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

[Woolless]

Probably cos it’s so bloody long . I think I’m home alone on Wednesday night so I’ll work through it then.

The one I watched through the week was a PFLA one with GH and Tim Williams (iirc). It's got quite a bit of the stuff on that one but is more recent and has a few other snippets on it.

 

[Samcowman]

The one I watched through the week was a PFLA one with GH and Tim Williams (iirc). It's got quite a bit of the stuff on that one but is more recent and has a few other snippets on it.

Found it

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It’d be interesting to hear most mainstream dairy consultants response to that gem

They have fear on their side, fear of losing is generally what stops us winning

I would simply ask why a farm needs a consultant to keep the operation restricted and at the mercy of outside forces, when farmers are perfectly capable of being their own limiting force

 

[hendrebc]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1470098673254207492

Worth a read. It's from nz beef and lamb about deferred grazing. Couldn't work out how to post a link to the document but found it on twitter.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1470098673254207492

Worth a read. It's from nz beef and lamb about deferred grazing. Couldn't work out how to post a link to the document but found it on twitter.

That's really good. Our idea here is to use the first "round of deferred pasture" to defer another part, then another part, then another part.

Instead of thinking we have a pasture surplus in the spring (grass fever) the true surplus is what is left at the end of winter, ie very little of what we see as surplus actually is

 

[Fenwick]

That's really good. Our idea here is to use the first "round of deferred pasture" to defer another part, then another part, then another part.

Instead of thinking we have a pasture surplus in the spring (grass fever) the true surplus is what is left at the end of winter, ie very little of what we see as surplus actually is

This is what we have observed this year. Rather than planning stockpile for the winter, we have been on stockpiled grass since may and still are today.

Here are the cows (yesterday). Still a bit of grass infront.

Positives 2021.

The pastures look visually much better this year.
I might possibly have more grass because of it (I don't have less anyway)
Feed costs are lower (probably going to feed 30% less hay than I would)
If all my land was accessible I am could forgo hay completely. Infact I could probably take the first cut and forgo the second and still make it through the winter without feeding it back.
Reduced need for hay has mean't that didn't need to take a third cut this year. I am told that if I take only two cuts/year the hay fields can fertilise themselves well enough through exudates. Hmmm.

Negatives 2021

There are time constraints with the cows that I didn't have before.
It is too easy to underfeed them by having the eye on the grass more than the cow.
I feel that animal performance is down. Is this acceptable?

 

[Henarar]

This is what we have observed this year. Rather than planning stockpile for the winter, we have been on stockpiled grass since may and still are today.

Here are the cows (yesterday). Still a bit of grass infront.

View attachment 1002868


Positives 2021.

The pastures look visually much better this year.
I might possibly have more grass because of it (I don't have less anyway)
Feed costs are lower (probably going to feed 30% less hay than I would)
If all my land was accessible I am could forgo hay completely. Infact I could probably take the first cut and forgo the second and still make it through the winter without feeding it back.
Reduced need for hay has mean't that didn't need to take a third cut this year. I am told that if I take only two cuts/year the hay fields can fertilise themselves well enough through exudates. Hmmm.

Negatives 2021

There are time constraints with the cows that I didn't have before.
It is too easy to underfeed them by having the eye on the grass more than the cow.
I feel that animal performance is down. Is this acceptable?

depends if your costs are down more ?
If you don't spend it you haven't got to make it back

 

[som farmer]

They have fear on their side, fear of losing is generally what stops us winning

I would simply ask why a farm needs a consultant to keep the operation restricted and at the mercy of outside forces, when farmers are perfectly capable of being their own limiting force

l started when cow rationing, was HE, or hay equivalent, remembered as 2 flaps of hay, and a shovel full of soaked sugarbeet per cow, over night, when tied up, day was kale.
Then along came the 'new' system, SE starch equivalent, focusing on 'energy', for us, that was straw yards, self feed silage, and adlib hay. Both worked, simple and profitable.

