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

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
You’re spot on. Thistles (and weeds in general) aren’t a problem. They are a symptom of a problem. They’re nature’s way of trying to heal something you’ve done to damage the environment. Poaching, over-grazing, too much N, etc etc. If we can learn to read the signs then we can start to make fewer (or different....) mistakes.

Creeping thistles are a great example, as are docks. I’ve found exactly the same as you @Guleesh, once I get the management of the pasture right the ‘weeds’ become less and less of a problem. Plus the cattle eat the tips of the thistles (including the flowers) and will strip a dock bare, so transferring those nutrients from deeper in the soil into the surface. It’s a win-win.
What are docks telling you? I’m thinking compaction and bare soil!! I have quite a few in one of my rotation fields. The field was ploughed and reseeded 3 years ago.
Tightening the cows up this rotation so they should eat them even more.
 
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Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
So I have cleaned the face of the silo mixed in some cattle straw manure and horse manure with sawdust/ shavings and made a nice row . It’s reasonably dry . What’s best technic to compost it ? Could I add worms , does it need covering?
Sounds like it could do with some moisture. Do you have dirty water you could spray on it with your tanker
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
So I have cleaned the face of the silo mixed in some cattle straw manure and horse manure with sawdust/ shavings and made a nice row . It’s reasonably dry . What’s best technic to compost it ? Could I add worms , does it need covering?
Water it as it heats up, keep it loosely covered (breathable??) and add the worms once it's cooled down a bit. Ideally you don't want to "cook it" by getting it over 68-70° as that nukes the bugs in it already
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
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A really nice move this morning - just bliss without the usual hoards of tourists. It's taken a while but finally the growth is getting ahead of the sheep and we're starting to build some cover.
 
Ah......

One solution I wouldn’t recommend is to spend nearly £2k on a herbal ley mix, spend three days In early April scratching the surface of the old sward, broadcasting and rolling the seed in, allowing it to sit baking in/on bone-dry soil for three weeks, then get a solitary wet day which gives it one really good soaking, then allow it to sit for the whole of May in baking hot sun (where anything that chitted can shrivel up and die)......

I can guarantee this doesn’t work.....:rolleyes::rolleyes::banghead::banghead::banghead:

Ouch! In a way my land protects me from that. It's not possible to work over with machinery. Though some years back I attempted a reseed experiment. To illustrate the land, it took three separate patches to make up 1 acre I could work the ATV on. I bought a boom sprayer, chain harrow, roller for the ATV, as well as a hand seeder, seed, lime & fert.

All I accomplished was to replace existing native grass with rushes and moss where previously there was little of that. For me, any change now must come from animal impact.

Glad you're not defeated, I sympathise with your problems as many fields here don't exactly lend themselves to paddocks and electric fences, you have to just make the most of what youve got. It is a nightmare trying to move young lambs, I actually don't mind the electric fence chaos as it's 100 times easier than road moves, when the ewes have legged it 200m into the next gateway and 50 deafeningly noisy lambs decide their mum's still in the field we just came out of, and they can make a run for it- that's when I normally think back with fond memories of set stocking.

Don't give up on the year, it's still early, and your lambs will be more sensible in a few weeks. I think I'd still be trying to rotate something, would only need a couple good runs of fence even if just fortnightly moves it's better then nothing?

This morning I went to the local beach with my girlfriend and son, had a great time. I needed to step back from the past fortnights frantic work which has achieved little. I likely will still rotate, of a sort. They're free ranging at the moment due to dubious fencing internally. If I can fix that during the week I'll have three places to use without trucking them anywhere. The other parcel is a bit sensitive in relation to fencing, as it has environmental designations but that brings it to four. I've already started doing a little remapping of paddocks for the next attempt, they will be walled, include gates, and permanent water points for each paddock. To subdivide further becomes complicated as all parcels bound the seashore which isn't fenced.

