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

[Kiwi Pete]

One surefire way to lose efficiency is to obey what your govt and panel of levy-paid experts say you should be doing.
Grow more high-producing species, harrow and roll the f**k out of the fields, stay up all night to see if your cow can birth her monster of a calf, spray your crops 8 times

None of the above increase landscape function and most actually actively work agsinst it

 

[Henarar]

One surefire way to lose efficiency is to obey what your govt and panel of levy-paid experts say you should be doing.
Grow more high-producing species, harrow and roll the f**k out of the fields, stay up all night to see if your cow can birth her monster of a calf, spray your crops 8 times

None of the above increase landscape function and most actually actively work agsinst it

perhaps being efficient at making a living, enjoying what you do and leaving the place in good nick.
how much you produce per acre is neither here nor there

 

[Kiwi Pete]

perhaps being efficient at making a living, enjoying what you do and leaving the place in good nick.
how much you produce per acre is neither here nor there

Effectiveness is much more important than any measure of efficiency, because nature herself is totally efficient and effective

 

[Bury the Trash]

perhaps being efficient at making a living, enjoying what you do and leaving the place in good nick.
how much you produce per acre is neither here nor there

I agree.. but the trouble is you make it sound easy

 

[Blaithin]

One surefire way to lose efficiency is to obey what your govt and panel of levy-paid experts say you should be doing.
Grow more high-producing species, harrow and roll the f**k out of the fields, stay up all night to see if your cow can birth her monster of a calf, spray your crops 8 times

None of the above increase landscape function and most actually actively work agsinst it

I stay up all night to make sure my calves don’t freeze. Size has nothing to do with it, sometimes they just choose to appear when the weather isn’t great ?‍

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I stay up all night to make sure my calves don’t freeze. Size has nothing to do with it, sometimes they just choose to appear when the weather isn’t great ?‍

Would your barn lend itself to "biological heating"?
I realise that may not work so well without a tractor, but our composting bedding trick would definitely keep some of the chill out as it's around 50°C at 18 inches deep for a few months

All it costs to heat is some type of nitrogen source, I used peastraw one year and then went to liquid urea and a garden sprinkler off my little spray-pack

 

[Blaithin]

Would your barn lend itself to "biological heating"?
I realise that may not work so well without a tractor, but our composting bedding trick would definitely keep some of the chill out as it's around 50°C at 18 inches deep for a few months

All it costs to heat is some type of nitrogen source, I used peastraw one year and then went to liquid urea and a garden sprinkler off my little spray-pack

Not really. Can’t get any equipment in it even if I had some.

The cows aren’t in the barn to supply fresh nitrogen which is something that could be worked around if desired. Not sure the humidity issue could be fixed though. It would require some infrastructure changes. Also would have issues with water I’d think. The chickens are deep bedded but don’t tend to produce much heat from composting because the bedding is too dry. Meanwhile where the geese are is so wet it just freezes into a block of ice before anything can happen.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Decisions...decisions... - Integrity Soils Ltd

The rain has finally come! And the grass (and most likely weeds aplenty) start to grow. The air is suddenly full of hope that the struggles of the past months, or perhaps years of either no, or minimal rainfall are going to become nothing more than a bad memory. But are the struggles really...

www.integritysoils.co.nz

 

[Farmer Roy]

Has anyone seen this app ?
Or one like it ?
Identifies plants by taking their pic. Tried it out today in some trees, grasses & “weeds”
Awesome.
Dunno where it originates, but it identifies our plants & has Australian names, not sure if it worldwide ALL plants or not, but I’m sure there are other similar apps for your countries

 

[Farmer Roy]

A mate who runs the local LLS office left these in his mailbox for me to pick up this morning
An awesome resource & another example of our “unfair advantages”

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Are there plants growing where you are that are unusual, given the length of time you've been in drought?

