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

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
So much for taking "a photo each week to show progress" :rolleyes:View attachment 865414
A fair bit of the area doesn't look a patch on this, a combination of poor fertility, lack of groundcover, slugs and ducks etc.

On the plus side, there is plenty of diversity. We (boys, Sarah and I) went for a wander yesterday and played a game of "find something new".
We discovered there's about 60 species present in the area, from "weeds" to "covercrop", so that's massive (y)
Looks well. About a foot tall I'd guess?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
"What inputs do you rely on? What would happen if you couldn’t access them? It is worth giving some thought to this to see if you can secure supply or consider alternatives should that issue arise. Fuel and essential medical supplies are two that come to mind. Don’t get caught up in hoarding hysteria however.

What if you couldn’t sell your products? What is your ability to hold animals or store products until you can sell them? Just this week a client had to make a late change in plans after a livex ship was cancelled at short notice."

I've been wondering that myself but I doubt many here are giving it any serious thought. I need to get 2 rolls of bale net ordered but otherwise we're good for 6 months.
 
So much for taking "a photo each week to show progress" :rolleyes:View attachment 865414
A fair bit of the area doesn't look a patch on this, a combination of poor fertility, lack of groundcover, slugs and ducks etc.

On the plus side, there is plenty of diversity. We (boys, Sarah and I) went for a wander yesterday and played a game of "find something new".
We discovered there's about 60 species present in the area, from "weeds" to "covercrop", so that's massive (y)

A lot of nice wide leaves there for your energy cycle ?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
"What inputs do you rely on? What would happen if you couldn’t access them? It is worth giving some thought to this to see if you can secure supply or consider alternatives should that issue arise. Fuel and essential medical supplies are two that come to mind. Don’t get caught up in hoarding hysteria however.

What if you couldn’t sell your products? What is your ability to hold animals or store products until you can sell them? Just this week a client had to make a late change in plans after a livex ship was cancelled at short notice."

I've been wondering that myself but I doubt many here are giving it any serious thought. I need to get 2 rolls of bale net ordered but otherwise we're good for 6 months.
That's about "where we're at" here, the bull schedule is almost exactly HALF what it was when I sold the first lines in January. Feck that.

I'm going to direct-sell them to a butcher for MY price, and the processors can swivel
 

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
That's about "where we're at" here, the bull schedule is almost exactly HALF what it was when I sold the first lines in January. Feck that.

I'm going to direct-sell them to a butcher for MY price, and the processors can swivel
The Canadian dollar dropped to 66c US, and suddenly the American buyers are buying all our cattle and the price has sky rocketed. As well my local abbatoir, which kills only on tuesday mornings with a vet present and then cuts all week- i.e. not a big place- sold 4000 lbs of hamburger meat last weekend! The demand is on
 
From last couple of years experience for me I would definitely keep them going on what they've been used to until most have lambed, and I know that if I had sparse feeding at lambing I would be forced to graze saved fields too early and end up being ahead of the grass, hoping for it to catch up and meet demand.

That's what happened here last lambing which just ended up setting everything back for the whole summer really. Much better to buy the hay I say.

btw. your photos show conditions almost identical to here (west coast Scotland) and although spring is coming, it can be very slow. I wouldn't want to be depending on good grass on 20th April.

This is closest to my thinking ? Particularly the poor growth. I can smell the grass wanting to grow ? the weather has other ideas, nothing great on the forecast horizon either. Tick, tock.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Here ya go Roy
20200326_115011.jpg

My neighbour's soil f***ing off, 61mm rain, 100 cows/ha
20200326_095125.jpg

My place, 61mm rain, 260 bulls/ha
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
which is probably why so many won’t admit to doing a cûnt of a job . . .
It's a paradigm shift, have you read the post on the regen grazing group about "NZ farmers have been regeneratively farming for 150 years" when what the guy's describing is poor to average rotational grazing practice?
The responses are pretty good though.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
It's a paradigm shift, have you read the post on the regen grazing group about "NZ farmers have been regeneratively farming for 150 years" when what the guy's describing is poor to average rotational grazing practice?
The responses are pretty good though.
That's going to be the problem with widespread adoption I suspect. Many grassland farmers have no notion of what real regenerative management means so just claim to have been doing it all along. They're also the ones who say "Soil erosion doesn't happen in grassland".

He clearly has no idea what he's writing about. :(
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 76 43.7%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 27 15.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 3 1.7%

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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