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

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
Got plenty of time to plan in here, only thing about this thread is once i've got a plan in my head about what im going to do, somebody comes along and says something or shows an article that changes my mind:ROFLMAO:
What, like KP showing us pictures of 2000 micro troughs and casually telling us of his 750m micro paddocks!
Now that will give you a headache! :ROFLMAO:
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Observing sheep sh!t from ewes recently dosed with cypermethrin/deltamethrin products and watching it sit there for weeks and turn a grey colour and just kind of dry up. At the same time in nearby fields 'Clean' sheep sh!t from untreated animals were crawling with flies, beetles and when you kick them over worms underneath them.

I was just telling my wife today that there was lapwings on the field every year when I was younger, which are now completely absent, we used to collect large field mushrooms most years on that field when I was a child, these days there might be the odd mushroom every couple of years.

Add to that the obvious general direction the quality of grazing was heading.

I realise there could be many other factors at play but the fact of the matter is persistent chemical usage is systematically killing the insects that are so vital in breaking down the manure and returning it quickly into the ground.

I spend time most days walking the ground, and rather than looking at the sheep or admiring the view I'm focussed on the breakdown of the manure and the corresponding growth. It took me a few years of wandering about kicking sheep sh!t about to really build up a picture of what's going on.

Since making a determined effort to keep the ground as chemical free as possible, I can see the difference, and it's the difference between growing more grass than the previous year or growing less.
Two main factors, possibly the largest, in order, would be that the predators of ground nesting birds would have been better controlled in the past - ravens, hoodies, buzzards and foxes, and it wouldn’t have been so long since much of the improved ground would have been heavily limed, creating more of an abundance of soil life- breaking down dung and feeding birds. Lapwings scarcely have any chance with corvid numbers present these days.
 
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Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Coincidently/ Funnily enough but today i saw a decent sized flock of Lapwing here on an over wintered stubble field with sheep running on it being fed barley and hay.
Almost spooked them with the bike but turned back just in time :rolleyes:( big surprise them being there )

Nice to see and something I havng seen for some yrs. Not the numbers like when we were kids but nonetheless seems like an improvement.

Were not organic or in any special scheme either.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Two main factors, possibly the largest, in order, would be that the predators of ground nesting birds would have been better controlled in the past - ravens, hoodies, buzzards and foxes, and it wouldn’t have been so long since much of the improved ground would have been heavily limed, creating more of an abundance of soil life- breaking down dung and feeding birds. Lapwings scarcely have any chance with corvid numbers present these days.

Yeah, I agree, any of those reasons could explain the lapwings demise. I accept it can be difficult to pinpoint the degradation of environment. I still attribute a lot of the loss of insect life to toxic sheep sh!t.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Coincidently/ Funnily enough but today i saw a decent sized flock of Lapwing here on an over wintered stubble field with sheep running on it being fed barley and hay.
Almost spooked them with the bike but turned back just in time :rolleyes:( big surprise them being there )

Nice to see and something I havng seen for some yrs. Not the numbers like when we were kids but nonetheless seems like an improvement.

Were not organic or in any special scheme either.

Any ideas? what do you attribute the loss of them to?
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Any ideas? what do you attribute the loss of them to?
No no idea why they appeared here today, pleasantly surprised nonetheless less.
We still get the patches of standing water in PP lower lying fields which they used to like but they don't seem to visit them areas nowadays and for many yrs.probalby since the 70's in big numbers.

This field today was on the hill and realativly dry ground.

The weather has been a bit extreme is the only thing I can think of different

:unsure:
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
but how can we stop using wormers etc, we use LA cydectin in the young calves at turnout, and it makes a very big difference. The same can be said about fluke, we fluke cows at drying off, and y/s when they come in. It's something i don't particularly like doing it, but both are 'tools' we use. I do keep an eye on the dung, and it does degrade with the help of dung beetles etc, fluke not so bad, cattle are 'in', I can't really see an alternative, that works so efficiently.
biggest change in ground nesting birds, and h/hogs, since we have been in a b cull, we see h/hogs, first seen for years, and more pheasant partridge and duck broods, successfully reared, very few lapwings though, plenty of hares, nature can soon restore back to normal, if predators are controlled. First egrets ever seen here, this year.
 

