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

[exmoor dave]

It helps that most of us are of Scot descent, down here.
I see SO much bodging as I drive around farms, it's not that we're all broke, just that we're all tight

Not just a Scottish thing
Not much more satisfying than a good bodge that works so well it becomes permanent

It's frightening how fast it feels I'm turning in to dad sometimes..... Staple-less permanent fences anyone! (baler cord instead of fences)

 

[Crofter64]

New Year’s surprise!

Must have been the flush of grass in August that made the grass grow so well. Two more look ready to pop. 4 months early.

 

[Henarar]

Whereas a low-input hill farm has much less reliable cashflow and less "extravagance", less to trim, and often a complete lack of intent to do better because they think they're doing everyone a service:
"we've been farming that way forever" and the water pours off their land and floods the villages. Their land is sour and overgrazed and they simply cannot afford to change it. They can't bear to let go.

Water pours off here and floods the villages, nowhere else for it to go if they don't keep their guttering clear

 

[Henarar]

But it's probably different when your milk is turned to powder for China and your lamb gets sent abroad too, there probably isn't the same sense of "must feed the nation" that's been indoctrinated into you guys. Hell, Brits hate NZ lamb!

I think that Brits would hate south American or USA beef more,

 

[JohnGalway]

The other massive advantage over other types of farming is that you can see that sweatline on the milk tank every single day... it beats being the most regenerative farmer out there and then finding out too late half your sheep are dry, or your lambs are back 5 weeks, or your low-input crop has no grain in it.


You learn so fast with that unbiased feedback. Conversely, unfortunately, sometimes we are so "kind" to the stock that we don't realise we're hurting the land in the process; that's the other thing.
It can and usually is, a hugely extractive model if you're using a heap of bagged stuff to drive production, just to pay for increasing costs, expand, incur more debt and employ more staff.
The treadmill is just so real in dairy that it is so easy to make regenerative shifts by taking a step back and asking "why"

Whereas a low-input hill farm has much less reliable cashflow and less "extravagance", less to trim, and often a complete lack of intent to do better because they think they're doing everyone a service:
"we've been farming that way forever" and the water pours off their land and floods the villages. Their land is sour and overgrazed and they simply cannot afford to change it. They can't bear to let go.

The hill farm, here at least is in a difficult predicament. I'm lucky, I have a good % of privately owned fenced land, of not great quality but it's mine. Most hill farms here, the hill IS the farm, but it is shared with others ie commonage. Sometimes the others aren't even supposed to be there. There is where the rub starts. Most hill farms don't have control over their business to be able to make decisions we talk of on this thread. Example, if you share a hill with 7 other flocks, and you think extra grazing pressure on the north side of the hill will benefit but the others don't, or you think taking stock off for a while at some point in the year, or maybe like Pete using the hill as an area to provide a grazing service, and the other's don't. Often, it takes just 1 shareholder to say I'm neither for or against it, not even a "no", to block an idea that might benefit all. Then we have the regulations, from the Ag side that imposes a stocking level to meet payment requirements, to the fundamentalists from the Green Party that are now at the levers of power who'd prefer "water table manipulation", rewetting. I often marvel at how people wonder why things don't often change in these places, the above are only some of the reasons, but important ones. Even to ring fence a commonage first requires agreement of all the shareholders, then an ecological assessment, then planning permission. Then NGO's like An Taisce and Keep Ireland Open will object and send the lot to An Bord Pleanala. Add to that our Dept has said we've been paid all along for eco system services (bulls**t) . So in a farmers mind there's, my neighbour won't go for it, planning and professional services are beyond my financial ability, on hand of officialdom want's one thing, the other hand want's another. Like the song said, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

I despaired when I saw the efforts to get Govt involved in ReGen ag. It looked like a way to be free of the bulls**t for a while there. Government IS the problem, as Ronald Reagan said.

 

[Fenwick]

Even a bit more possibly? You can't get any better than that I wouldn't think. Some say they can get 90% but they must not be shitting or standing on any at all to get that.

