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

[Kiwi Pete]

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1835033873456918/permalink/2680049568955340/

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Sorry - I have no clue as to how to get my video off there, and onto here, for all the good folk who don't do facebook.

I know it is doable.. but maybe not from a group, with a smartphone. If someone can, please do so

Anyway... that's how it works

 

[Rob Garrett]

We did DD seagulls last week View attachment 995587
new water main will run up here, so I gave it a rip and then used the mark to lead the subsoiler in and out. Quite surprised to see the number of gulls considering the worms are quite deep at the moment, but they weren't just there to watch

"Rip & drip" KP? Opportunity to splash on some of that fish brew/humate, do you think it makes a difference?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

"Rip & drip" KP? Opportunity to splash on some of that fish brew/humate, do you think it makes a difference?

Busted! I'm actually going to do a wee field-trial with humate granules "down the spout" at 125 and 250kg/ha (I'm going to crossdrill it, so it's really just a matter of tipping it in a fert box already calibrated for 125kg/ha DAP), but I did have a few hours to see how I'd set up a drip system on the machine. Too many hours

 

[Fenwick]

Sorry - I have no clue as to how to get my video off there, and onto here, for all the good folk who don't do facebook.

I know it is doable.. but maybe not from a group, with a smartphone. If someone can, please do so

Anyway... that's how it works

wow, very efficient!

How is it going playing with time instead of space? does it.not give you some awkward shifting times?

for the film, you need to upload it somewhere online. youtube or vimeo etc then put the link on here.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

wow, very efficient!

How is it going playing with time instead of space? does it.not give you some awkward shifting times?

for the film, you need to upload it somewhere online. youtube or vimeo etc then put the link on here.

Yes, it could do. Things have got to the stage that one shift is too slow and two shifts isn't getting the work done, so after pondering it ... I'll make 2 calf mobs from 3, and put our own cattle in the spare system.

I think raising the SR is the most logical and necessary thing to do at this point, as we certainly can play with the speed but it's really just fighting against it.

Swapping from 4/ha up to 6/ha or more, should really allow us to tune it by giving us more shifts per week.
We can still reduce area, eg we drop 20 cells for each mob, it's close to double the stocking rate we're on now, and I think it's the way forward at the moment

if we have 43 ha total, 7 ha is out for renovations, then what I described just above (all the stock on 18ha or so) actually means the density is doing something worthwhile for us - allowing half the remaining area to have a rest.

Then we can simply put them on that, while the new grass grows and start our stockpile from quite a clean slate

 

[Fenwick]

Yes, it could do. Things have got to the stage that one shift is too slow and two shifts isn't getting the work done, so after pondering it ... I'll make 2 calf mobs from 3, and put our own cattle in the spare system.

I think raising the SR is the most logical and necessary thing to do at this point, as we certainly can play with the speed but it's really just fighting against it.

Swapping from 4/ha up to 6/ha or more, should really allow us to tune it by giving us more shifts per week.
We can still reduce area, eg we drop 20 cells for each mob, it's close to double the stocking rate we're on now, and I think it's the way forward at the moment

if we have 43 ha total, 7 ha is out for renovations, then what I described just above (all the stock on 18ha or so) actually means the density is doing something worthwhile for us - allowing half the remaining area to have a rest.

Then we can simply put them on that, while the new grass grows and start our stockpile from quite a clean slate

A flex. stocking rate is agreat card to play.

It looks like a pretty sweet setup. Certainly gives me food for thought.

Things are getting smoother here but i'd like to dial things in a bit tighter for next year.

Working on the weak links in my hollistic plan right now. I didn't realise how many there are! Which is good, because it means there are plenty of things to improve.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Working on the weak links in my hollistic plan right now. I didn't realise how many there are! Which is good, because it means there are plenty of things to improve.

That is ideal - even if it isn't ideal.
I'd much rather have a bunch of things to chip away at, than one obstacle!

My Dad used to say "If you resists, it then persists" and sometimes I think of that and realise he was teaching me to be resilient to what occurs in life. Sometimes we can simply change how things that happen occur to us through our view.



Thank you, I came to realise that I was ALWAYS "mansplaining" the operation of the techno and showing still photos - and the whole thing is about the easy movement, flexibility, possibilities... hence today taking the video so that others can try on those possibilities for themselves.

Otherwise it's just a whole lot of wires and posts and "but why did you pull down all those good fences for" - when you're backgrounded against normal paddock systems and machinery operations, these systems makes little sense.

as you can see on our little place it is absolutely what I wanted - nothing there that can't be done by anyone

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Make some hay Pete you know you want to

it is looking that way..

 

[Kiwi Pete]

At least I have cows with big tanks to take care of the spare racetrack

got a bit dark for direct drilling grass seed and then was properly dark by the time I shuffled them to a slope for the night. Nice bright light helps a bunch, all I do is light up the pogo and they trust the process. Pleased to have them on this side pre-mating as they can get the medicine-water

glad I arrived at the decision to box these up tighter - instant difference. Gone from 31 to 46 + 3 jersey bulls in this system, from 30 to 45 + 3 bulls in the middle system, and our bunch of bogans in the system nearest the house.

I'll get our yearling heifers up with the SP bull in the ½ system and get the two yearling bulls away out of it for a while, about the 24th should do.

