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

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
just read an article from our vets, re fibre at turnout, fresh grass, high in sugar, and protien, low dm, and quite a few DA's, displaces abomasum, and recommend feeding high energy, and fibrous foods, hay straw etc, and yet, on the all things dairy thread, when l said about how quickly grass goes straight through, and querying how much of the food value, was actually used, by the cow, in the time it stayed in, and what would be the nutritional gain, by 'slowing' down that passage time, immediately got put down, by the spring grazers. Two very contrasting views, the spr chaps, wanted warm weather, for high protien grass, the higher the better, with no buffer, for max milk from grass. I calculate a DA would cost roughly 1 ton hay, so feeding some long fibre, slowing down internal passage, should be more beneficial, to both cow and pocket, unless l am missing something. One of the things that was very obvious to us, last summer, feeding hay as a top up, for grass shortage, was the constituent value of the milk, as the higher it is, the higher the price paid :) .
So if fibre is that important, what sources of fibre are available, as already said, hedge browsing is a useful supply, but not necessarily available all the time, or quantity, hay/straw obvious, what about weeds, or which weeds, do herbs, as in chickory, plantains etc, provide any ? Then we can look at where the plate metre, and regen policies actually completely agree, over wintered grass, or stock pile, both contain 'dead' grass leaf's from last autumn, which should help fibre, esp as a bit in every bite. Silviculture, never had any experience, nor will, as if we planted some now, l wouldn't see the benefit, but political interference, could cause problems there, planting trees, is politically a must do, but can see the new 'woods' being 'protected' by the 'greens'.
We have, and would again, feed 'standing hay' to dry cows, it's the ideal feed, just got to get enough grass, to do it ! but my uncle used to feed all summer, not 'quite' standing hay, to his guernsey/jersey herd, all summer, it was the only way to ensure grass was available, all summer, that herd, money wise, equalled our friesian herd, on milk sales, but changed to hols, which wouldn't graze that grass, so buffer feed, which eventually became a 'ration'! So breed, type of animal, can also affect things.
just read an article from our vets, re fibre at turnout, fresh grass, high in sugar, and protien, low dm, and quite a few DA's, displaces abomasum, and recommend feeding high energy, and fibrous foods, hay straw etc, and yet, on the all things dairy thread, when l said about how quickly grass goes straight through, and querying how much of the food value, was actually used, by the cow, in the time it stayed in, and what would be the nutritional gain, by 'slowing' down that passage time, immediately got put down, by the spring grazers. Two very contrasting views, the spr chaps, wanted warm weather, for high protien grass, the higher the better, with no buffer, for max milk from grass. I calculate a DA would cost roughly 1 ton hay, so feeding some long fibre, slowing down internal passage, should be more beneficial, to both cow and pocket, unless l am missing something. One of the things that was very obvious to us, last summer, feeding hay as a top up, for grass shortage, was the constituent value of the milk, as the higher it is, the higher the price paid :) .
So if fibre is that important, what sources of fibre are available, as already said, hedge browsing is a useful supply, but not necessarily available all the time, or quantity, hay/straw obvious, what about weeds, or which weeds, do herbs, as in chickory, plantains etc, provide any ? Then we can look at where the plate metre, and regen policies actually completely agree, over wintered grass, or stock pile, both contain 'dead' grass leaf's from last autumn, which should help fibre, esp as a bit in every bite. Silviculture, never had any experience, nor will, as if we planted some now, l wouldn't see the benefit, but political interference, could cause problems there, planting trees, is politically a must do, but can see the new 'woods' being 'protected' by the 'greens'.
We have, and would again, feed 'standing hay' to dry cows, it's the ideal feed, just got to get enough grass, to do it ! but my uncle used to feed all summer, not 'quite' standing hay, to his guernsey/jersey herd, all summer, it was the only way to ensure grass was available, all summer, that herd, money wise, equalled our friesian herd, on milk sales, but changed to hols, which wouldn't graze that grass, so buffer feed, which eventually became a 'ration'! So breed, type of animal, can also affect things.
I watched greg judys presentations at groundswell on YouTube and I can’t remember which one it was but he mentioned how important he found it to have stockpile grass in spring to compliment the spring flush as he called it. Manure pats were his big indicator. Interesting stuff.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
one of the surest signs of correct ration, consistency of sh1t, work hard to keep it just right all winter, then just let it flow away (literally) at turnout. From a health angle, that amount of fluidity can't be good, imagine yourself with it, yuk.
So it stands to reason that max goodness cannot be extracted, and we all wish for that. You can see why some have opted for zero grazing, or housed 24/7 on a ration, zero grazing should give max use, not that we are going down that route ! Went around a fully housed herd of cows, with robots, in holland, he had it worked out, fields were immaculate, regularly trimmed, contractors made the silage, and fed the ration in winter, doing 5 or 6 farms. 3 robots, so 170ish cows, looking well, on slats, scraper attached to a quad, son helped, if needed, at weekends, nearly looked p/time !
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
one of the surest signs of correct ration, consistency of sh1t, work hard to keep it just right all winter, then just let it flow away (literally) at turnout. From a health angle, that amount of fluidity can't be good, imagine yourself with it, yuk.
So it stands to reason that max goodness cannot be extracted, and we all wish for that. You can see why some have opted for zero grazing, or housed 24/7 on a ration, zero grazing should give max use, not that we are going down that route ! Went around a fully housed herd of cows, with robots, in holland, he had it worked out, fields were immaculate, regularly trimmed, contractors made the silage, and fed the ration in winter, doing 5 or 6 farms. 3 robots, so 170ish cows, looking well, on slats, scraper attached to a quad, son helped, if needed, at weekends, nearly looked p/time !
It probably was part time for him, he needed off farm income to meet CapExp
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
My lifes ambition ,good to know its possible
It's a rare state of bliss, like Henarar said 😅 the main issue on a dairy seemed to be, the more like child's play/ painting by numbers it gets, the sillier the questions and the more we go onto autopilot 🙄