I'm amazed at what's around, even shutting tame grassland up for a few extra weeks there are a bunch of new species showing up.
Haven't seen that app, I did have Plantsnap for a while though

 

[Gulli]

Has anyone seen this app ?
Or one like it ?
Identifies plants by taking their pic. Tried it out today in some trees, grasses & “weeds”
Awesome.
Dunno where it originates, but it identifies our plants & has Australian names, not sure if it worldwide ALL plants or not, but I’m sure there are other similar apps for your countries

View attachment 869115

I use plantnet which seems good, gives you a range of options for each picture you take and can do leaves, flowers or stems depending on growth stages etc.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I use plantnet which seems good, gives you a range of options for each picture you take and can do leaves, flowers or stems depending on growth stages etc.

We use Plantnet as well. Seems good.

 

[onesiedale]

I use plantnet which seems good, gives you a range of options for each picture you take and can do leaves, flowers or stems depending on growth stages etc.

+1

 

[BobTheSmallholder]

I use plantnet which seems good, gives you a range of options for each picture you take and can do leaves, flowers or stems depending on growth stages etc.

Will give it a go, thanks for the tip.

 

[BobTheSmallholder]

It's great to have a catch up on this thread, I spent most of February and March finishing up my dayjob and helping with some off-farm contracting as the weather here was atrocious. Now we've had 2 weeks of dry weather, the world has gone mad and I've got to get an electric fence system spec'd, bought and installed before the grass goes too crazy! Money is ridiculously tight atm as all off-farm contracting jobs have been cancelled and they were meant to pay for everything!

 

[Karliboy]

Wasn’t there a little kiwi chap wrote a song titled something like
Feed them and they will come

Ducks are back again this year, hopefully keep enough rain coming to keep pond full.
If it drops to far sodding badgers and foxes can get underneath the hawthorn and rob eggs/ducklings.

Trying to do a Pete and hide the daughter in the grass on Sunday gone.
Quite a bit more growth since and plenty of moisture underneath. ( cover is everything) can still push fingers easily into the soil under the grass so I have no need to comment in the laugh of a drought thread.

I’m not saying I need any rain yet but a few splashes here and there would be handy with the dung on the hill as that does dry quick with very little cover and little soil before you hit the dry shale sub soil hopefully It would bring the worms up to digest the dung better.
Which would all help with my so called grazing plans/rotations.
If I turned out now I’ve only got approx 14 days in front off me at the best which is not enough just yet.
I (think) I’ve decided to go 50% with fert again using 20-10-10 as I don’t think it’s worth bothering going any less, but can’t get that until next weekend.
(Hindsight is great as I would have got something to put on 3 weeks ago if I new the weather was going to be as good as it has it would have used it well)

Tb testing results tomorrow, so at the weekend I could put cows and calves out and keep bull and those to calve inside for time being it would help extend rotations.
I’m trying to save as many rounds as possible ready for next year from what I buy in as I like to keep a little spare just incase.
I’ll see what happens but it would be good to pinch a couple of early weeks to start the year off

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Good stuff, I haven't really been up to much in the way of photos and social media lately as whatever I say seems to land me in hot water ?‍
Everybody seems a bit "precious", I suppose the coronavirus concerns are making their cervix a bit crusty? Maybe it's the drought.


Well.... we got our ewe lambs Wednesday afternoon, "well used to electric fences" reportedly, well no... apparently they are not.

Some are, but the mob is made up of two lines and one line need schooled..... we've gone back to daily shifts in the meantime just til they cotton-on to the idea that they get fed as well staying with the mob as they do getting out.

Yesterday I put 5 back in and no escapees this morning, so they're learning fast!!

I went to a 4 wire fence down the middle of my paddock, and this meant I could close up the gaps between strands and still have it high enough the cattle can't step over the top...and put 3 wire fences off that centre fence.
Started shifting them as I mean to go on, that is put the wires up on pogos and walk away.

The bulls are happy to have sheep around them again, and of course are great leaders for the sheep.
The grass is pretty short, but gosh is it thick!