A good neighbour helped me on Saturday, while rotating isn't for him we had an honest discussion. He's the kind of guy who will tell you what he thinks, but not to do you down or convince you his way is better. I would prefer to do HPG with cattle, so the next big job is aiming for qualification for a herd number, build a pen, crush and small isolation shed. His view of farming here was he didn't know how he'd be able to go on with life if someone arrived and told him he couldn't work sheep any longer. My view was, where have you been all my life :ROFLMAO:

Changing stock type suits my context, I believe. Less labour with the right cattle than sheep, therefore that generates more free time. People say there is more profit with sheep than cattle, maybe so, but farmers rarely cost in their time/labour. It's an insidious hidden cost. HPG worked correctly will take care of a lot of my costs, no fert, little to no chems, shorten the Winter. Changing stock type then adds to that with reduced labour. We did have cattle years ago, so I'm familiar with some aspects like calm handling, and will need to brush up on the important health and breeding as Dad always took care of that.
 

The Ruminant

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Hertfordshire
What are docks telling you? I’m thinking compaction and bare soil!! I have quite a few in one of my rotation fields. The field was ploughed and reseeded 3 years ago.
Tightening the cows up this rotation so they should eat them even more.
Yes compaction, bare soil, poaching etc in my experience. They appear around water troughs, gateways and if - like us - you try bale grazing in a wet autumn and poach a ring round each bale, they will grow there for a number of years (as evidenced on Google World history search which clearly shows them visible for several years...!)
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Beautiful. Do you have any connections to tourism in your business?
No, to me tourists have become just a headache, as numbers here in recent years pre covid19 had got ridiculous, the roads became near gridlocked in summer, people and their dogs getting everywhere, constant litter picking after them, they set up tents where they want, break fences and snap branches for firewood and several of them even leave their faeces in your fields, but tourism is a major employer here so I suppose they have to be tolerated.....
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Ouch! In a way my land protects me from that. It's not possible to work over with machinery. Though some years back I attempted a reseed experiment. To illustrate the land, it took three separate patches to make up 1 acre I could work the ATV on. I bought a boom sprayer, chain harrow, roller for the ATV, as well as a hand seeder, seed, lime & fert.

All I accomplished was to replace existing native grass with rushes and moss where previously there was little of that. For me, any change now must come from animal impact.



This morning I went to the local beach with my girlfriend and son, had a great time. I needed to step back from the past fortnights frantic work which has achieved little. I likely will still rotate, of a sort. They're free ranging at the moment due to dubious fencing internally. If I can fix that during the week I'll have three places to use without trucking them anywhere. The other parcel is a bit sensitive in relation to fencing, as it has environmental designations but that brings it to four. I've already started doing a little remapping of paddocks for the next attempt, they will be walled, include gates, and permanent water points for each paddock. To subdivide further becomes complicated as all parcels bound the seashore which isn't fenced.

A good neighbour helped me on Saturday, while rotating isn't for him we had an honest discussion. He's the kind of guy who will tell you what he thinks, but not to do you down or convince you his way is better. I would prefer to do HPG with cattle, so the next big job is aiming for qualification for a herd number, build a pen, crush and small isolation shed. His view of farming here was he didn't know how he'd be able to go on with life if someone arrived and told him he couldn't work sheep any longer. My view was, where have you been all my life :ROFLMAO:

Changing stock type suits my context, I believe. Less labour with the right cattle than sheep, therefore that generates more free time. People say there is more profit with sheep than cattle, maybe so, but farmers rarely cost in their time/labour. It's an insidious hidden cost. HPG worked correctly will take care of a lot of my costs, no fert, little to no chems, shorten the Winter. Changing stock type then adds to that with reduced labour. We did have cattle years ago, so I'm familiar with some aspects like calm handling, and will need to brush up on the important health and breeding as Dad always took care of that.

Always good to get away from the place even if just for a few hours, I think you're right to pursue less work and time commitments, we're always conscious to try not create chores for ourselves and to record the hours we spend working at sheep. There's somebody I know who has probably enough ground to go more full time with livestock and make a go of the place, but wisely decided to keep it as a hobby as they didn't want the struggle of trying to make profit to overshadow and spoil the enjoyment they got from keeping stock. I know for myself all too well how this can happen.