in saying that, it is bloody good. Even with sticking up short reels from node to node in the meantime, great saving on time and fencing gear: just drop the loop with the handle over one arrow and walk to the other one, put 2 pigtails in and call it a fence. Even the youngest lad (bright, but tiny, a bit like me) can shift the calves in a couple of minutes.

It's freed me up SO much that I managed to get a fair bit done yesterday..

Got my ploughing job smoothed out with the discs, some pipe laid under the traffic areas, and 7km of lane wire pulled out (y) and two mobs got 3 shifts each by the kids. Oh and drove 20 posts with the knocker, just beside the creeks and over the sharper crests, to stop the dreaded "lean-on" with the wire pulling down on arrows. So we are well on track!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
By the way, these are excellent for hiding the aftermath of ploughing out an old track 🙄
20210411_201920.jpg

I didn't really enjoy it but it was good to show the family how ploughs and discs and things work, and it will make crossing it a heck of a lot safer without crossing big old wheel ruts on bikes. I'll get the roller-drill out and put a bit of permanent mix onto it and then the lane fence can be put up - still waiting on the insultube and then I'll have a bit of a end-assembly marathon and the rest of the arrowposts can go in.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
It probably was part time for him, he needed off farm income to meet CapExp
wasn't 100% certain how, but they (dutch farmers) run on very high borrowings, as a tax evasion method, they can legally pass the 'debt' onto he next generation, thus inheritance tax is lowered, something we are unable to do here, but we have ag relief tax, which means no IH tax on farms. But it really did appear part time, it was a very neat set up. All the dairy farms we visited, were incredibly tidy, we didn't need wellies anywhere !
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
wasn't 100% certain how, but they (dutch farmers) run on very high borrowings, as a tax evasion method, they can legally pass the 'debt' onto he next generation, thus inheritance tax is lowered, something we are unable to do here, but we have ag relief tax, which means no IH tax on farms. But it really did appear part time, it was a very neat set up. All the dairy farms we visited, were incredibly tidy, we didn't need wellies anywhere !
We set up our kids as shareholders, meaning that we can pay out a dividend on those "better years" as opposed to buying rust and junk to minimise tax payable by the businesses.

And yes, that "way" was taught to me by a dutchman 🤣
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Visual representation of how cover helps conserve moisture (and its main detractor for the naysayers here. How it keeps soil temps cooler and delays seeding/germination)

Snows been gone for weeks. Probably since mid March.
View attachment 953832View attachment 953833
Really quite impressive as a comparison.

