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

[Kiwi Pete]

I know we see them as a good thing here, but has any work been done to see if they'll have any negative effects on your soil ecosystem? Unintended consequences and all that.

Yes, quite a bit of research has to go in before anything (especially biocontrols, like rabbit calicivirus disease and gorse mites) can be introduced.
Beetles have been given the all-clear and Landcare Research are organising releases as well. Can't remember which types they recommended for this far south without finding the attachment, but Dungbeetle Solutions is the major breeder/distributor here.
They have a lot of knowledge.

 

[martian]

Im prety shure there was a lady down pembrokeshire selling beetles?
Vauge memory of the company being launched at the royal welsh.

That would be the lovely Dr Sarah Beynon

Dung Beetles Direct - The Bug Farm

Conservation through Research, Innovation & Education

www.thebugfarm.co.uk

She spoke at one of the first Groundswell Shows, completely brilliant enthusiast. They run a restaurant which only serves insects (ingredients, rather than customers).
We had Sally-Anne Spence booked to speak this year, another lovely dung-beetle enthusiast (she set up the DUMP project). It's such an interesting subject, which the vast majority of farmers have no knowledge of...with so many knock on effects like their importance for feeding bats and birds and for soil rainwater infiltration (those meter deep tunnels come in handy)

 

[Woolless]

Im prety shure there was a lady down pembrokeshire selling beetles?
Vauge memory of the company being launched at the royal welsh.
Does make you wonder if you had to buy some why are yours gone, and why?
Will be shearing the ewes this week usually
Put click on the lambs, read the container and it said it will affect insects for a few weeks, what do others do about blowfly prevention?
Sheared my replecment ewe lambs shearing day last year no pour on at all.

not thought about that
would crovect affect insects ? its a repellent isn't it
Clare won't use click as it made her ill once

Thinking about this yesterday myself, as the Hampshire x lambs got their first crovect treatment. I would assume that the only insects it would be in contact with would be bluebottles and nuisance flies that try and land. Wormer use would be worse, as the dung goes on the ground and so can affect insects there. I never worm the ewes and minimise wormer use in lambs by using faecal egg counts. Something is putting holes in the sheep dung here, so populations must be reasonably healthy.

Anyway, another plus for Easycares is that the they get no crovect or any other fly treatment ?

 

[Henarar]

Thinking about this yesterday myself, as the Hampshire x lambs got their first crovect treatment. I would assume that the only insects it would be in contact with would be bluebottles and nuisance flies that try and land. Wormer use would be worse, as the dung goes on the ground and so can affect insects there. I never worm the ewes and minimise wormer use in lambs by using faecal egg counts. Something is putting holes in the sheep dung here, so populations must be reasonably healthy.

Anyway, another plus for Easycares is that the they get no crovect or any other fly treatment ?

We haven't fly treated yet but we have wormed the lambs once this year, didn't at all for some last year and much later for those we did do
Trouble with egg counts for us is they cost more than the wormer for our few lambs, we do use them sometimes but have to use judgement as well,

 

[Woolless]

We haven't fly treated yet but we have wormed the lambs once this year, didn't at all for some last year and much later for those we did do
Trouble with egg counts for us is they cost more than the wormer for our few lambs, we do use them sometimes but have to use judgement as well,

I've got the kit to do counts myself, which is really handy. I'm surprised you're getting away with not use fly prevention down there at this time?

 

[Henarar]

I've got the kit to do counts myself, which is really handy. I'm surprised you're getting away with not use fly prevention down there at this time?

Sheared quite early, found one mark where they had been and gone
Lambs will be weaned in a bit and they will get a bit of crovect then

 

[Treg]

A lot - I think to get about 3 different "types" you're starting about there, but they pack them in 40 litre tubs (complete with dung) and courier them.

I really cannot figure out how they have come "here" because to the best of my knowledge nobody this side of Mark Anderson has made releases, and he's almost 30 miles away in a straight line (and a few rows of 2000ft hills in between).

I was just out for a walk over to the cattle and saw a hole in a patty, and a beetle on the patty so I stopped to look. and he broke a chunk off and took it down the hole ahead of him.

Actually made me feel quite proud, little Jeremiah Beetle. Hopefully more arrive as we have a lot of poo for them!

So has Nz not got native dung beetles?

 

[Farmer Roy]

Maybe 30 years ago now, I had a dog that had a lot of fleas on him

I had some old left over ivomec or some other type of cattle pour on, so I put a bit on the back of his neck

the next few days, the ground around his kennel was littered with dead dung beetles . .

I have never seen so many dead beetles .