I always imagine cows being more work than sheep tbh -especially in winter, but all I know is folk wading around in knee deep mud putting bales out to cold, wet muddy cows, and still doing so until middle of may, but as you say 'the right cattle' could work better and definitely have more power to transform pasture that the sheep somewhat lack. Every place is different, and you're the one who's got to do the job so you're the one best placed to make the decisions.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
No, to me tourists have become just a headache, as numbers here in recent years pre covid19 had got ridiculous, the roads became near gridlocked in summer, people and their dogs getting everywhere, constant litter picking after them, they set up tents where they want, break fences and snap branches for firewood and several of them even leave their faeces in your fields, but tourism is a major employer here so I suppose they have to be tolerated.....
sounds like fun, we are lucky here as they tend to go on past so as long as you don't want to use the A303 or the M5 its not to bad
 
Always good to get away from the place even if just for a few hours, I think you're right to pursue less work and time commitments, we're always conscious to try not create chores for ourselves and to record the hours we spend working at sheep. There's somebody I know who has probably enough ground to go more full time with livestock and make a go of the place, but wisely decided to keep it as a hobby as they didn't want the struggle of trying to make profit to overshadow and spoil the enjoyment they got from keeping stock. I know for myself all too well how this can happen.

I always imagine cows being more work than sheep tbh -especially in winter, but all I know is folk wading around in knee deep mud putting bales out to cold, wet muddy cows, and still doing so until middle of may, but as you say 'the right cattle' could work better and definitely have more power to transform pasture that the sheep somewhat lack. Every place is different, and you're the one who's got to do the job so you're the one best placed to make the decisions.

That is an advantage sheep hold over cattle, they have less ability to completely thrash ground. I visited a farm about 45 minutes away last September I think. He keeps dexters, there were six cows, five calves, a bull and a bullock in what I can only describe as a bottomless wet type field. I was waiting to sink myself walking across it. It had been reclaimed from bog, and true enough there was bog each side and above it. I was looking out for damage and could see none of significance. There was a machine dug open drain which the little herd started to jump across. Not even the bull marked the land. I know it was September, but I was impressed.

Some of my land is very shallow, sfa over bedrock. I could bale graze cattle in Winter there. They'd only improve it tbh, given good recovery time. I cannot access all of this type land with bales, actually I'm looking at purchasing a capstan rope winch to roll bales up a hill to one place. It's the only access and will give the neighbours something to be scandalised about. I had my first taste of using round bales outdoors this Spring and I am happy to place bales out for a month at least, perhaps longer. This means no daily drag, slip, and slide. I kept the ewes topped up with Crystalyx, and while expensive, in terms of feeding my flock I put in two days of work from mid Feb until now. No hauling bags, no tipping water out of troughs, no getting horns in the back of the knee. I sure like way better. I can't imagine it would work worse with cattle. In fact I could see rolling out hay, which failed with the sheep, may work much better with cattle.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
sounds like fun, we are lucky here as they tend to go on past so as long as you don't want to use the A303 or the M5 its not to bad
There's always been tourists here but in recent years they've been coming for different reasons, used to be people coming that appreciated unspoilt nature but these days its all about getting a selfie at all the various beauty spots that have become famous after use as filmsets.
 
No, to me tourists have become just a headache, as numbers here in recent years pre covid19 had got ridiculous, the roads became near gridlocked in summer, people and their dogs getting everywhere, constant litter picking after them, they set up tents where they want, break fences and snap branches for firewood and several of them even leave their faeces in your fields, but tourism is a major employer here so I suppose they have to be tolerated.....

Could you knock a turn out of them? This is a very popular tourist village and my future plans intend to re orientate the direction of the farm to produce products to sell them. We were actually saying on the beach this morning, had it been normal times we wouldn't even have been able to get a parking space there. Being a commodity farm I view tourists a sort of pestilence, but I have twigged that it's me that's thinking the wrong way. A bit like King Canute and the tide tbh.

Talking last evening it was mentioned, as an example - I don't agree with wilding myself - how Knepp Castle turned from being a farm to providing safari's.

A book on the psychology of people which I'd recommend is Start with Why, by Simon Sinek. He has done a TEDx talk you can check out for free on YouTube.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
That is an advantage sheep hold over cattle, they have less ability to completely thrash ground. I visited a farm about 45 minutes away last September I think. He keeps dexters, there were six cows, five calves, a bull and a bullock in what I can only describe as a bottomless wet type field. I was waiting to sink myself walking across it. It had been reclaimed from bog, and true enough there was bog each side and above it. I was looking out for damage and could see none of significance. There was a machine dug open drain which the little herd started to jump across. Not even the bull marked the land. I know it was September, but I was impressed.