Not shitting on it seems Indeed to bé part of it. Elizondo moves four times a day, only two hours apart. graze till thé rumen is full, then they sit and ruminate. Thén go to move and they get up and defecate. This means hé is damn nearer 100% than 80% and thé cows aren't grazing around their patties.

Sometimes only 80% is possible, but only when hé has thé cows grazing massive high lignin covers. (by massive I mean over 8ft). But thén I suppose that gives thé mushrooms something. to do.

 

[Fenwick]

Got my bâle unroller done, seems to work alright so far.

 

[Agrispeed]

@Agrispeed would be worth talking to about regenerative dairy farming. He always had a lot of good stuff to say. Not seen him on here in a while though

Funny that. Was thinking exactly the same earlier today.
@Agrispeed where are you?

Still here thanks, It's been a busy and tricky few months, As I moved farms in March. unfortunately it didn't work out with the farm struggling to be productive and the farm owner has decided they want higher rents, less cows and more rewilding.

Planning on moving to another farm in the new year doing direct sales with a robot and will be trying some new ideas on regenerative grazing there, quite looking forwards to it.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Not shitting on it seems Indeed to bé part of it. Elizondo moves four times a day, only two hours apart. graze till thé rumen is full, then they sit and ruminate. Thén go to move and they get up and defecate. This means hé is damn nearer 100% than 80% and thé cows aren't grazing around their patties.

Sometimes only 80% is possible, but only when hé has thé cows grazing massive high lignin covers. (by massive I mean over 8ft). But thén I suppose that gives thé mushrooms something. to do.

Rain is helping us - an unexpected outcome - by washing the smell away? Or maybe softening the dung to the point it's been pushed into the litter layer from the November grazing by the hoof action. We did have an amount of vertical cracking so some has probably washed into those.

We had 40mm fall overnight and it looks even more like "took silage off it" this morning than yesterday, very clean on top, save for a small corner where the cattle came to see me at first light.
This showed me that the really short graze time is rather crucial to the "total grazing" effect, ie if we tried to graze down to that in the wintertime (which we did!) the fault is still "too long in one spot"

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Still here thanks, It's been a busy and tricky few months, As I moved farms in March. unfortunately it didn't work out with the farm struggling to be productive and the farm owner has decided they want higher rents, less cows and more rewilding.

Planning on moving to another farm in the new year doing direct sales with a robot and will be trying some new ideas on regenerative grazing there, quite looking forwards to it.

Happy new year, I'm sorry to hear that .

At least you have a plan to bounce forward from it

 

[som farmer]

Water pours off here and floods the villages, nowhere else for it to go if they don't keep their guttering clear

my mate from the moors, told me yesterday, the drivers cleaning out the dykes, have to leave fallen trees, across the ditch untouched. beggars belief.

 

[Crofter64]

2020 rainfall here, in case you're interested.

Jan 449mm
Feb 35mm
Mar 52mm
Apr 45mm
May 12mm (usually our flood month)
Jun 94mm
Jul 213mm
Aug 114mm
Sep 164mm
Oct 156mm
Nov 81mm
Dec 153mm

Total 1568mm

Quite an unexpected 'pattern' but very very welcome.
Just on 74mm now for January

interesting stats. Do you always keep track of precipitation?

 

[Fenwick]

Total grazing.

Really having a hard time getting my head round the idea of leaving so little. After spending so long trying to leave so much.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

interesting stats. Do you always keep track of precipitation?

I haven't done it consistently which I regret, but I can access earlier rainfall tallies for about the past 35 years via a workmate.

My rain gauge got broken in April 2019 and it took a while to get the same type.

As Roy likes to remind us, "average is a unicorn"

 

[bendigeidfran]

I cocked up my last post maths so deleted it.



