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

[Kiwi Pete]

I may do a grazing record next year [I meant to do it this time but didn't] but I am not that keen on a plan

A record of what's done is a fair part of a guide as to what still needs doing. That's about where we are.

A good measure up of grass would show that my mobs could get fed well in any paddock on the place, even the ones they just came out of have enough animal food in them.

But "which one" has had the right amount of rest and is easy to shift into, that's where the record/plan is handy to have.
Platemeter might say there's so many kgs in here but the record says there's been animals in here for the past 7 days. My eyes say that it's been fairly well grazed, especially compared to if I'd just turned a mob of cattle into it for a week and let them manage it themselves.

Maybe that's what "holistic" is a bit about, rather than "fundamentalist grazing" for starters.
The fundamentals are that we have a risk of drying out if we don't keep plenty of cover on the land

 

[exmoor dave]

Yes, the idea is they get about 900m² early morning, then 3-4 x 400m² cells through the day so they're bursting full, then onto 400m2 on a hillside overnight.
It roughly means that they get ¼ of a hectare per 24 hours but 60% of their crap ends up on ⅙th their daily area, and I choose where that is.

@GC74 here's that prairie grass mixView attachment 924242View attachment 924243
might buzz the top off it soon so it can be closed up to flower.

How are you keeping up with the multiple moves per day Pete? Batlatches or similar?

Or have you got the family well trained up?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

How are you keeping up with the multiple moves per day Pete? Batlatches or similar?

Or have you got the family well trained up?

It's all easy and flexible. I get them sorted before I go to work and sometimes at smoko time. Whoever is around at midday does. Boys usually go out after school and go see their mob, and I give them dinner before I have mine, then go out afterwards and roll up 5 little fences and put them up for the next day.

Eventually it'll be automated more but a- they haven't turned up yet and b- I like to watch them shift

 

[exmoor dave]

It's all easy and flexible. I get them sorted before I go to work and sometimes at smoko time. Whoever is around at midday does. Boys usually go out after school and go see their mob, and I give them dinner before I have mine, then go out afterwards and roll up 5 little fences and put them up for the next day.

Eventually it'll be automated more but a- they haven't turned up yet and b- I like to watch them shift

Like it!

That is the beauty of techno style system,
really must try pull my finger out and go for smaller cells, more frequent moves.

Likewise, I do enjoy shifting stock on to fresh grub

 

[exmoor dave]

Pete, any thoughts/ comments on "clean out grazing" in early winter, before a long rest?

'Advice' suggests using ewes to graze/trample down to something resembling 1500kgDM/ha, then rest for 100-140 days before lambing or subsequent grazing if the rest takes a field beyond lambing (for a sheep system)..... or just when the grass is ready again

Does 1500 or there abouts sound right or too low?

 

[JohnGalway]

I get the flexibility bit, just think that's not overly compatible with the idea of allocating specific paddocks with specific jobs/ dates.

You can take paddocks out for whatever you like, it's recorded on the chart as a coloured area, say for hay or silage making or maybe ground nesting birds, you can have paddocks dedicated for keeping bulls or tups in.

There's a thing called the feedback loop that helps maybe with your mind blockage (I've had a couple of pints so that's how I'm wording that!). Anyway you plan, then you assume you're wrong, cos usually you will be, and that's ok.

So the feedback loop works as follows, it has four parts, first you plan, second you monitor, third if needs be you control (when something goes wrong), then fourth you replan, and then you go back to the start with the monitoring as it's now a new plan.

That's with Holistic Management, other lines of thinking may word or do it differently, but HM is a decision making process at it's core not just a grazing system, mindset change imo is at least as, if not more important than the rest.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Pete, any thoughts/ comments on "clean out grazing" in early winter, before a long rest?

'Advice' suggests using ewes to graze/trample down to something resembling 1500kgDM/ha, then rest for 100-140 days before lambing or subsequent grazing if the rest takes a field beyond lambing (for a sheep system)..... or just when the grass is ready again

Does 1500 or there abouts sound right or too low?

All answers are given with the caveat, "it depends"

For lambing paddocks for spring, yes I clean them out! For an early bite for cows, I wouldn't. That's the benefit of having a bit of a plan/goal laid out ahead of time?
As we delete the lambing concern here, so does the desire to mop up valuable litter and put it through an animal, but lambs aren't cows.
What do you want to have ahead of you is the question!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Like it!

