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

baaa

Member
So for my energizer stocking 30J I need a minimum of 6 rods. I have 5 at the mo, but 1m deep not 2. I bought galvanised earthing rods from the same supplier. I did have one wire going to all five until someone cut it :confused:
A kind neighbour has offered me her supply for the short term. She doesn't like the clicking so I bought her a bottle of Gin, which she loves, to blot out the noise!!
I need to find another solution fast, although if I said that I was going to build a barn and a house in the field behind this row of houses, they'd probably all offer at once and sod the inconvenience :D:D
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
nope dont need all that by the book caper, just bang in a nice long rod or 2 down into the ground in or near where your septic soakaway away is ;).


a bit of common sense goes a long way and it doesnt have to have holistic in the heading....:sneaky:
 

The Ruminant

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Hertfordshire
All granite here, the only limestone we see comes on the back of a truck ? I had planned to start a raised bed garden this year, didn't bother in the end as it was so dry.
Look up Hugelkultur, the ultimate raised beds, as far as I can tell
We started off at £1.50 for half a dozen, which made me blush...I mean 25p an egg? Even so, there was an unseemly scrabble among the locals to get hold of them once lockdown kicked in, we took to collecting the eggs at different times of day to make it a bit more sporting for the punters. I had to buy some from the village shop a couple of weeks ago for ourselves ( a magpie had worked out how to open the boxes on our honesty table and we needed some for breakfast), they were £1.69 a half doz, so we're now charging £2 a half doz. And I'm now beyond blushing. It's a prosperous area.

It's been an interesting process all round, it's been a while since we've done much direct selling, but it's changed my focus a lot. Our manager has just given his notice and is moving to Scotland, he can't stand all the locals walking all over the place, it drove him to distraction. But the eggs have shown that if life gives you lemons, then make lemonade, ie if you have a bunch of rich entitled people walking over your land, then grow stuff that they want to buy and sell it to them. They love seeing the chickens, they love the story, they loved the alpacas that guarded the chickens. God knows why, they were antisocial brutes who looked at the electric fences as limbo practice wires to duck under; the chickens are now living without alpaca protection.

Oh, and if anybody knows of a good farm manager looking for a job, tell them to get in touch...
I think you’re way too cheap with your egg prices, @martian. I’ve got some eggs hatching and my plan in a few months, when they start laying, is to sell for 85p per egg, £5 per half dozen, £9 per dozen. With a good story, enough people will pay
Someone might be able add to this half remembered snippet. Somewhere I read that, and not saying this is your situation or practice, long overgrazed grasses may have developed a strategy of survival shortness. That the surviving plants have done so by being short and shooting. Some farms, possibly my own, may have genuine issues with that and may not for a very long time grow "long" grass.

As said that's just half remembered so could be a bit wrong, which is why I'm looking for further input.
Yes, I firmly believe this is true. I’ve several fields where rabbits have attacked it for years and that now just don’t grow tall grass
Things are getting serious we’re now going to get out the farm map to see the most efficient way to split paddocks and move the water to them ??
I’ve just taken on a block of land. I’ve put a central fence (single strand of hot HT) down the middle of all the fields, leaving a gap at either end. That way, when the cattle come into the field I can work them round, in daily cells, along the botttom side of the wire to the end then back along the top side of the wire so that, on their last day in the field, they’re back by the gate they came in by, ready to be moved.
 

Whitewalker

Member
Look up Hugelkultur, the ultimate raised beds, as far as I can tell

I think you’re way too cheap with your egg prices, @martian. I’ve got some eggs hatching and my plan in a few months, when they start laying, is to sell for 85p per egg, £5 per half dozen, £9 per dozen. With a good story, enough people will pay

Yes, I firmly believe this is true. I’ve several fields where rabbits have attacked it for years and that now just don’t grow tall grass

I’ve just taken on a block of land. I’ve put a central fence (single strand of hot HT) down the middle of all the fields, leaving a gap at either end. That way, when the cattle come into the field I can work them round, in daily cells, along the botttom side of the wire to the end then back along the top side of the wire so that, on their last day in the field, they’re back by the gate they came in by, ready to be moved.

yea that’s another good idea to chew on, a central wire. ? that might work well for my young stock . Dairy cows are in and out like yo-yos although our fields are small so and most have lane accessjust need more imagination.
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
@The Ruminant how do you manage the water . Small portable plastic drinker?
@Whitewalker these portable troughs are a brilliant investment for youngstock.
IMG_20190624_143657_0.jpg

And like @The Ruminant says, a 'racetrack' central wire for stock to go round in daily break moves. Although it does have its limitations with milkers. How many milkers do you have?
 

Whitewalker

Member
Where do you buy these I’m in Northern Ireland? We’re only tiny with 50 cows on 50 acres grazing platform ranging from 1 to 7 acre fields. Some are simple water trough resite bigger fields a little more tricky
 

Rob Garrett

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Derbyshire UK
Meh... just discovered orf outbreak in home lambs. Now we're going to have to run two mobs, and keep them separate for pretty much the whole summer, or risk spreading it to another 100+ lambs. Should have joined them up by now but good grass growth at home and some late lambers have kept them apart.

My plans for daily shifts till weaning are pretty much out the window, and rest periods are going to shorten too...
Have you tried high zinc mineral buckets for orf? Hoof & Health, think Brinicomb make a specialist bucket. Had a bit of orf going round the cade shed this year, put a Hoof & Health high zinc bucket in and all cleared up in a couple of weeks. Had a bad do with it after that wet lambing year (2017?) and a field with thistles, think its more due to poor colostrum quality than anything else.
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
Where do you buy these I’m in Northern Ireland? We’re only tiny with 50 cows on 50 acres grazing platform ranging from 1 to 7 acre fields. Some are simple water trough resite bigger fields a little more tricky
The troughs are from kiwitech. Their UK agent is based in Cornwall, but they may have one in Ireland.
For 50 cows, you may get away with one of these troughs. They have a very fast flowing valve if you have decent pressure.
 