 

[Guleesh]

We do haved one EC x BeltexX who we caded who is a sweetie, I am very fond of her and I suspect she will be a breeder now

It's a poor show if you can't have one or two just because you like having them around

Don't mind keeping kids pet ewe lambs but definitely put to terminal sire and don't be tempted keep a lamb off them, One of the best looking sheep we ever had was a pet our eldest son had raised, she was much loved round here and had a great character -other than that an absolutely useless animal, raised 1 lamb in 3 lambings and disappeared on the hill last year between weaning and tupping.

 

[Samcowman]

‎Mastermind Interviews: The Dung Beetle Expert - John Feehan on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Mastermind Interviews, Ep The Dung Beetle Expert - John Feehan - 8 Mar 2017

podcasts.apple.com

Very interesting podcast all about dung beetles I listened to a couple of weeks ago

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So has Nz not got native dung beetles?

No - as per above, they would have had no food supply until 160 years ago when the first ruminants arrived. So they're a definite help!
I suppose, because we've been pretty strict about the no chemical policy (the last guy used to drench store lambs constantly) then it's sort of the timeframe you'd expect for new things to appear - but my big puzzle is where young Jeremiah may have come from - because he didn't come in the gut of an animal or anything (that's my usual explanation for new things).

 

[som farmer]

back to crawlers, seem to remember yeovil football club, sent out an sos, for worms, on their new pitch, OM came out behind the plough, and soon filled a bucket. It would take a long time to fill a bucket now, that is a sign of the damage we have done, to the soils eco-system.

 

[steveR]

Don't mind keeping kids pet ewe lambs but definitely put to terminal sire and don't be tempted keep a lamb off them, One of the best looking sheep we ever had was a pet our eldest son had raised, she was much loved round here and had a great character -other than that an absolutely useless animal, raised 1 lamb in 3 lambings and disappeared on the hill last year between weaning and tupping.

IKWYM, we have usually had the odd waster here over the years... They sometimes get sneaked onto a trailer, an guiltily taken to Shrewsbury....

 

[Farmer Roy]

Maybe 30 years ago now, I had a dog that had a lot of fleas on him

I had some old left over ivomec or some other type of cattle pour on, so I put a bit on the back of his neck

the next few days, the ground around his kennel was littered with dead dung beetles . .

I have never seen so many dead beetles .

it really highlighted to me all those years ago the negative impacts of the “products” we use without thinking about
It left a lasting impression

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

when did people turn up ?

The brits, a couple of hundrd years ago. The polynesians, It's a "subject of debate" but probably well within the last 1000 years.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Humans about 60,000 years ago across the Tasman . . .

we have many native dung beetle species, but they all evolved with the dry sh!t of our marsupials, not to cope with the massive amounts of wet poo from ruminants . . .

but yeah, research & interest in dung beetles has been a “thing” here for as long as I can remember . . .

 

[bendigeidfran]

Had a look on a container in the shed its a crovect copy called fly off, same drug i suppose cypramethrin, said only use once year because of the efect it has on invertabrates.
Lamb's are clean, might leave them and see what hapens, have sheared light lambs after weaning in the past.
Wool sheding sheep have crosed my mind
But ive been contract shearing for the past 27 years and oldest lad just taken my spot on the run, would not look right some how.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Three Principles to Graze By

By Dr. Allen R Williams, Ph.D. My consulting partners and I teach a form of grazing that we call Adaptive Grazing. Adaptive grazing, also called Flex Grazing, is first and foremost not a rigid system or even a routine. It allows the practitioner to address multiple goals and objectives, and to...

understandingag.com

here's a really good article describing compounding and cascading effects, purely in a grazing context, but you can take it anywhere....

 

[The Ruminant]

This is the droughty land I’ve taken on this year, it has been skim-grazed once so far. This particular cell was grazed on 1st May so has had 52 days rest. It’s challenging land......

Sorry it’s on it’s side again, I must remember to align my phone the right way!

Same place, just showing more of the field

 

[Whitewalker]

No, no, no! Regrazing should be dictated by the growth stage If the recovering grass plant. If you go in too early you will be overgrazing. Avoid at all costs.

If you got the trampling wrong first time round, learn the lesson and aim to get it right second time round. Its not the end of the world to make mistakes, we all do, several times each field in my case (usually grazing too much off, I’m constantly having to switch my mentality to leave more grass behind)



It is amazing isn’t it. I love it when I go to move the cattle after 24 hours and the dung is full of holes. Their speed of colonisation is incredible

it’s tricky when the whole farm is at a similar stage, all young recovering grass . You know it’s not the thing to be at but can’t avoid it. Hopefully a few weeks will get us out of it .