That is the beauty of techno style system,
really must try pull my finger out and go for smaller cells, more frequent moves.

Likewise, I do enjoy shifting stock on to fresh grub

Just read this, ctsy. Kathy Voth/On Pasture

Fencing so a 12-Year-Old Can Run the Ranch
By Tom Krawiec / November 30, 2020 / 2 Comments


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If you set up the day to day operations of your ranch so a 12-year-old can run things, your level of enjoyment will be greatly enhanced. You will have more time to think, plan, and recreate. Further, if a 12-year-old can look after the ranch, then so can an 80yr old. Getting to this point takes a shift in thinking.
It really comes down to asking yourself, ‘Can a 12-year-old do this?’ about everything you do, right down to what type of tools you buy. An example I use when explaining my philosophy deals with a pipe wrench. There are two types of wrenches, a steel pipe wrench and an aluminum pipe wrench. If your place is set up for a 12-year-old to run, you will buy the more expensive aluminum pipe wrench. Certainly a 12-year-old can use the heavier steel pipe wrench, however, it is more difficult to carry and use than an aluminum one. When things are awkward and difficult, there is less motivation to properly perform a task. It has been my experience that when jobs are simple and easy, they get done better and with less complaining.
Over the course of 20 years, this thinking has helped me to reduce labor in all aspects of my ranching life. A big part of that is the template I have developed for fencing. I know many people disagree with how I fence citing less expensive materials, that I’m over doing things, I have too many gates, etc.
Those concerns certainly have merit. In fact, we started out fencing very cheaply. Our first fencing was with rebar posts because they were half the price of step-in posts. We were building and taking down two-acre paddocks every two days, dragging the rebar around in a modified manual golf cart. We were in great shape, but we were exhausted! What we forgot to factor into our cost analysis was labor.
Labor costs more than just the time it takes to perform a task. The hourly rate can easily be tracked. The part that is hard to calculate is the mental and emotional cost of labor. Ranching should be fun and easy. When we are run off our feet and always exhausted, our thinking becomes impaired. When I am in an extended period of high labor, I get tunnel vision and my creativity is severely impaired. Plus, it’s not that much fun!

Once I realized the hidden cost of labor I became obsessed with reducing labor. I want everything to be simple and easy and the best way to accomplish that feat is to ask the question, ‘Can a 12-year-old do this?’
Now that I have shared the background of my fencing philosophy, here is my fencing template and my reasoning for why I do what I do and why I use what I use. This system can’t be built by a 12-year-old, but once it’s in, it makes your life easy, whether your 12 or 80.


Definitely sums up my goals

 

[Karliboy]

I may do a grazing record next year [I meant to do it this time but didn't] but I am not that keen on a plan

I did half of a effort into marking where I’ve been on a calendar and a few photos left on my phone to still mark on the calendar rom the last 2 rounds.
Looking back my first round was just about right the 2nd I think I waited a little to late in the dry spell of late spring so the grass was borderline seeding but not just there so I don’t think it liked that as it struggled after that and rounds 3+4 I think was to quick but I wanted to try rest the hill more. Round 5 was a good cover just a tad earlier than i expected.
The dry spring really put me on the back foot right from the start I mucked the hill but it was dry for weeks on end and all that fym I put on in March just dried up and frazzled due to lack of the normal spring moisture so didn’t really grow me any extra early fodder that I was expecting
But I got through with near normal stock numbers yes I’ve made no bales at home but I’ve also used only 600kg off 20-10-10 compared to the normal 2400 so all in all I’m happy.
Looking back this season the aim for next year is to move faster lots faster.

I do keep getting a urge to get some tack sheep in just for the meadows just to help with a little income and to tread a little poaching down but I can’t help but think that it will knock turn out back in the spring as I have a nice covering of grass again now albeit a little bare soil due to poaching
(Maybe next year)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I did half of a effort into marking where I’ve been on a calendar and a few photos left on my phone to still mark on the calendar rom the last 2 rounds.
Looking back my first round was just about right the 2nd I think I waited a little to late in the dry spell of late spring so the grass was borderline seeding but not just there so I don’t think it liked that as it struggled after that and rounds 3+4 I think was to quick but I wanted to try rest the hill more. Round 5 was a good cover just a tad earlier than i expected.
The dry spring really put me on the back foot right from the start I mucked the hill but it was dry for weeks on end and all that fym I put on in March just dried up and frazzled due to lack of the normal spring moisture so didn’t really grow me any extra early fodder that I was expecting
But I got through with near normal stock numbers yes I’ve made no bales at home but I’ve also used only 600kg off 20-10-10 compared to the normal 2400 so all in all I’m happy.
Looking back this season the aim for next year is to move faster lots faster.

