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

[sheepdogtrail]

Can not find a reason to grow Timothy myself for weight gain or lactating animals. Why no rye grass? In NZ you have access to some of the best rye grass seeds in the world. These days there is a rye grass for every possible grazing application. The diversity is fairly large for the forage types. Very easy to get a 3 week spread on heading dates.

That block of yours looks fantastic by the way. Good job. Keep it up.

 

[Bowland Bob]

@Kiwi Pete so why do you think you may hit that wall, where as Jim Gerrish and Greg Judy appear not to? Is it environment, rainfall etc?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Can not find a reason to grow Timothy myself for weight gain or lactating animals. Why no rye grass? In NZ you have access to some of the best rye grass seeds in the world. These days there is a rye grass for every possible grazing application. The diversity is fairly large for the forage types. Very easy to get a 3 week spread on heading dates.

That block of yours looks fantastic by the way. Good job. Keep it up.

Ryegrass is pretty junk compared to brome and cockfoot, especially for our winter grazing regime. It's hard to get them to stop growing flat out...

'3 weeks' is about right but we're on about a 9 week summer rotation which means either we compromise the recovery to suit one grass, or just don't plant it.
Manage for later heading species if anything, species with wider leaves and deeper rooting habits

Timothy is there because it will extend our active growing season by about 6-7 weeks, which in our context means we can stock for an extra month at this time of the year, there's $8,000 extra in the bank just for a cupful or two of tiny seeds. We just need to be careful not to overgraze in the autumn and harm those new tillers.

 

[som farmer]

View attachment 943683
Got a few away today, 96 less to feed. Thought they would have looked worse off feed than they do

thought you had started an american style feedlot. They do look well

 

[Kiwi Pete]

@Kiwi Pete so why do you think you may hit that wall, where as Jim Gerrish and Greg Judy appear not to? Is it environment, rainfall etc?

Stocking rates, related to grass utilisation.
If I was running half the stocking rate, I could leave half the grass behind and have a YouTube about why.
Then I could graze more times in a year and slow down the rate of improvement - bear in mind that continental weather and continental pasture management and continental cattle suit the continents better than a scraggy wee wet island group.
They have extremes, we have "mood swings" to cope with.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Thanks guys. I could have kept them here for a while longer but I was sick of one of the stock agents not answering my agent, being a bit of a di-ck head about it as is his reputation.... and I need a break

 

[som farmer]

an article i read, decades ago, about climate and breed of cattle, many local breeds developed around the climate in a particular place, hence galloways or highlands, on mountains, to jerseys on jersey. This went onto the continental breeds, lims were the example used, their 'natural' climate is average 3 degrees higher than ours, so lims over here, have to have 3 degrees of extra food, to stay the 'same'. Now in all the years since importation, breed has adapted to our climate, but, why do they need so much extra feed, than our native breeds, weight can be measured in extra kg/body, and compared back to native. A different look at the beef breeds, perhaps, from a different angle.
A different theme, we had a call from a big calf buyer, desperately looking for fr bull calves ! Sexed semen has put an end to the steady supply, so what has been classed as 'unsalable' and euthanised by the 1,000's, is suddenly wanted again ! We, like many, are using fr rather than hol, so the bull calves should be better as well. Going back to kp picture of nice looking beef cattle, virtually all black, we like herefords, but on our xbred kiwi type cows, get to many red calves.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

That sums up why I don't have big cattle.
Plenty do run them, but pretty extensively (read, cheap keep on a massive hand-me-down ranch) but they just don't get gone before the second winter reliably enough for us.
Whereas these type of cattle almost always are, the key then is to get them away before the processing plants jam up... which was what the dorkus agent was angling for, when the agreed term was 6-8 weeks.

If I really really wanted to be played by the meat companies, then we'd go back to being farmers.

And I'd rather move to town

 

[Fenwick]

If I was running half the stocking rate, I could leave half the grass behind and have a YouTube about why.

Ouch. But your right, it's the truth.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Ouch. But your right, it's the truth.

That was a bit of the real Pete

I should go back to being Kiwi Pete...

But I should add that I grew up racing dirtbikes and cars... and if you aren't full throttle or full brakes then you are "losing time"

in this I'm not saying that these guys aren't doing a fantastic job and a wonderful face of regenerative grazing but it's also not my ideal "way" to help farmers.
Why give away the answers when you can teach them to question?
That's my question for Jim and Greg and Jaime.
These guys are almost verging on "a recipe for beef production" and it's like the plate meters. Why.

Why not ask the questions, like
"is this the absolute best thing I can do with the landscape today" or "why are the cows actually in this place at this time" and be honest .

It is more unique and revealing if it comes from your own "senses" than a man from YouTube or TFF.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

That was a bit of the real Pete

I should go back to being Kiwi Pete...

But I should add that I grew up racing dirtbikes and cars... and if you aren't full throttle or full brakes then you are "losing time"

in this I'm not saying that these guys aren't doing a fantastic job and a wonderful face of regenerative grazing but it's also not my ideal "way" to help farmers.
Why give away the answers when you can teach them to question?
That's my question for Jim and Greg and Jaime.
These guys are almost verging on "a recipe for beef production" and it's like the plate meters. Why.

Why not ask the questions, like
"is this the absolute best thing I can do with the landscape today" or "why are the cows actually in this place at this time" and be honest .