Rob Garrett

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Derbyshire UK
@Whitewalker
View attachment 883035
Wilson Plastics 150l portable troughView attachment 883036View attachment 883037
View attachment 88303825mm LDPE feeder pipe, goes thru reducing fittings to attach to the shorter 20mm pipe on the trough (lighter weight).
A Jobe valve is the best I've found as the string can be set for use on a slope (and I always put it on a slope, and it's not able to be broken by cattleView attachment 883039
this is how I'm feeding it at the moment, I can turn off the tap and drain the pipe before I need to drag it. I lashed/bale-taped a rope to it so I can put it over my shoulder like a handbag and drag it ahead of the mob while using my hands to pull the trough.
Too easy, a move takes me around 5 min.View attachment 883076I keep this one with the sheep mob, wouldn't let me upload earlier but this one is nice and light with 20mm HDPE and a thinner plastic tub.
Also bitey if you touch the hotwire with it, which is why they're this way around, the cattle fences are hot
Man alive! Them Jobe Vortex bottom fill valves are some money, £255! Thinking it would be better to unscrew ball off arm type valve, attach it to a length of string and tie to arm. Drill hole at bottom of one side of tank and seal with lashings of silicon.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Have you tried high zinc mineral buckets for orf? Hoof & Health, think Brinicomb make a specialist bucket. Had a bit of orf going round the cade shed this year, put a Hoof & Health high zinc bucket in and all cleared up in a couple of weeks. Had a bad do with it after that wet lambing year (2017?) and a field with thistles, think its more due to poor colostrum quality than anything else.

Always get the odd one that usually clears without treatment and always just blamed the gorse for creating the skin breaks that allow the orf into the lambs, they're always nibbling at the flowers. There's around 125 lambs in the affected group of which around 20 have blisters, but so far only a couple that are really badly affected, it's spread alarmingly fast compared to previous years, a downside to higher stocking density ?

Have to agree about colostrum, but a bit puzzled as seemed to be plentiful colostrum on the ewes this year, with loads of lambs running round with lumps of that stinking yellow crap sticking their tails down. On the other hand-quite a mixed bunch of ewes so could just be lambs of older weaker ewes that are badly affected.

If it doesn't spread much further and individual cases clear up fast maybe we can re-consider joining the two mobs in a few weeks time. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes. In the meanwhile I'll just try and keep focus on the grazing- which I have a lot more control over than the numerous ailments that sheep love to test us with...
 

The Ruminant

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Hertfordshire
@The Ruminant how do you manage the water . Small portable plastic drinker?
Kiwitech micro troughs and an umbilical.

Much of the land was unfenced and had no water supply when I took it on. I’ve moled in a mile of water pipe with risers every 100 yards. I’m pumping water out of the river - hence being able to use the Micro troughs (they’re illegal for connection to the mains as there’s no air gap).

The micro troughs are brilliant.
 
Things came to a head here yesterday. My infrastructure issues finally broke the camels back. I have, for the time being gone back to set stocking.

We have a significant number of stone walls which have to be included in paddock making. Breaking my hand in Feb put me too far behind in rebuilding them. Therefore I have run out of paddocks - this doesn't sound rational if you aren't familiar with the terrain.

Another issue was moving ewes and young lambs from one paddock to another. The plan was the long walls would serve as lanes, with 2.5 foot pieces of rebar drilled in and screw on connectors with polywire. Within the lanes I would make front and back fences to form the paddocks and take power from the lane walls. Not having gate gates has also proven to be a mistake. The flock didn't know where was "safe" to cross from one paddock to another. This results in the ewes running through the gap leaving confused lambs bawling behind. I tried leaving a paddock open behind them for a day so they could remob. The problem with this is it left me desperately short of temporary step in posts, I ordered another two hundred in early may and due to courier cock ups they never arrived. Yet another issue is the sheer number of step in posts required to deal with the up, down, boulder, up, wall, down, up type terrain to be able stop sheep from going under or over a fence.

So, the result is a mess. Ewes & lambs overgrazing paddocks due to me not being able to keep paddocks built ahead of them. This neither benefits the land, the animals, or myself.

Though I do believe the delay may cost me the rest of this year, it has been a worthwhile experience. I still firmly believe in HPG, and I'm as eager as ever to get going. The reality of my infrastructure deficit runs contrary to one of the most important parts of my holistic context, to generate more free time to spend with my family or pursuing education. 8 hours a day rebuilding walls like a convict will do that ?

I am delayed, not defeated ?
 

Whitewalker

Member
Kiwitech micro troughs and an umbilical.

Much of the land was unfenced and had no water supply when I took it on. I’ve moled in a mile of water pipe with risers every 100 yards. I’m pumping water out of the river - hence being able to use the Micro troughs (they’re illegal for connection to the mains as there’s no air gap).

The micro troughs are brilliant.
Sorry treat me like I’m thick but what do you mean air gap?
 
Look up Hugelkultur, the ultimate raised beds, as far as I can tell

Yes, I firmly believe this is true. I’ve several fields where rabbits have attacked it for years and that now just don’t grow tall grass

Hugelkultur is where the mound timber at the bottom of the bed? We have a rather treeless landscape here ?

Have you come across practical remedies to the short grass survival tactic?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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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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