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

[Kiwi Pete]

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.

Too right it is easier.

I confess I had to put up a two-wire backfence to keep them from outspanning across what they'd already grazed/what I reserved for the cow/calf mob, but they're behind a single wire at about knee height. Because the grass is halfway there the gap isn't as obvious as you'd think.

I just use white Gallagher sheep treadins as even my shorty pigtails aren't visible enough or short enough; fine for the morning move but not so good in the twilight, they just don't see the fence until they're through it.
Ditto the red treadins and orange polywire.
So we just use white and white.

I was just using pigtails within the "lanes" over the weekend, because I had time I bunched them onto 1/4ha and moved them a couple of extra times for some thistle-controlling grass wasteage.
Plus I ran them up and down the lane half a dozen times for extra trample before letting them over..

Quite a bit of stem in here as I gave these fields a few extra days to help the clover thicken up

I will get a picture of the various wire/height combo's we find most effective for sheep+cattle though.
Generally 3 is a waste of time because the lowest wire is only 2 spots below where I have my single wire; sometimes due to contour I drop my nuts and put one on top because I can't believe the cattle won't just walk over the top of it.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Talking about the seed bank that is in the soil, I was apart of a conversation this morning about the very subject & someone was saying Christine Jones has done a PhD ( I think it was ) on the amount of seed contained in a sq m of soil . . .
had a quick look but couldn’t find it, will leave it to those interested to search it out

 

[Farmer Roy]

https://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/2019/12/03/regenerative-agriculture-as-a-tool-to-help-limit-climate-change/

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Good article, Steve is a quiet heavyweight

 

[Doc]

Your pour ons may be different. It’s a very generalized term here but most of them are some form of -mectin. Ivermectin, Bimectin, etc. and they absolutely are absorbed. That’s why there are meat withdrawals on the labels. For Ivomec it’s 51 days.

Boss is the main permethrin one here and while it doesn’t have a withdrawal time past one day it’s also the more expensive option. The -mectins are generally cheaper and provide worming as well, which is what alters the insects in the soil.

Cydectin is the only pour on that does internal and external parasites and doesn’t have a withdrawal period. That I know of anyway.

Either way, you can’t say pour on here and assume it’s an external parasite only product. Many of them are for internal use and are systemically absorbed.

Yes. They are different. Cattle vrs sheep pour ons.
Avermectins aren’t used in pour in form in sheep. The fleece inhibits absorption with these products.
However, with pyrethroid solutions, they actually bind to the lanolin and suint fats which helps spread the chemical around the skin surface. Systemic absorption negligible.

 

[Doc]

Sorry. Didn’t refresh page and I’m still on yesterday.
Without boring everyone too much about Lice in sheep. I love parasitology...
I agree with Blaithin the lice, that there are flock carriers and largely sheep can live with them unless stressed - feed, pregnancy, lameness issues etc. The routine off shears treatments for blowfly usually keep the flock louse numbers in check anyway.
warble fly has been Ivomec’d out of existence in the UK since the 1990’s.
Ivomecs aren’t all bad and were actually chemically derived from a soil bacteria. They have saved the sight of 100,000’s of people.
I did a bit of post grad bit work on these things last century.??

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Sorry. Didn’t refresh page and I’m still on yesterday.
Without boring everyone too much about Lice in sheep. I love parasitology...
I agree with Blaithin the lice, that there are flock carriers and largely sheep can live with them unless stressed - feed, pregnancy, lameness issues etc. The routine off shears treatments for blowfly usually keep the flock louse numbers in check anyway.
warble fly has been Ivomec’d out of existence in the UK since the 1990’s.
Ivomecs aren’t all bad and were actually chemically derived from a soil bacteria. They have saved the sight of 100,000’s of people.
I did a bit of post grad bit work on these things last century.??

It happens, Doc

With winter approaching the Northern hemisphere, I often forget to go on TFF for my daily dose of negativity, so we'll let you off!

We had lousy sheep here the first year, they were 'fencing old c#nts' that my father-in-law simply couldn't keep in his property, so he donated them.
All were lousy, their lambs were lousy too. So we were pleased to get rid.

