trouble is with the TB job here selling isn't selling isn't so easy and needs to be planned, it don't help when you have a government that inflicts disease on cattle for no good reasonYeah, with stock you either have a LOT of hay / silage / grain in reserve ( remembering you wouldn't normally need it ), or you have a very flexible approach to livestock numbers & buy & sell as needed according to the feed you have. The second is the favoured holistic grazing method adopted here
"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..
- Thread starter Kiwi Pete
- Start date
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Yeah, I understand that.
Makes it very hard for you I know.
We do have a lot of " freedom " here that we probably take for granted . . .
In comparison, OUR government put a huge effort into eradicating TB & Brucullosis back in the 80's
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Very easy to sell livestock here in a multitude of ways
EID eartags & a reader also eliminate any paperwork
EID eartags & a reader also eliminate any paperwork
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
- Location
- Cornwall
Wow, that’s to most sympathetic and understanding I’ve ever seen an Australian be towards a British farmer and not say “yeah but you get subsidies!”!
Well done you!
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
haha - I wouldn't swap for anything
if only I was from the NT, you could call me a caring understanding Northern Territorian
but yes, I do understand the difficulties faced
if only I was from the NT, you could call me a caring understanding Northern Territorian
but yes, I do understand the difficulties faced
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
awkward
Member
- Location
- kerry ireland
have u signed up to their monthly web seminars
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
no I haven't . . .
there's a number id like to follow, but sh!t / slow / expensive data at times makes it difficult
awkward
Member
- Location
- kerry ireland
know what u mean. acres U.S. is another more a magazine pushing books but has so interesting bits at times
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
The secret then is to be ahead of the crowd deciding to sell, before the price falls.Yeah, with stock you either have a LOT of hay / silage / grain in reserve ( remembering you wouldn't normally need it ), or you have a very flexible approach to livestock numbers & buy & sell as needed according to the feed you have. The second is the favoured holistic grazing method adopted here
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Yes I only wished I had been more savvy when the agent was here reading my steers for sale - had his gadgetry linked to the head on my scales - we ran the lot through, worked out which ones were going to stay, to keep the line average about 530kg - ran some back through til we got the 8 biggest out and job done!Very easy to sell livestock here in a multitude of ways
EID eartags & a reader also eliminate any paperwork
By the time I got inside there was an email to confirm the movement, from NAIT.
One click.
Then a second email from the stock firm to advise payment would be made within 14 days
This was completed before the truck had showed up to take the cattle - I don't know how it could be made any easier, to be honest!!
The top 8 average 610.2 kg - not bad from grass only @20 months
now, the dilemma whether I keep them til spring, or quit them now
schedule is slow to rise this year
Plus side is I have sheep coming, and my nightshift will be over in a week
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
hit the nail on the head there my good man
that's were the skill & management lie
plan
monitor
manage
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
An Interesting soil assessment chart from SectorMentor Soils from Groundswell today:
https://soils.sectormentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/VESS_score_chart.pdf
https://soils.sectormentor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/VESS_score_chart.pdf
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Yes I only wished I had been more savvy when the agent was here reading my steers for sale - had his gadgetry linked to the head on my scales - we ran the lot through, worked out which ones were going to stay, to keep the line average about 530kg - ran some back through til we got the 8 biggest out and job done!
By the time I got inside there was an email to confirm the movement, from NAIT.
One click.
Then a second email from the stock firm to advise payment would be made within 14 days
This was completed before the truck had showed up to take the cattle - I don't know how it could be made any easier, to be honest!!
The top 8 average 610.2 kg - not bad from grass only @20 months
now, the dilemma whether I keep them til spring, or quit them now
schedule is slow to rise this year
Plus side is I have sheep coming, and my nightshift will be over in a week
that's the thing, for all the naysayers & doom mongers complaining about the cost of the gadgetry for smaller producers - bulls**t. All the agents here have readers etc to do the scanning & record the information. Any time Ive bought & sold cattle, Scotty ( remember him from the sale report video ? ) just brought his reader AND his scales, to run them across, no cost to me . . .
