- Location
- Devon
I'm not saying it doesn't work at all, just it's not 100% effective.
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
Mind you Wiki says a bloke died because he cooked hes chips in it instead of cooking oil , 
so dont keep it in the kitchen cupboard, my advice
so dont keep it in the kitchen cupboard, my advice 
Mind you Wiki says a bloke died because he cooked hes chips in it instead of cooking oil ,
One Wouldve thought they tasted funny wouldnt one but perhaps wasnt a very good cook and were used to it tasting carp ....
Just amazing that someone would store it in their kitchen, presumably next to the cooking oil.One Wouldve thought they tasted funny wouldnt one but perhaps wasnt a very good cook and were used to it tasting carp ....
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I think @davieh3350 was using diatomaceous earth + sulphur with good results?
Lice definitely don't hack DE, in fact no insects stand it. I still have a bare patch where the 'dust bath' used to be
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
A chap near here has long selected for parasite resistance (both internal and external) and discussing this with him last time he came, he said breeding out lice susceptibility was 'a walk in the park' compared to internal parasites.
It's staggering what head removal can achieve, or to be more to the point, what lax culling + drug reliance has allowed into the flock.
He said 5 years of culling would remove 95% of most problem animals re dagginess, fly strike and lice
I’ve read that you have host animals that always are carriers for lice. They’re the ones that continuously reinfect the herd.
If you can identify and cull the carriers you should be able to have nonexistent lice issues.
Lice are a common issue here. Worms not so much. I don’t know if it’s because most pour ons cover internals as well so when they’re dosed for lice the internals get a kick too or what the reasoning is. But rarely do I ever remember looking at an animal and thinking “it needs wormed”. Except the odd pail calf in which case most of the time it was hay belly and not worms anyway.
Mom has horror stories of having to pop grubs out of the cows backs when she was growing up. Consensus is that ivomec has nearly eliminated that issue. Can’t say I’d really want to go back to grub popping... Not sure if a weaning off of pour ons and breeding for lice and work resistance would help against grubs. Probably on some level, they just are so rare now that I have no experience with them.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I know it's no excuse for poor welfare practices but you have to ask sometimes, "what would happen to this individual if it was left alone" and most times it would simply die.
That's the cue to simply cull, culling the lamb/calf is also a good idea
Worms could be a problem here, I assume the lack of prevalence is simply due to how inhospitable your environment is to larvae? More a softcock climate problem, helped out by softcock grazing techniques which see animals returning too soon (or never leaving)
That's the cue to simply cull, culling the lamb/calf is also a good idea
Worms could be a problem here, I assume the lack of prevalence is simply due to how inhospitable your environment is to larvae? More a softcock climate problem, helped out by softcock grazing techniques which see animals returning too soon (or never leaving)
Plenty of insects here. They’re just the ones that would live through hell freezing over.
Because of work I was looking up rusty grain beetles once. If the grain temperature is -15 it has to stay that way for 4 weeks to kill the f**kers. If the grain is only -5 it takes 12 weeks! It has to be effing cold for grain temps to get that low.
That’s part of the reason we’re having Mountain Pine Beetle issues. It has to stay a below certain temperatures for extended periods of time to kill them. Can’t get get it -40 for a day and say “Oh they’re dead!” and we aren’t getting the extended cold we used too.
Yeah I keep mine in front room by the telly
- Location
- Derbyshire UK
Stand by your beds! Remember this farming PR disaster?
Now have a butchers
Once over with the power harrow, intended to jingle some seed on but didn't got round to it! Never seen Plantain (Rib Grass) with such big leaves, amazing the seedbank in old permanent pasture.
Now have a butchers
Once over with the power harrow, intended to jingle some seed on but didn't got round to it! Never seen Plantain (Rib Grass) with such big leaves, amazing the seedbank in old permanent pasture.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Yeah, but what I was really referring to is your short growing season is short for a reason.
Lots of dry and lots of cold, lots of heat compared to us.
Here I'd say 10+ months is 'growing season', ie humid and temperate. Grazing systems rely on that continuity and I'd expect parasites thrive as a result of this.
Certainly the two-legged parasites do....
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Bit more seed than pounds per acre, yes?
Looks good now, interestingly the same happens here anywhere we've damaged plantain pops up
RushesToo
Member
- Location
- Fingringhoe
Not really. I know it seems odd but if you are a parasite that expects 20c in summer and -30c in winter - it's what you expect and you are good at it.