(that's about a decades' worth of snow where we are 🙄)

Can you explain how those lumps of material came to be there, I'm only figuring the snowplow would have chucked 'em there? 🤷‍♂️
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
Really quite impressive as a comparison.

(that's about a decades' worth of snow where we are 🙄)

Can you explain how those lumps of material came to be there, I'm only figuring the snowplow would have chucked 'em there? 🤷‍♂️
Yes, the wing on the plow would have shot the grass out there.

The grass is the reason they aren't melted, if the wing had just tossed out dirt and rocks then the snow will actually melt faster. Albedo.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
By the way, these are excellent for hiding the aftermath of ploughing out an old track 🙄View attachment 953811
I didn't really enjoy it but it was good to show the family how ploughs and discs and things work, and it will make crossing it a heck of a lot safer without crossing big old wheel ruts on bikes. I'll get the roller-drill out and put a bit of permanent mix onto it and then the lane fence can be put up - still waiting on the insultube and then I'll have a bit of a end-assembly marathon and the rest of the arrowposts can go in.
You didn't have them behind your poor little Same did you? :eek::rolleyes:
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
You didn't have them behind your poor little Same did you? :eek::rolleyes:
Sure did! She bossed them, too 💪 because I didn't need much cut on.*

The controllable drawbar is really good, because I could tilt them forward and back depending on what I wanted to do, effectively where there was once about a metre deep hole is now nicely levelled up and ready to sow
20210411_131404.jpg


*aided considerably by next to no moisture, I should add
 

Karliboy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Yorkshire
Been emptying yard up on the hill
CA6CA321-55EC-47E6-A369-757E1F76DA1A.jpeg
9830684D-2007-4559-AAE5-EADA580A551C.jpeg

It’s great to see very little moss this year up there unlike normal all the extra muck and lime seems to be bringing it around really well now. The photo don’t do it justice but grass is nearly at top of steel toe caps up here already
0B3038B5-A905-4489-A199-6A68C3A94B76.jpeg

Loads of grass down on the lower land. I could have had cows out a couple of weeks but decided not to and allow the grass to get going proper and let the biology get cycling
05AF63B4-9BCE-4E71-AB54-0919366D4962.jpeg
going to skip my light spring dressing of fert completely in a few fields this year and see how it pans out
B918A872-F214-489C-B818-05622FD8EE6E.jpeg
FA5DC052-6B4D-4188-A035-11DA7E9B96FB.jpeg

Where there’s no cover it’s drying up extra quick. As Roy says cover is king
30FC688E-2D37-4BEB-8EE9-82C17AD02E33.jpeg

I don’t know whether to be Thankful or not but we got 5/6 inches of snow at the weekend so that’s like 10mm if moisture. Otherwise it would have looked to be a very dry April as there’s no other rain going forwards yet. That would be 2 dry springs on the bounce for me.
3D32341D-A93D-4D71-93F7-18AA42D21246.jpeg
 

Crofter64

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Quebec, Canada
I've now finished "The ecology of care" and can't resist sharing a few of the final pages here.

Firstly, the argument for granting nature "person" status in law:

View attachment 954119

View attachment 954122

And then this about how she approaches a farmer regarding changing how he farms:

View attachment 954123

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Vermont is an interesting place.I have been to the Vermont Pasture Network winter conference and Vermont organic farming conference many times. 15 years ago there was so much optimism in grass-farming and dairy. Kids who had gone off to University were coming home with Phds and such and joining the family farm. Then there was a palpable shift- the big corporations got into the grassfed / organic dairy sector and crushed the little guys, again. The NOFA ( northeast organic farming association) reminds me of a Canadian magazine I used to get called Harrowsmith. It was a bit like ACRES written for back -to -the- landers and farmers and has slowly switched to writing for suburban gardeners with a veg. patch and a couple of hens. Lots of photos of beautiful homes in perfect settings. The NOFA conference has a similar feel to it and I no longer wish to go.
Didi Pershouse is giving a webinar course with Wlater Jehne- it was quite pricey so ai skipped it. Is anyone taking it?
 

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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