No reason why some enterprising people couldn't provide the same service in the UK
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
It does strike me as odd that several small farmers should want to own one each - but then I find a lot of things quite odd
I bought my scales years ago, because I knew they would either be handy or easily on-sold, and turned out to be really handy this past couple of years just for gathering DLWG data - I still deem it worthwhile to "make hay while the sun shines" by way of feeding the stock to capacity when the food is abundant - but also realise that they are better storage (along with soil) mechanisms than making a whole heap of supplement to then be feeding out shortly after
Has been a rollercoaster year all considered, but I feel the 1kg/day/all year target is quite easily achievable no matter how it is done - but the cost of it is the crux of profitability
Last year I topped, this year we will largely give it a miss, and use more fences, smaller more frequent breaks, and compare.
Say I spent $500 on topping - that's 100kg of beef - across 120 cattle that is 1.7kgLWT to "make back" : is it worth it, or not?
This year, although it helped to nuke the cover when it got dry, we saw the results later; left to naturally break down we would see results too late - that was my excuse at the time, but I need to test out these excuses!
Back to RFID, my little reader kit cost me $1200: second-hand, of course, new I would be looking around double that
That's really only two years of recreational topping to make back... scales were considerably more but I like to buy once, buy right - it is a pretty good model, even 15 years later. Will store 1000's of records, run on its own batteries or backup, and links to the reader (even sets itself up automatically) so there is some stuff worth having, IMHO
Now, @holwellcourtfarm asked me if the heavier cattle had always been better, or just did better here; the answer to that is we have worked out the best 31 of the 68 all came from the same bull - which we only deduced by sharing the individual weight gains over their time here, with the breeder we bought the stores off, who had two big mobs of cows, running with a bull each
That's where value comes into the big picture - these small investments suddenly have the potential to "improve my lot" - even more than my mower can!
But, I don't really fancy the tractor seat as much as I did once - I realise just how much I miss, while sat in it - costs aside, I have a real desire not only to not wear it out, but to let the stock do more and more of the "work" and concentrate on simply managing their feed and finances for them.
I bought my scales years ago, because I knew they would either be handy or easily on-sold, and turned out to be really handy this past couple of years just for gathering DLWG data - I still deem it worthwhile to "make hay while the sun shines" by way of feeding the stock to capacity when the food is abundant - but also realise that they are better storage (along with soil) mechanisms than making a whole heap of supplement to then be feeding out shortly after
Has been a rollercoaster year all considered, but I feel the 1kg/day/all year target is quite easily achievable no matter how it is done - but the cost of it is the crux of profitability
Last year I topped, this year we will largely give it a miss, and use more fences, smaller more frequent breaks, and compare.
Say I spent $500 on topping - that's 100kg of beef - across 120 cattle that is 1.7kgLWT to "make back" : is it worth it, or not?
This year, although it helped to nuke the cover when it got dry, we saw the results later; left to naturally break down we would see results too late - that was my excuse at the time, but I need to test out these excuses!
Back to RFID, my little reader kit cost me $1200: second-hand, of course, new I would be looking around double that
That's really only two years of recreational topping to make back... scales were considerably more but I like to buy once, buy right - it is a pretty good model, even 15 years later. Will store 1000's of records, run on its own batteries or backup, and links to the reader (even sets itself up automatically) so there is some stuff worth having, IMHO
Now, @holwellcourtfarm asked me if the heavier cattle had always been better, or just did better here; the answer to that is we have worked out the best 31 of the 68 all came from the same bull - which we only deduced by sharing the individual weight gains over their time here, with the breeder we bought the stores off, who had two big mobs of cows, running with a bull each
That's where value comes into the big picture - these small investments suddenly have the potential to "improve my lot" - even more than my mower can!