This puts our SR at about 6.1/ha, just as well they are little. Nice to have 4-500 head per hectare as it will give us much better impact as we go through "the season of reproduction"

 

[som farmer]

over the years, there have been lots of grazing systems promoted, as the 'must do' way, not sure which one was the best, they all 'worked', l know of 1 farmer, who has 21 paddocks, and 1 paddock/day, that sort of works, till grass runs out.
We work more on a principle of, 'stocking the grass', flexibly using what is actually there, plus using a back fence. Not sure that is the right way, but seems to work well here.
The conclusion of the grazing season, has left us with acres of lovely grazing, with serious amounts of clover, left, which we cannot really use, lost our first cow ever, from bloat this week.
Our ground cannot really be cattle stocked, now, till next spring, decades of experience have taught us that ! So, back to the wooly maggots. Perhaps, we should be leaving it, so what is wasted over winter, is utilised by the soil, after read newman turner, he might have worked the principles out well, he certainly failed on the ease of working, side of it !

 

[Kiwi Pete]

This is the pasture seed mix if anyone is interested, mostly SeedForce seed varieties if they have weird names. For 7ha, @38kg/ha

 

[Kiwi Pete]

over the years, there have been lots of grazing systems promoted, as the 'must do' way, not sure which one was the best, they all 'worked', l know of 1 farmer, who has 21 paddocks, and 1 paddock/day, that sort of works, till grass runs out.
We work more on a principle of, 'stocking the grass', flexibly using what is actually there, plus using a back fence. Not sure that is the right way, but seems to work well here.
The conclusion of the grazing season, has left us with acres of lovely grazing, with serious amounts of clover, left, which we cannot really use, lost our first cow ever, from bloat this week.
Our ground cannot really be cattle stocked, now, till next spring, decades of experience have taught us that ! So, back to the wooly maggots. Perhaps, we should be leaving it, so what is wasted over winter, is utilised by the soil, after read newman turner, he might have worked the principles out well, he certainly failed on the ease of working, side of it !

Whatever works in practice is generally not the wrong way!

Bloat is a bugger, we found that as the days drew in it was more important to multi-shift the cows, especially on cool mornings. We'd milk them into a small area and then let them have a bit, and another bit, and another bit. Too much clover can be the result of too-short recoveries, also.

Gorging doesn't help, and neither does a flat farm, if you can get them head-uphill in time then they can often belch past the foam. Or a bottle of beer down the neck to collapse the froth

 

[som farmer]

the bloat, caught us out, never really experienced it, is there a lesson, to be learnt ? Changing the 'system' might have altered the response, by stock.
Not so long ago, picked up some y/s, very cheaply, stole probably, at market, back here, after a while, 1 became as wide, as long, it would 'blow' up, go back down, and wobbled along, funny to watch, but no good, and in the end, we put it down, and opened it up, it wasn't bloat, the rumen was absolutely stuffed, with partially digested food, a new one again. Just shows we always keep learning.
Got beaten again last week, cow calving, simply couldn't work out what was showing, nor could son, or the vet, who got a dead calf out, in 10 mins, the water bag, was coming out, inside out. Looked horrendous, to all three of us, but was dead simple !
You are never to old, to learn.

 

[awkward]

Some liquid paraffin in the water trough might help with the bloat,

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We had a steer here a few years ago with a type of bloat the vet had never actually seen, so it took a bit of fathoming. Normally we'd get frothy bloat in cows, but this was a free-gas bloat.

Ended up sewing a "red devil" or trocar + cannula into him, just so the rumen couldn't pressurise.

Was fine for about a month, then dead in the paddock from bloat, obviously whatever infection that caused the issue remained and it only took a bit of fibre to block the cannula and it was game over!

The worst grazing system for it seems to be the ultra quick rotation, that 21-day round really only gives the cow whatever is growing, so in many cases they're just eating clover because the grass hasn't grown back yet. Whereas the same farm on a 35 day rotation wouldn't have any issue, an extra leaf on all the grasses means some semblance of a balanced ration, but it's still really short

Jim Elizondo says that if you really want to get things working, give as long a rest as you can afford a pasture and then begin the high-utilisation Total Grazing thing, as the plants WILL stay much leafier and then the longer (more robust) rotations can be performed without the loss of quality - I can see that happening here actually

 

[crashbox]

Anyone got tips on best to do an "internal" corner on an electric fence?

Need to do a series of L shaped paddocks with a run back to a yard...

Normally would knock a wooden fence post in but don't want to have to do that every time I give the cattle a new strip.

 

[awkward]

We use three pigtails at corners ,hook them on below the ring at whatever angle.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I use two of the big heavy-duty 7mm pigtails with the feet crossed over, and occasionally use a third as a brace. Or a 'waratah' or star picket or whatever you call those Y profile metal stakes if it's going to be relatively permanent, eg at a water trough. A length of pipe slipped over the top as an insulator means a single pigtail is all you need, to keep the wire

 

[som farmer]

as with the majority of farmers, we seem to give the 'slow doers' every chance we can. Been following the y/s from birth to calving, and lactation performance. Very few totally recover from calf 'illnesses', most of the damage is done, in the first 6 months of life, and pneumonia is the worst offender. It is interesting to see the kill sheets, of culls. The 'not so good performance' cows, very often have lung damage - pneumonia, or historic fluke, amongst other 'rejected bits'.
We are getting a bit harder, but l know in this years bulling hfrs, 1 was the 'last' age wise, of the previous group, and had quite a bit of 'treatment', but she looks OK, and matches the group size wise, in reality, she should be the biggest. The other, we never expected it to survive, a hfrs calf, deposited in an extremely wet, and shitty puddle, took a lot of nursing, and is the smallest of the bunch. We will of course, keep and bull them, but, l expect, further down the line, we will wish we hadn't.
As with KP's bloat, the old saying, first loss, best loss, is really quite true, just not hard enough to comply, even worse, theirs a chap locally, who would buy them, knowing the reasons, his mind, is totally focussed on 'cheap, = bargain'. useful chap to know.