Some of my land is very shallow, sfa over bedrock. I could bale graze cattle in Winter there. They'd only improve it tbh, given good recovery time. I cannot access all of this type land with bales, actually I'm looking at purchasing a capstan rope winch to roll bales up a hill to one place. It's the only access and will give the neighbours something to be scandalised about. I had my first taste of using round bales outdoors this Spring and I am happy to place bales out for a month at least, perhaps longer. This means no daily drag, slip, and slide. I kept the ewes topped up with Crystalyx, and while expensive, in terms of feeding my flock I put in two days of work from mid Feb until now. No hauling bags, no tipping water out of troughs, no getting horns in the back of the knee. I sure like way better. I can't imagine it would work worse with cattle. In fact I could see rolling out hay, which failed with the sheep, may work much better with cattle.

We bought a field that previously had cattle kept on it through the winters, very similar in that bedrock is less than a foot beneath the surface in places, The rush infestation (that we're still tackling) and poaching of the ground was awful, but have to say the soil seems much more fertile than our own ground that hasn't seen a cow for many decades. I wonder if the bedrock has helped in reducing washing of nutrient into subsoil, a bit like a plant pot.
 

Guleesh

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Isle of Skye
Could you knock a turn out of them? This is a very popular tourist village and my future plans intend to re orientate the direction of the farm to produce products to sell them. We were actually saying on the beach this morning, had it been normal times we wouldn't even have been able to get a parking space there. Being a commodity farm I view tourists a sort of pestilence, but I have twigged that it's me that's thinking the wrong way. A bit like King Canute and the tide tbh.

Talking last evening it was mentioned, as an example - I don't agree with wilding myself - how Knepp Castle turned from being a farm to providing safari's.

A book on the psychology of people which I'd recommend is Start with Why, by Simon Sinek. He has done a TEDx talk you can check out for free on YouTube.

I know what you mean, and agree with Canute analogy, My parents had a tourism business and I grew up in that environment from earliest memories and worked in it as a teenager, to be honest I'd rather be a peasant crofter than have to suffer tourists for the rest of my days, even if it did make me rich. More to life than following the easy money.
 

Rob Garrett

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Derbyshire UK
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 ?
Just thinking out loud. Would a modified strip grazing system work better in your environment? Instead of dividing enclosures into cells and trying to move ewes/lambs into a new cell, have a "feed fence" to move forward x meters/day to allocate fresh grass then move a back fence x meters/day to get some stock density. The only time ewes/lambs need to go through a gate would be to change enclosures, also reduces number of tread ins required? Not as good stock density as cell grazing but still gives more control than set stocking. The amount of work/thought you have put into to the job so far, it would be a shame to change stock type too soon (do like the moo cow idea though!).

Know what you mean about moving ewes/lambs, why do 95% of lambs follow the ewes through a gate leaving remaining 5% of lambs to either run in the opposite direction or play vertical trampolining off the stocknet just 2 meters up from the open gate! and why do 20% of the ewes want to run back to find those remaining 5% of lambs!
 

bitwrx

Member
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
No we're talking!

One of my (potentially sacrificial!) test-pullets came into lay today.
IMG_20200601_181345.jpg

Jolly good it was too.
IMG_20200601_190332.jpg
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Just thinking out loud. Would a modified strip grazing system work better in your environment? Instead of dividing enclosures into cells and trying to move ewes/lambs into a new cell, have a "feed fence" to move forward x meters/day to allocate fresh grass then move a back fence x meters/day to get some stock density. The only time ewes/lambs need to go through a gate would be to change enclosures, also reduces number of tread ins required? Not as good stock density as cell grazing but still gives more control than set stocking. The amount of work/thought you have put into to the job so far, it would be a shame to change stock type too soon (do like the moo cow idea though!).

Know what you mean about moving ewes/lambs, why do 95% of lambs follow the ewes through a gate leaving remaining 5% of lambs to either run in the opposite direction or play vertical trampolining off the stocknet just 2 meters up from the open gate! and why do 20% of the ewes want to run back to find those remaining 5% of lambs!
Or, when they get used to being moved, they all run out the gate, but while you're distracted by something, 20 lambs come running back into the original field?
 

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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