Vary from this and they will suffer, break the cycle they normally use and ditto.
Just because we have parasites that like moist & temperate under estimates their ability to adapt to constants. A constant can be "repel 'mectins" - but that is as stupid as not controllling vectors [which interestingly they will also adapt to...]
And so it continues.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
This is true.
Even a 4 month break without sheep makes a massive difference here, so based on that I was suggesting an 8 month break would also make a difference?
RushesToo
Member
- Location
- Fingringhoe
It's complicated.....
When an oganism is exposed to a selection pressure and some of the population survives, the genes that were selected by the high death rate are in the population.
When that specific pressure is removed the genes continue to exist, but may not be used. For the organism there are costs associated*. There are the triggers that turn the gene on, and the fact that this is taking up space on DNA.
If there is no benefit to the gene in the DNA, then it will likely get diluted in the offpring and gradually have no purpose or relevance and mostly become redundant. Exposing the organism to the diease again will swiftly remove from the population those that have not got, or have forgottent how to turn on the gene.
It is a war, small battles are won - but this is what Darwin theorised. To win takes an enourmous amount of scientific knowledge and a determination on a global scale to eliminate these things. It has happened for humans. The war on smallpox is won. Stupid people are stopping us winning against Polio and a few others.
To my knowledge it has only once been achieved in anaimal - and that is with Rinderpest. http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/empres/plowright_080410.htm
*Sickle cell aneamia still exists because although it kills - people with it are more likely to survive malaria. This is what high selection pressure looks like. It is damaging, but keeps the next geneeration going.
When an oganism is exposed to a selection pressure and some of the population survives, the genes that were selected by the high death rate are in the population.
When that specific pressure is removed the genes continue to exist, but may not be used. For the organism there are costs associated*. There are the triggers that turn the gene on, and the fact that this is taking up space on DNA.
If there is no benefit to the gene in the DNA, then it will likely get diluted in the offpring and gradually have no purpose or relevance and mostly become redundant. Exposing the organism to the diease again will swiftly remove from the population those that have not got, or have forgottent how to turn on the gene.
It is a war, small battles are won - but this is what Darwin theorised. To win takes an enourmous amount of scientific knowledge and a determination on a global scale to eliminate these things. It has happened for humans. The war on smallpox is won. Stupid people are stopping us winning against Polio and a few others.
To my knowledge it has only once been achieved in anaimal - and that is with Rinderpest. http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/empres/plowright_080410.htm
*Sickle cell aneamia still exists because although it kills - people with it are more likely to survive malaria. This is what high selection pressure looks like. It is damaging, but keeps the next geneeration going.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Wee mob looks happy over there.
It'll be roughly 30 tonnes of ovine + 20 tonnes of bovine on 0.6ha, same story as their overnight break was, it's roughly working out right if we shift about 8pm and 10am.
Should put them back there early in the new year.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Could you show us some pictures of the fencing keeping those sheep nice and tight please ?
Next season I'm considering bringing sheep in to graze with the heifers to help with ragwort control. Should be a great deal easier than hand roguing assuming that I can keep them in.
Parasites here have plenty of growing season for their life cycles. They just can’t fit in as many life cycles per year as parasites in more temperate areas.
Mosquitoes for instance. Sure there’s no mosquitoes for 8 months of the year but their eggs and larvae can survive the winter and when the weather warms up, Bam, mosquitoes. Then they happily have however many lifecycle generations throughout the growing season until they go dormant and wait for warm weather again.
I think parasites are generally more prevalent here in the winter months just because of how many animals are fed and how they tend to like to eat the straw they’re bedded on. And have shat on. The cold doesn’t disrupt their lifecycle, they just wait for a host to eat up the eggs and away they go.
Mosquitoes for instance. Sure there’s no mosquitoes for 8 months of the year but their eggs and larvae can survive the winter and when the weather warms up, Bam, mosquitoes. Then they happily have however many lifecycle generations throughout the growing season until they go dormant and wait for warm weather again.
I think parasites are generally more prevalent here in the winter months just because of how many animals are fed and how they tend to like to eat the straw they’re bedded on. And have shat on. The cold doesn’t disrupt their lifecycle, they just wait for a host to eat up the eggs and away they go.