Our ewe lambs were the complete opposite, of course the genetics have changed significantly (those old buggers were originally descended from a couple of orphan lambs my wife took home from a shearing shed as a wee girl, so interbred and inbred to heck) whereas the snowline/ranger/kelso sheep faced huge selection pressure over that timeframe.
More competition and more stress, perhaps, but they certainly didn't succumb to parasites the way those old biddies did.
The key with them was NOT TO UNDO all that selection by dosing anything with a dag, etc, which is the model my mate (who sold us the lambs) follows. It's just so easy to breed in trouble.
We actually had to get our ewe lambs marked early as 'seconds' before my mate began dosing them as lambs, to avoid the issue of reducing pressure on their bred-in ability to manage what farmers do to them

We did monitor FEC for a while just out of interest (and to justify the spend on a testing kit for the lad) but again FEC is so subjective.
I'd read on here about 500epg being a trigger point for intervention, but these sheep were stacking on weight at well over 2000epg - it was quite useful to use these subjects simply to test different grazing regimes.

Again, I'd read that grazing practices "make no real difference" to worm burdens etc, but our unscientific 'suck it and see' approach really showed that to be complete and utter twaddle. Residuals matter the most, recovery time also, but the greatest drop in FEC we discovered was via ramping up stocking density and moving more frequently - ie when they waste more than they ingest the FEC dropped to very low levels.
As utilisation "improved" then so did the epg, and very quickly. At 85% utilisation an overnight rain event doubled epg readings in 2 days, which shows the level of infestation present.
Certainly, as we don't use chemical controls I'd expect a lot of egg shedding but it did confirm that 6 inches is the danger zone, to us at least.

The ultimate response to this is to use far greater stock density than we were used to, (because nothing really likes being through a hammermill) as well as maintaining the sward more through hoof than tooth, which provides a large energy surplus through the ranch biome as a whole - less stress, more grass, by managing holistically

Just like it says on the tin.

 

[Doc]

Couldn’t agree more @Kiwi Pete.
Regular moves and decent sward heights will dilute larval numbers- less per bite and can interrupt life cycles. It’s the mimicking natural grazing patterns thing.
Use of natural anthelmintic plants is currently under study- chicory, sanfoin and trefoil all showing reduced FEC vrs control (prg and white clover) in groups of growing lambs. Results with various sward inclusion rates are due to be published in March by one group at Liverpool Uni.
I have spent many frustrating hours a month explaining to horse owners that worms are part of the deal for grazing herbivores and there is a big difference between infection and pathology. They try to worm the resistance right out of them.
Age groupings make a massive difference too. Mums are protective way beyond colostrum once the peripaturiuent relaxation of resistance wanes, as larval vacuums. There is a nice paper in j vet parasitol, showing this which I will try to link.
Sorry, Im a worm nerd and probably ruining the thread with babble..

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Couldn’t agree more @Kiwi Pete.
Regular moves and decent sward heights will dilute larval numbers- less per bite and can interrupt life cycles. It’s the mimicking natural grazing patterns thing.
Use of natural anthelmintic plants is currently under study- chicory, sanfoin and trefoil all showing reduced FEC vrs control (prg and white clover) in groups of growing lambs. Results with various sward inclusion rates are due to be published in March by one group at Liverpool Uni.
I have spent many frustrating hours a month explaining to horse owners that worms are part of the deal for grazing herbivores and there is a big difference between infection and pathology. They try to worm the resistance right out of them.
Age groupings make a massive difference too. Mums are protective way beyond colostrum once the peripaturiuent relaxation of resistance wanes, as larval vacuums. There is a nice paper in j vet parasitol, showing this which I will try to link.
Sorry, Im a worm nerd and probably ruining the thread with babble..

Good luck "ruining the thread with babble"



It's the babble that keeps all the riff-raff out!

I do enjoy my day job as it gets me out mingling with the locals.
One standout chap is young Alan W, he's well into his 80's now, a true gentleman. I was quizzing him on his pasture mix, and he said he's spent years and years perfecting it to avoid the need to run his several thousand ewes down the road to drench them.
"And with all these fecking tourists, Pete, it doesn't get easier as the years go by!"
And, the thing was he's gone in a complete full-circle, he's back to sowing what his gramps used to drill - sweet vernal, crested dogstail, fescue, browntop, yorkshire fog and a dribble of clover.
It was his experience: " this ryegrass is the problem, you only get it et off and it wants grazed again, that's the trouble wi' the blasted stuff" that kinda proves that there is MUCH more than production to profitability.
I don't think he's ever made bales in his 63 years of farming, or seen the need. If it gets dry, he sells lambs earlier, and if it gets real dry he weans his calves and sells what he doesn't like looking at.

But he was very encouraging about what he sees us doing, he gave me a wicked grin and said, "if you need any pointers on choosing a decent draught horse, I know just the man.... oh, fück it, we buried him! Don't get a horse!!"