Looking really healthy, too. They flatten it in about 15 minutes flat and then set to eating it off the deck

There's 26 bulls and 348 ewe lambs on an acre (0.4ha) for a day. This will work out at about 70 days recovery, HOPING I don't have to winter all the cattle we currently have as they're a bit too big for that.
I'd prefer to have only yearlings on, but I can't get any until I sell the bigger bulls.

Covercrop is still doing well

still patchy but I'll learn from that for next time. The grass in the bottom is coming quickly now and the first radishes are beginning to bolt; peas are also just starting to bloom, but I've only seen the one sunflower yet.
Another couple of months and we'll be into it.

 

[Treg]

Wasn’t there a little kiwi chap wrote a song titled something like
Feed them and they will come View attachment 869265
Ducks are back again this year, hopefully keep enough rain coming to keep pond full.
If it drops to far sodding badgers and foxes can get underneath the hawthorn and rob eggs/ducklings. View attachment 869264
Trying to do a Pete and hide the daughter in the grass on Sunday gone.
Quite a bit more growth since and plenty of moisture underneath. ( cover is everything) can still push fingers easily into the soil under the grass so I have no need to comment in the laugh of a drought thread.

View attachment 869263View attachment 869262

I’m not saying I need any rain yet but a few splashes here and there would be handy with the dung on the hill as that does dry quick with very little cover and little soil before you hit the dry shale sub soil hopefully It would bring the worms up to digest the dung better.
Which would all help with my so called grazing plans/rotations.
If I turned out now I’ve only got approx 14 days in front off me at the best which is not enough just yet.
I (think) I’ve decided to go 50% with fert again using 20-10-10 as I don’t think it’s worth bothering going any less, but can’t get that until next weekend.
(Hindsight is great as I would have got something to put on 3 weeks ago if I new the weather was going to be as good as it has it would have used it well)

Tb testing results tomorrow, so at the weekend I could put cows and calves out and keep bull and those to calve inside for time being it would help extend rotations.
I’m trying to save as many rounds as possible ready for next year from what I buy in as I like to keep a little spare just incase.
I’ll see what happens but it would be good to pinch a couple of early weeks to start the year off

Good luck with the Tb test results.
You've hidden her well, is she hiding top left ?

 

[Treg]

Good stuff, I haven't really been up to much in the way of photos and social media lately as whatever I say seems to land me in hot water ?‍
Everybody seems a bit "precious", I suppose the coronavirus concerns are making their cervix a bit crusty? Maybe it's the drought.


Well.... we got our ewe lambs Wednesday afternoon, "well used to electric fences" reportedly, well no... apparently they are not.

Some are, but the mob is made up of two lines and one line need schooled..... we've gone back to daily shifts in the meantime just til they cotton-on to the idea that they get fed as well staying with the mob as they do getting out.

Yesterday I put 5 back in and no escapees this morning, so they're learning fast!!

I went to a 4 wire fence down the middle of my paddock, and this meant I could close up the gaps between strands and still have it high enough the cattle can't step over the top...and put 3 wire fences off that centre fence.
Started shifting them as I mean to go on, that is put the wires up on pogos and walk away. View attachment 869284The bulls are happy to have sheep around them again, and of course are great leaders for the sheep.
The grass is pretty short, but gosh is it thick!View attachment 869286
Looking really healthy, too. They flatten it in about 15 minutes flat and then set to eating it off the deckView attachment 869287
View attachment 869288There's 26 bulls and 348 ewe lambs on an acre (0.4ha) for a day. This will work out at about 70 days recovery, HOPING I don't have to winter all the cattle we currently have as they're a bit too big for that.
I'd prefer to have only yearlings on, but I can't get any until I sell the bigger bulls.

Covercrop is still doing wellView attachment 869301still patchy but I'll learn from that for next time. The grass in the bottom is coming quickly now and the first radishes are beginning to bolt; peas are also just starting to bloom, but I've only seen the one sunflower yet.
Another couple of months and we'll be into it.

"A bit precious " I've noticed that , I think it's the smell of fear .
What would you change about the cover crop KP?