This is this morning's effort, they're going into this sort of coverView attachment 930874
and leaving this sort of cover behind. Tightened them up a bit, ⅓ha per cell which raises the SD
View attachment 930875
It feels "weird" going to non-selective grazing with high density but at least we're treating everything the same - thistles, down the hatch

we only went from 320,000 to 420,000kg per ha but it made a big difference to behaviour.
The rain is coming down pretty hard now so I could give them a moonlight shift if need be and still be in about the same place as we would be at the lower density. It's bouncing back already with a drink

I'd be keen if someone who uses a platemeter would have a guess at the utilisation rate, I'm thinking 80%

Will grazing like that compromise lamb growth rate?
Im think you said in one of your posts that by not grazing the grass short you leave behind parasites, potash and problems.
You said why you have changed your grazing , it would be interesting if your mob were milkers what the milk would have done.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Will grazing like that compromise lamb growth rate?
Im think you said in one of your posts that by not grazing the grass short you leave behind parasites, potash and problems.
You said why you have changed your grazing , it would be interesting if your mob were milkers what the milk would have done.

Yes, I'd think they'll be down to the same growth rates as my neighbours, now because they're leaving about the same residual as the neighbour's sheep are standing on.

I guess the fundamental difference is the plan between now and weaning:
- his will still be standing in 1500-1800 cover and picking about amongst the past 6 months worth of poo with "no pressure on them" until they are rounded up and weaned. The same ewes will come back.

- ours are "leaving it behind" leaving it behind IYSWIM?
As in these animals will never be returning to this spot, except maybe the Brown Swiss steer and the little Hereford freemartin.
They are always getting put into fresh food that will be at least semi-clean in terms of parasites, but certainly the bulk of their intake has been grown since last grazing. They'll be wormed at weaning, but they'll be departing.

It's the time between leaving and returning which makes the difference in many respects, as per @Fenwick's video above, we have sought to minimise rest periods by grazing conservatively and now we're aiming to maximise rest periods by non-selective grazing to low residuals (and destocking).
We're effectively putting our winter break in the middle of summer, so to speak this is "our closing cover", to put it in a more familiar context.

Next grazing will be our "spring", because we want 3 springs a year. Quality and quantity.

 

[Crofter64]

Still here thanks, It's been a busy and tricky few months, As I moved farms in March. unfortunately it didn't work out with the farm struggling to be productive and the farm owner has decided they want higher rents, less cows and more rewilding.

Planning on moving to another farm in the new year doing direct sales with a robot and will be trying some new ideas on regenerative grazing there, quite looking forwards to it.

Who owns the cows? Do you have a family that moves also or do you have your own house and just rent land and buildings?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Total grazing.

Really having a hard time getting my head round the idea of leaving so little. After spending so long trying to leave so much.

One way to eliminate those tiresome backfences. Basically this is how NZ winters her livestock, with a few subtle differences and tweaks:

You'd spend a few hundred per hectare establishing a monocrop and then you graze it in similar fashion, and then you spend a bit more and put the grass back into soil with compaction and starved mychorrizae/biology. And then you smack it with N a few times and have brand new grass and a fertiliser habit in the making.

This is a similar concept - take out the old grass, retire it from grazing (long recovery verging on rest) and then graze it down.
And then give it another long recovery and do it again in the spring, but maybe only utilise ⅔, to lessen the recovery period required and maintain good animal performance (store the surplus as meat+ fat).
There is still a cost, in our situation we are reducing our grazing income to facilitate the longer rest as we have limited control of our numbers, but we aren't burning out our soil Carbon ( nor starving our mycorrhizae as per the brassica monocrop) as we maintain a living root at all times.
It is primarily a living-systems approach as opposed to the "destroy and replant approach"

We aren't sending our money to town as we would be if we used diesel and steel and seed and fertilisers - just a planned increase to plant recovery in order to increase our liquid C input from the sun.

Last season's multispecies crop gave me the confidence that "total grazing" does actually work here, but we can avoid that expense by using time. That's what grows good crops - closing the gate

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Having fun with this . I put the cattle on this sidling while it was wet, and the sheep got to hide amongst the tyres around the old silage pit and tidy the yard so they wouldn't snatch all the litter.
They made some good prints as the shape is so long, they roamed it a little.

You really wouldn't know that we've just had 75mm of rain fall here, the sun came out at 10:30am and by 2pm it's "sportscar material" again
Also you can still see where the cells were last time by the colour change, as we left more residue here and there.

 

[Fake it ‘til you make it]

As Roy likes to remind us, "average is a unicorn"

The average human has one breast and one testicle!