But, I don't really fancy the tractor seat as much as I did once - I realise just how much I miss, while sat in it - costs aside, I have a real desire not only to not wear it out, but to let the stock do more and more of the "work" and concentrate on simply managing their feed and finances for them.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I guess my long spiel basically said: it isn't just the financial implications of decisions, but also the social and environmental ramifications of assessing the different tools at our disposal.
My family can't all fit in the tractor, so they don't get to enjoy the smell of mown grass, burning diesel... but they get great kicks from helping with electric fences and seeing all the animals in one place, daily during the holidays; and putting them through the race and seeing the weight gains flash up when the scale beeps this farm is for all of us...
My family can't all fit in the tractor, so they don't get to enjoy the smell of mown grass, burning diesel... but they get great kicks from helping with electric fences and seeing all the animals in one place, daily during the holidays; and putting them through the race and seeing the weight gains flash up when the scale beeps
this farm is for all of us...
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
err, @Henarar @holwellcourtfarm @hendrebc @Kiwi Pete & anyone else, this is from a FB post of a friend of mine who is 100 % cattle grazing.
She explains better than I did earlier about matching cattle numbers to the available feed & acting early
Grassroots Grazier
· 2 hrs ·
⛄️
Winter!
⛄️
Winter is a time for reflection and a bit of hibernation...
Here we have downsized dramatically to match our stocking rate with our carrying capacity. We are fortunate that we downsized when needed, we are back fairly well on our yearly rainfall whilst most of the country is in drought.
...
We had some visitors come a month ago who were horrified when we told them we would be basically destocking. The looked around at the grass we had, at times were up to their ankles.
“Destocking?? We have about half the feed you do and there is no way we need to downsize!”
The problem (or the advantage) lies in the fact that we looked at our feed and said, if this doesn’t grow at all between now and spring, do we have enough for two more grazes with the cattle that we have on hand? If the answer is “no/not sure/probably not/I have no idea” then maybe some homework is in order!
It’s important to remember that growth in winter changes, so should our grass management.
We are able to breathe a bit easier than most knowing we are coming into an extremely cold winter that is pretty dry, and we are not stressing our grass, soil, cattle, and most importantly, ourselves.
We are using this time to reflect upon our descions from summer, and possibly look at mixing up our enterprise to add cows (instead of just steers), pigs, chooks, eco-tourism, sheep… The list is only limited by the imagination!
I hope everyone uses winter as a time to pull up stumps a bit, assess, monitor, compare and regroup, just like nature.
Stay warm my friends!
#grassrootsgrazier #winter #australia #chillybums
She explains better than I did earlier about matching cattle numbers to the available feed & acting early
Grassroots Grazier
· 2 hrs ·
Winter is a time for reflection and a bit of hibernation...
Here we have downsized dramatically to match our stocking rate with our carrying capacity. We are fortunate that we downsized when needed, we are back fairly well on our yearly rainfall whilst most of the country is in drought.
...
We had some visitors come a month ago who were horrified when we told them we would be basically destocking. The looked around at the grass we had, at times were up to their ankles.
“Destocking?? We have about half the feed you do and there is no way we need to downsize!”
The problem (or the advantage) lies in the fact that we looked at our feed and said, if this doesn’t grow at all between now and spring, do we have enough for two more grazes with the cattle that we have on hand? If the answer is “no/not sure/probably not/I have no idea” then maybe some homework is in order!
It’s important to remember that growth in winter changes, so should our grass management.
We are able to breathe a bit easier than most knowing we are coming into an extremely cold winter that is pretty dry, and we are not stressing our grass, soil, cattle, and most importantly, ourselves.
We are using this time to reflect upon our descions from summer, and possibly look at mixing up our enterprise to add cows (instead of just steers), pigs, chooks, eco-tourism, sheep… The list is only limited by the imagination!
I hope everyone uses winter as a time to pull up stumps a bit, assess, monitor, compare and regroup, just like nature.
Stay warm my friends!
#grassrootsgrazier #winter #australia #chillybums
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
in reply to an earlier comment about adapting & learning, I thought this was appropriate