No shortage of heroes

 

[davieh3350]

It would take a bit of working into their fleece, but as they would scratch where they were itchy... Then I think a mix of diatomaceous earth and sulphur would get worked into where it was needed.
The diatomaceous earth is a very fine powder of small shells. It kills the lice by scratching the bodies of the lice and then they die of dehydration. (People mix it with water and drink it) I can't remember what the sulphur did though...
It should work on scabies mite too.
Completely harmless apart from irritating your eyes, and I wouldn't breathe it in for the sake of your lungs and works wonderfully well!

Been a while since I've been here.... Going to be having a shift from lush green Scotland and moving north for a challenge.
Going to try improving some poor soil in a cold dry place

 

[Farmer Roy]

It’s a pity there’s “no money in sheep” & that the “jobs fûcked” aye . . .

140,000 tonnes of sheep meat this year . . .

It's like a broken record, China keeps gobbling up our lamb and mutton

The month of November has produced the same old story for Australian sheepmeat exports with China dominating the...

www.theland.com.au

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Stand by your beds! Remember this farming PR disaster?
View attachment 847800

Now have a butchers

View attachment 847801

View attachment 847803

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.

Nature really is awesome if you give it a chance, isn't it?

 

[Bury the Trash]

What if any are my options for itchy sheep if I'd prefer not to use pour on or dip? Thinking of life beneath the soil too.

(Note, I will dip if no other options for welfare reasons)

Are they going to be housed at some point ? If so how about shearing them at that point , then apply pouron.

Whatever, I wouldnt let them get to the point of rubbing off wool, else they will get wet and cold as it takes a while to grow back decent cover on those bare patches dont forget.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Should cost about 50p a ewe, very easy to do with the one stripe along their backs using the hole nozzle, not the band spray one.

Happy days.

 

[bitwrx]

O/T to current discussion, but I hope someone can help

At some time in the last year or so I've watched a video about rotational grazing that ends with a quote from a Scottish agriculturalist about dividing your farm up into paddocks and moving the beasts around daily so that the grass has grown back by the time you get to the first paddock (or something like that). I thought it was the Jim Gerrish wasting grass vid, but it appears not.

The videos was probably posted from this thread, so hoping one of you will know what I'm on about. Thinking about it now, it may have been a grassfed exchange vid... Hmm. Anyway, any ideas?

 

[Samcowman]

O/T to current discussion, but I hope someone can help

At some time in the last year or so I've watched a video about rotational grazing that ends with a quote from a Scottish agriculturalist about dividing your farm up into paddocks and moving the beasts around daily so that the grass has grown back by the time you get to the first paddock (or something like that). I thought it was the Jim Gerrish wasting grass vid, but it appears not.

The videos was probably posted from this thread, so hoping one of you will know what I'm on about. Thinking about it now, it may have been a grassfed exchange vid... Hmm. Anyway, any ideas?

Nope ?

 

[bitwrx]

Nope ?

Damn. You were near the top of my 'most likely' list. I swear I wasn't dreaming it. Probably.

Worth noting the Scottish agriculturalist was from properly olden times. Like 17 hundred and something.

 

[onesiedale]

O/T to current discussion, but I hope someone can help

At some time in the last year or so I've watched a video about rotational grazing that ends with a quote from a Scottish agriculturalist about dividing your farm up into paddocks and moving the beasts around daily so that the grass has grown back by the time you get to the first paddock (or something like that). I thought it was the Jim Gerrish wasting grass vid, but it appears not.

The videos was probably posted from this thread, so hoping one of you will know what I'm on about. Thinking about it now, it may have been a grassfed exchange vid... Hmm. Anyway, any ideas?

I'm partway through the Michael Shannon interview on the pasturepod podcast. Sounds like the sort of thing he'd be saying. Just that he's from Scotland but with a Northern Irish accent. Don't know if there's any videos out there of him.

Talks a lot of sense all the same.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Damn. You were near the top of my 'most likely' list. I swear I wasn't dreaming it. Probably.

Worth noting the Scottish agriculturalist was from properly olden times. Like 17 hundred and something.

I do remember something along those lines, actually. Nothing much "new" about it except our understanding has improved as we learn more about the soil biome, and realise that "controlled starvation" doesn't allow for plant expression nor drought.

Sorry I'm not much help but I'll keep that in mind through the day and who knows what will leap out..

 

[Bury the Trash]

Still not quite sure how protagonist or perpetrators, practiscers of 'regenag' ( what an assuming title that is ) can at the same time, do air travel ...

Deffinatly not a 'holistic view' being taken by some thats for sure, is a polite way of putting it ...