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

[Sharpy]

Harrowing is really only needed to break up big lumps of dung or spilled slurry, historically when dung was spread by hand it was really needed. Rolling is needed for stones on cutting ground and for poached ground. Historically most fields would have one or two cattle in them all winter hence you had to roll the whole farm.

 

[tinsheet]

Just been reading the harrows, rollers, toppers thread.
Never was keen on any of them for regular use. Now with my holistic thinking I'm even more anti, thinking an electric fence and livestock are the answer.
But I've kept quiet, I'm still a newbie on all this

Dito!

 

[Treg]

When I went Organic I read lots of literature saying not to chain harrow , so I didn't do any for 3 yrs . I noticed less & less clover in the swards so started chain harrowing again ( only in the right weather conditions & only once per field/ year ) & the clover returned.
It's one of those jobs that has to be done at the right time or it's pointless & those here saying about it's just about fun time in the tractor, that's ridiculous, our ancestors would have spent hours walking behind a horse chain harrowing , don't think they did that for fun or to keep up with the neighbours.

 

[Treg]

And rolling! Have refused to round bale one farmers silage because he doesn't roll.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

When I went Organic I read lots of literature saying not to chain harrow , so I didn't do any for 3 yrs . I noticed less & less clover in the swards so started chain harrowing again ( only in the right weather conditions & only once per field/ year ) & the clover returned.
It's one of those jobs that has to be done at the right time or it's pointless & those here saying about it's just about fun time in the tractor, that's ridiculous, our ancestors would have spent hours walking behind a horse chain harrowing , don't think they did that for fun or to keep up with the neighbours.

Do you have sheep?

 

[Treg]

Do you have sheep?

No sheep here

 

[texas pete]

https://www.savory.global/climate-c...ns43brqibsd86rXGB_6Sa8_AzJlRYHJfe3gY55V8YhOzc

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Do you have sheep?

Ah is that why you need harrows?

 

[Henarar]

Ah is that why you need harrows?

harrows are probably cheaper

 

[Treg]

harrows are probably cheaper

That's exactly what I was going to put

 

[Poorbuthappy]

 

[Poorbuthappy]

To get back to business, I've been moving the lambing ewes (doubles and triplets) more or less every day this year. Dividing with a single wire.
Only about 40 left in this mob.
Good covers here now but there'll be 150 + doubles to rotate around and either some sucklers or 22 heifers to go with them so think it'll be easy enough to get on top of it.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Should say I leave the lambed ewes behind each day, and have started bunching them up as they get older now.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Today the comms module on the electric fencer proved it's value. An alert arrived while I was 7 miles away in town.

As the police say "I proceeded to the location of the report in a timely manner and conducted an investigation". The directional fence tester soon tracked it down to this loose barbed wire which had snagged the electric conductor:

The cattle hadn't even noticed

While investigating I noticed this patch of plants I've not seen here before:

They look like small nettles but don't sting and taste herby.

 

[Henarar]

that is the very rare and valuable herby nettle

some sort of dead nettle ?

 

[Samcowman]

Today’s shift. Off the piece on the left. They had been there about 2 and a half days and taken a bit much for my liking. Probably taken nearly half can tell that from the colour of it as much as anything. The next one is going to have about a day and a half and we can see what the difference is in regrowth. Entry on the right is 2800.

 

[Ukjay]

Since we have gone no spray and gone sheep grazing and sh!t chucking, we are seeing new vegetation that has not been visible prior to this year (before sheep go back on) anyone know what they are:

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Since we have gone no spray and gone sheep grazing and sh!t chucking, we are seeing new vegetation that has not been visible prior to this year (before sheep go back on) anyone know what they are:

View attachment 788810

View attachment 788816

View attachment 788820

View attachment 788824

Plants, probably

I don't know. We are seeing the bottom one too. I must do some research.......

 

[Ukjay]

Plants, probably

I don't know. We are seeing the bottom one too. I must do some research.......

Funny you say that, the one on the second from bottom does look similar to a variagated pot plant

The pinky flower ones have what looks like nettle leaves, but never seen pink flowers on nettles before..

 

[Samcowman]

Since we have gone no spray and gone sheep grazing and sh!t chucking, we are seeing new vegetation that has not been visible prior to this year (before sheep go back on) anyone know what they are:

View attachment 788810

View attachment 788816

View attachment 788820

View attachment 788824

Plants, probably

I don't know. We are seeing the bottom one too. I must do some research.......

Dead nettle.
Not sure
Buttercup?
We have some fields we rent where we graze some silage some and hay 2 which are side by side. 3 years ago I started grazing one of the hay fields and they had been hay or silage for 10+ years at that point and as you can imagine there were heaps of buttercups out there. Absolutely filthy with them. It’s amazing what a couple of years grazing on a sort of rotation can do to a field. The hay one next door is the same as it was. The now grazed one is looking a lot better now. Just got to stop the bloody dog walkers letting the cattle out. Once already this year they have been in the hay field