I do keep getting a urge to get some tack sheep in just for the meadows just to help with a little income and to tread a little poaching down but I can’t help but think that it will knock turn out back in the spring as I have a nice covering of grass again now albeit a little bare soil due to poaching
(Maybe next year)

I think that grazing pasture "in the boot" definitely means a longer recovery period is required - hence why we did a quick skim around and then flopped quickly into a much longer round .
Noticed that other years but explained it away, IME you're still ahead compared to topping it, and then assuming it made the grass grow faster because you can see what's growing. That's just an optical illusion

 

[JohnGalway]

@Kiwi Pete Fencing so a 12 year old could manage, happened to have a pretty in depth conversation with a good friend about my own farm. Went along the lines of making life easier because "you're not getting any younger" was a fair sock to the guts in that moment I have to say. Passing milestones unknown to me at a rate of knots it seems.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

@Kiwi Pete Fencing so a 12 year old could manage, happened to have a pretty in depth conversation with a good friend about my own farm. Went along the lines of making life easier because "you're not getting any younger" was a fair sock to the guts in that moment I have to say. Passing milestones unknown to me at a rate of knots it seems.

The thing that's important to consider is that what I am doing here "is unsustainable" at the moment. That really needs to change.

 

[Crofter64]

It's all easy and flexible. I get them sorted before I go to work and sometimes at smoko time. Whoever is around at midday does. Boys usually go out after school and go see their mob, and I give them dinner before I have mine, then go out afterwards and roll up 5 little fences and put them up for the next day.

Eventually it'll be automated more but a- they haven't turned up yet and b- I like to watch them shift

Its the water situation I can’t figure out. Draining and moving a trough more than once a day is a huge pain

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Its the water situation I can’t figure out. Draining and moving a trough more than once a day is a huge pain

You need these

 

[Rod Dumbreck]

You need these
View attachment 924585

In all the videos they have huge numbers of cattle to one of these, but for me it seems a giant leap of faith that a tub that size is ok when you look at the historical tanks we have about the place. How do folks rate this micro trough idea? Looks brilliant, but at the moment Im not brave enough to believe.

 

[onesiedale]

In all the videos they have huge numbers of cattle to one of these, but for me it seems a giant leap of faith that a tub that size is ok when you look at the historical tanks we have about the place. How do folks rate this micro trough idea? Looks brilliant, but at the moment Im not brave enough to believe.

These micro troughs work better than you would imagine. Quite happy to use one for a group of 50 dry cows/r2's through the winter grazing or even up to 100 r1's.
Work best with good water pressure.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Its the water situation I can’t figure out. Draining and moving a trough more than once a day is a huge pain

Yes! That's why I'm going to have to make an investment in a better system, even if it costs a few bob to set up. Ideally I'd like to have 1 trough per acre but it may be down the line that it happens - firstly we're going to techno ⅔ of our farm and we'll begin with a water system, even if it just skeletal and we plug our troughs in and shuffle them about. Then, put the lanes up!
Those are the two "Dad jobs" and although I don't mind dragging pipes and putting up the lanes, it would be fantastic to do them for the last time while I'm still young enough to be glad that I did.

 

[onesiedale]

A relevant article here;

What business are we really in?

One of the most shocking statements for a group of ranchers to hear is when I tell them that ranching is really a land management business

hayandforage.com

 

[Kiwi Pete]

A relevant article here;

What business are we really in?

One of the most shocking statements for a group of ranchers to hear is when I tell them that ranching is really a land management business

hayandforage.com

Good one, funny how often we read the same things on the same day!

Was just commenting on another thread (which is unusual for me) but is "output" really all it's cracked up to be?
Regeneratively speaking?
I've often looked at the contrast between a meat business vs a genetics business, I mean selling a few bulls worth 10k or more surely means that our "output" varies wildly in value, and so our need to own production cattle can be fewer.
Does this give an opening for a "cheap and cheerful" trade-stock mob alongside a production business that doesn't send money to town?

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Its the water situation I can’t figure out. Draining and moving a trough more than once a day is a huge pain

What I have done in the past is move the water once a day as normal but only give them half the paddock in the morning then the other half pm. It does mean that they are on some for 12 hours and some for 24.