It is more unique and revealing if it comes from your own "senses" than a man from YouTube or TFF.

It really IS time you wrote that book you know.....

"Regenerative land management the Leeside way"

 

[Fenwick]

That was a bit of the real Pete

I should go back to being Kiwi Pete...

But I should add that I grew up racing dirtbikes and cars... and if you aren't full throttle or full brakes then you are "losing time"

in this I'm not saying that these guys aren't doing a fantastic job and a wonderful face of regenerative grazing but it's also not my ideal "way" to help farmers.
Why give away the answers when you can teach them to question?
That's my question for Jim and Greg and Jaime.
These guys are almost verging on "a recipe for beef production" and it's like the plate meters. Why.

Why not ask the questions, like
"is this the absolute best thing I can do with the landscape today" or "why are the cows actually in this place at this time" and be honest .

It is more unique and revealing if it comes from your own "senses" than a man from YouTube or TFF.

Yeah, but it's nice to have a plan to start with, especially when heading into the unknown, then you can modify it to suit your context.

Interestingly these three have very different 'recipies' and each of them seems (from afar) pretty successful.

 

[Henarar]

Yeah, but it's nice to have a plan to start with, especially when heading into the unknown, then you can modify it to suit your context.

Interestingly these three have very different 'recipies' and each of them seems (from afar) pretty successful.

Quite,
its ok to listen to and watch other folk and copy them to an extent as long as you can stand back and question the method and outcome and change things to suit yourself

 

[Henarar]

There is lots of talk on here about "what we have always done" like its wrong, but it isn't always

 

[awkward]

It really IS time you wrote that book you know.....

"Regenerative land management the Leeside way"

I was thinking a video of a farm walk, assassinating the bad practices of the host farmer, could be interesting reactions , but in reality a video explaining intent and outcomes in a visual way for the likes of myself

 

[ShooTa]

There is lots of talk on here about "what we have always done" like its wrong, but it isn't always

So true - alot of our boundaries have been fixed in the style they were to take advantage of something tangible at the time.. hedges became worked because they helped keep stock in.. devon hedges likewise .. ditches, then things got squirrely when the farmer started buying advice and products to improve the land... but as i heard on a talk the other day - someone set stocking really well will still be better than some one rotationally grazing badly (untoward acceleration)

challenge and question everything - test and re-test. trial and retrial and finally if happy, fix it in place..

 

[Fake it ‘til you make it]

So true - alot of our boundaries have been fixed in the style they were to take advantage of something tangible at the time.. hedges became worked because they helped keep stock in.. devon hedges likewise .. ditches, then things got squirrely when the farmer started buying advice and products to improve the land... but as i heard on a talk the other day - someone set stocking really well will still be better than some one rotationally grazing badly (untoward acceleration)

challenge and question everything - test and re-test. trial and retrial and finally if happy, fix it in place..

How do you set stock really well? Genuine question. From what one hears and reads, set stocking inevitably leads to overgrazing of the “nice” plants as they recover and undergrazing of the plants that the stock are less keen on.

 

[ShooTa]

i would guess (having never done it .. ) to be measuring your grass and stocking to the correct intake of the animals in relation to grass growth at that time of the year - the forage would quickly become a monoculture but i would assume that there is still a rest element of set stocking

 

[sheepdogtrail]

Ryegrass is pretty junk compared to brome and cockfoot, especially for our winter grazing regime. It's hard to get them to stop growing flat out...

'3 weeks' is about right but we're on about a 9 week summer rotation which means either we compromise the recovery to suit one grass, or just don't plant it.
Manage for later heading species if anything, species with wider leaves and deeper rooting habits

Timothy is there because it will extend our active growing season by about 6-7 weeks, which in our context means we can stock for an extra month at this time of the year, there's $8,000 extra in the bank just for a cupful or two of tiny seeds. We just need to be careful not to overgraze in the autumn and harm those new tillers.

Personally I would not call Ryegrass junk. By far, there is no other forage grass that can compete with it in any given application. A pasture with just a single cultivar of Ryegrass is not the best for long term grazing. I use a mix of 8 different ones in a organic managed system with sheep and I never have a issue with having available grass year round. I am in production in a very similar climate and soil types to what you have in the Catlins. Of course your blocks are different than mine so if you are happy with the persistence and growth of both your animals, soil biology and forage, by all means stick to it and keep your banker happy. You may need them at some point down the road.

I look at my soil on a square inch perspective. What is growing in that square inch? Am I happy with that. If so, move on. If not, what would benefit the soil, animals and my pock book better. In that order. If I don't have the answers, than I test and retest until I have something that works better. I do on farm trials every year which includes optimal planting, sub optimal and just plane bad planting. If it grows in a bad planting under poor soil conditions and remains disease free, I have a more advanced test for those seeds to see if they would be better in all of the square inches that make up my blocks.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yeah, but it's nice to have a plan to start with, especially when heading into the unknown, then you can modify it to suit your context.

Interestingly these three have very different 'recipies' and each of them seems (from afar) pretty successful.

So they should be!
All our recipes should be pretty much spot on if we ask the right questions.

They need to align with our own goals; the principles of growing better and bigger crops of calves are great, improving the fit of your genetics to your land, but we don't have that in our list of goals.