stores.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

@Kiwi Pete
Correct me if I’m wrong
1.9 kg per day / 83 = 23 grams per day It doesn’t sound a lot ?
Or is every beast growing 1.9kg per day? Which sounds a excessive to me.
I don’t weigh cattle so I don’t know what’s a good or bad gain for grass fed as I only sell as stores.

I would presume Pete is talking 1.9kg per bull per day.
That is perfectly achievable in an intensive finishing system on concentrates, but is a tremendous result off grass - all credit to him.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

@Kiwi Pete
Correct me if I’m wrong
1.9 kg per day / 83 = 23 grams per day It doesn’t sound a lot ?
Or is every beast growing 1.9kg per day? Which sounds a excessive to me.
I don’t weigh cattle so I don’t know what’s a good or bad gain for grass fed as I only sell as stores.

Huge variation as my scales do tend to float around a bit, and can't be exact
One was 59kg heavier than previous, another was 50, another 15... but that's the average over both mobs.
Last year our AA steers were doing about 2.2 and the bulls about 1.8 per day - I am wary of pushing them too hard and having undesirable things happen - as @Blaithin touched on things like waterbelly can be an issue (part of the reason for switching to non-castrated cattle)

But even in our "drought" last year we averaged about 1.6kg for the year - a good guideline really, I will aim to keep them around there as a good balance between quality/quantity in the pasture - absolutely no point feeding them too hard then running shy of feed in my system.

Being a low cost type operation it isn't as simple as buying in feed, it really means adjusting stocking rates for us (a ton of feed barley would be the profit of 3 cattle, so a no-go)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Interestingly (maybe) most dairy cows here would be producing a similar amount of milksolids, per day, they possibly peak at 2.1-2.2 then ease back as pasture quality decreases and gain condition - their fibre requirement increases all lactation up to around 45% by the end

So in many respects I am attempting to do about the same, but not as simply as they simply cannot intake enough forage now, and then the demand eventually outstrips supply, but if a friesian heifer can produce 330kgMS then a bull theoretically can gain 330kg LWT.

"Should" being a dangerous word, in the countryside.... but dairy bulls should be capable, their genetics having been selected purely for production from forage for donkey's years.

My livestock agent has an interesting rule of thumb: whatever my stock weigh at end of November should be their carcass weight by May, and he was not far off!

I think @tinsheet has a similar system to what we do here.

 

[Karliboy]

Thanks for that @Poorbuthappy that was exactly what I was thinking too.
Wish I could get out off my grasslands what you are @Kiwi Pete one day maybe.

 

[Farmer Roy]

@Kiwi Pete
Correct me if I’m wrong
1.9 kg per day / 83 = 23 grams per day It doesn’t sound a lot ?
Or is every beast growing 1.9kg per day? Which sounds a excessive to me.
I don’t weigh cattle so I don’t know what’s a good or bad gain for grass fed as I only sell as stores.

Err, I don't have livestock
But - 1.5 - 2kg a day from grazing systems here ( Australia ) is quite achievable.
Petes results are good, but certainly not excessive nor unrealistic

 

[Farmer Roy]

We do have a very large feedlot beef industry here, but a LOT of cattle are also "grass finished" without any grains / hay / silage or supplements

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Thanks for that @Poorbuthappy that was exactly what I was thinking too.
Wish I could get out off my grasslands what you are @Kiwi Pete one day maybe.

A fair component is due to length of grazing season, and selection pressure - nothing here (NZ) is really fed anything other than pasture, so stock have to perform on it alone.
If I had the desire to push a group harder I certainly could, but there is money to be made at beef - at $4.60/kg with minimal variable costs it compares OK with dairy, with more costs and more revenue.

It can't compete with sheep, but if I were to run 3x as many my costs wouldn't stay as low - some diversity is key, but I didn't aim to buy myself a fulltime job.

 

[Farmer Roy]

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Err, I don't have livestock
But - 1.5 - 2kg a day from grazing systems here ( Australia ) is quite achievable.
Petes results are good, but certainly not excessive nor unrealistic

Yeah, I would have thought most suitable cattle here would be doing at least 1.5kg/day, even as topping machines on sheep stations, unless feed was in very short supply.
It's all down to what you get paid for and select for, to a degree?
Possibly same deal with my lamb growth rates etc, the sheep aren't bred for looks but to make money from grass - which they must do

But I am gaining an understanding of other contexts, where particular traits may be more important to profit than simply making meat from sun and water - like muscularity or even coat colour or other genetic material

 

[Farmer Roy]

I am always surprised that the Brits are always surprised that we get growth rates like that without grain or silage or telehandlers or diesel
Just another one of those unfair advantages I guess

 

[Kiwi Pete]

An animal is only going to gain so much weight. Concentrates definitely can give amazing response especially on what I would think of as "oversize" cattle, purely due to the actual capacity of the rumen and their maintenance requirement being so large - but they are designed to cycle bulky feed so there's a clue

It's all about energy conversion - bigger leaves capture more energy from the sun I found my cattle gained a lot more last year when feed quality had gone off, they aren't lambs!! So they don't need lamb food.

I dunno, I am certainly no expert farmer or beef finisher. Just a gate opener!

 

[Farmer Roy]

Don't worry, I'm sure there are plenty of experts ready to tell you what you are doing wrong

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I am always surprised that the Brits are always surprised that we get growth rates like that without grain or silage or telehandlers or diesel
Just another one of those unfair advantages I guess

No, I think it is mainly the appearance of animals booming eating what looks like "dead on its feet" grass.
Ruminants are incredibly adaptive creatures, absolutely captivating in my opinion because they are so obviously a mobile microbe commune all balanced on 8 big pointy toes.
Hence they are wired to be wasteful- "conservation ag" - they trample, defecate on their food, they paw at the soil, they keep moving and drop heaps of litter as they forage.
Farm in tune with that, and it is little work.

Don't worry, I'm sure there are plenty of experts ready to tell you what you are doing wrong

Oh, there's plenty of scope to improve their performance, I think we all know that.

But I am interested in profit per acre from MY lifestyle, and regenerating MY landscape etc and wasted most of last summer's stockpile

YOU did question it at the time.....

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Err, I don't have livestock
But - 1.5 - 2kg a day from grazing systems here ( Australia ) is quite achievable.
Petes results are good, but certainly not excessive nor unrealistic

1.2kg/day would be considered a good average per day off grass here.
Grazing management would have an influence on that, but genetics too.
Some of us want to do things differently though