Sharpy

Member
Livestock Farmer
should have included fat hen, it's an amazing weed, wherever we plough/cultivate, we get a full cover, we struggle to grow rape/kale without a spray to control it, we have had stands up to 7ft high, with a bit of rape underneath. Local name is bacon weed, meant to have come in with pig feed. Interesting weed though, the cows will happily eat the seeds, it was imported by the romans for chicken feed, we cut and baled a small patch of new grass, infested with it, the cows eat everything bar the main stems, there is concern that it can affect fertility, and water content in milk, just a pity we haven't got a use for it, self seeding perennial, but it's related to sorghum. Did come across some info about trying to grow a perennial grain plant, now that would be a step forward.
KP i think most like timothy, it looks nice, with a nice name !
Dandelions, our neighbour is diggered with them, yet here, over the hedge, we do not have them as a problem at all, he would be an ardent sprayer as well'
@holwellcourtfarm, we have an organic farm close, he hasn't used fert, or sprays for years, even before he went organic, i cannot recall any ploughing/reseeding being done there, but his hay grounds are virtually dominated by butter cups, look like rape fields in the spring, but he did say the cattle weren't doing so well on the hay, as they used to.
Buttercup is poisonous, they won't eat it fresh but will eat it dried, have heard of calves being killed by Buttercup hay. It also smothers out grass and seems to make ground wetter.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
but how can we stop using wormers etc, we use LA cydectin in the young calves at turnout, and it makes a very big difference. The same can be said about fluke, we fluke cows at drying off, and y/s when they come in. It's something i don't particularly like doing it, but both are 'tools' we use. I do keep an eye on the dung, and it does degrade with the help of dung beetles etc, fluke not so bad, cattle are 'in', I can't really see an alternative, that works so efficiently.
biggest change in ground nesting birds, and h/hogs, since we have been in a b cull, we see h/hogs, first seen for years, and more pheasant partridge and duck broods, successfully reared, very few lapwings though, plenty of hares, nature can soon restore back to normal, if predators are controlled. First egrets ever seen here, this year.

The pour-ons, deltamethrin and the like have the worst and longest lasting effects from what I've seen and also read about. But seeing the impact they make that I can see makes me really wonder about all the other chemical impact that I can't.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
Yeah, I agree, any of those reasons could explain the lapwings demise. I accept it can be difficult to pinpoint the degradation of environment. I still attribute a lot of the loss of insect life to toxic sheep sh!t.
Aye I’m quite sure it doesn’t help, but not all sheep are treated the same/at the same time, food supply would be at the lower end of the impact scale imo. Would love to be able to step back in time and see how the big flocks were managed before any of the chemical controls came about.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
The pour-ons, deltamethrin and the like have the worst and longest lasting effects from what I've seen and also read about. But seeing the impact they make that I can see makes me really wonder about all the other chemical impact that I can't.
Have you read anything comparing them to OP dips?
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Aye I’m quite sure it doesn’t help, but not all sheep are treated the same/at the same time, food supply would be at the lower end of the impact scale imo. Would love to be able to step back in time and see how the big flocks were managed before any of the chemical controls came about.

yep there's quite interesting insights hidden in the napier commission report, giving details of the numbers of stock run in the crofting townships and also numbers of sheep that the big guys were moving in with (or trying to), sounds like absolute chaos on the whole! By the numbers and practices written I suspect huge damage was done around this time due to obscene overgrazing, I'd like to have seen the place one or two hundred years earlier. The 'parks' here look to have been set up for rotation of stock, and on quite a grand scale, but split up into crofts at some point at the turn of the last century.
 

Macsky

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Highland
yep there's quite interesting insights hidden in the napier commission report, giving details of the numbers of stock run in the crofting townships and also numbers of sheep that the big guys were moving in with (or trying to), sounds like absolute chaos on the whole! By the numbers and practices written I suspect huge damage was done around this time due to obscene overgrazing, I'd like to have seen the place one or two hundred years earlier. The 'parks' here look to have been set up for rotation of stock, and on quite a grand scale, but split up into crofts at some point at the turn of the last century.
James Anderson was writing about it in 1777, so not a new concept by any means!
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
I nearly am as well, got a whole tub of parts and spare bits - bowls, chassis, seals, end caps etc.

130 there (complete) so we may make the next systems 6ha and 80 cells, just go to 750m² cells instead of the 1000m², which we'll probably end up cutting in ½ one day, for laughs.

520 paddocks sounds like us
I you go to far they won't have room to eat
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Buttercup is poisonous, they won't eat it fresh but will eat it dried, have heard of calves being killed by Buttercup hay. It also smothers out grass and seems to make ground wetter.
must be a huge reserve of buttercup seed, in the natural seed bank, we used to run a diy livery yard, and the first weeds that grew in the paddocks, was buttercups, followed by docks, while we suffer with docks, never had a problem with b/cups, but they soon appeared. Then some bright spark told the girls they were poisonous to horses, they went mental, couldn't turn out etc, but the 'expert' advice i got, said they were not, no horses suffered, end of, except the livery shut down 2010, and the field where the paddock were, is still full of bloody weeds !
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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