After them, not sure which came, all in ever increasing complexity, and today, you can easily feed a highly complicated, carefully weighed TMR ration, containing little bits, of 'all sorts', which are claimed to do, x y z, and expensive. And breeders have produced a cow that probably does need all those 'bits', to give you up to 15x1000 litres.

most of us do not have the time, inclination, or the cows, to do that, so we still try to follow these rations, and fall short, cows don't milk so well, acidosis, ketosis, DA's etc follow. In fact many are reverting back, to pre holstien type cows. And as l have said before, farmers are experts at complicating farming systems, the true winners, are the reps and millers. Millers need watching, especially with what they include in their concoctions, probably better than what is in some highly processed human feeds.

But even the HE and SE rations work quite well today, with the simpler bred cows, and as KP said, rationing is easy, get the cow to eat large quantities of quality food/fodder, whether grass or silage/hay, for maintenance +, we know the cow needs more, to produce more than 10/12 litres, maize, and conc, sorts that, the better/simpler the ingredients, the better the conc. The most interesting 'bit', when at a party, speaking to a human nutritionist, re cow rationing, we are so far ahead, on our cow rations, versus human, both she and l, were gobsmacked.

 

[Henarar]

l started when cow rationing, was HE, or hay equivalent, remembered as 2 flaps of hay, and a shovel full of soaked sugarbeet per cow, over night, when tied up, day was kale.
Then along came the 'new' system, SE starch equivalent, focusing on 'energy', for us, that was straw yards, self feed silage, and adlib hay. Both worked, simple and profitable.

After them, not sure which came, all in ever increasing complexity, and today, you can easily feed a highly complicated, carefully weighed TMR ration, containing little bits, of 'all sorts', which are claimed to do, x y z, and expensive. And breeders have produced a cow that probably does need all those 'bits', to give you up to 15x1000 litres.

most of us do not have the time, inclination, or the cows, to do that, so we still try to follow these rations, and fall short, cows don't milk so well, acidosis, ketosis, DA's etc follow. In fact many are reverting back, to pre holstien type cows. And as l have said before, farmers are experts at complicating farming systems, the true winners, are the reps and millers. Millers need watching, especially with what they include in their concoctions, probably better than what is in some highly processed human feeds.

But even the HE and SE rations work quite well today, with the simpler bred cows, and as KP said, rationing is easy, get the cow to eat large quantities of quality food/fodder, whether grass or silage/hay, for maintenance +, we know the cow needs more, to produce more than 10/12 litres, maize, and conc, sorts that, the better/simpler the ingredients, the better the conc. The most interesting 'bit', when at a party, speaking to a human nutritionist, re cow rationing, we are so far ahead, on our cow rations, versus human, both she and l, were gobsmacked.

Talking to a small dairy farmer the other day and he still does it much the same as we did before we gave up in 98, round bales of PP silage in feeders and cake in the parlour and British Frisian cows, looking from the outside he seems to be doing ok. simple system

 

[Kiwi Pete]

l started when cow rationing, was HE, or hay equivalent, remembered as 2 flaps of hay, and a shovel full of soaked sugarbeet per cow, over night, when tied up, day was kale.
Then along came the 'new' system, SE starch equivalent, focusing on 'energy', for us, that was straw yards, self feed silage, and adlib hay. Both worked, simple and profitable.

After them, not sure which came, all in ever increasing complexity, and today, you can easily feed a highly complicated, carefully weighed TMR ration, containing little bits, of 'all sorts', which are claimed to do, x y z, and expensive. And breeders have produced a cow that probably does need all those 'bits', to give you up to 15x1000 litres.

most of us do not have the time, inclination, or the cows, to do that, so we still try to follow these rations, and fall short, cows don't milk so well, acidosis, ketosis, DA's etc follow. In fact many are reverting back, to pre holstien type cows. And as l have said before, farmers are experts at complicating farming systems, the true winners, are the reps and millers. Millers need watching, especially with what they include in their concoctions, probably better than what is in some highly processed human feeds.

But even the HE and SE rations work quite well today, with the simpler bred cows, and as KP said, rationing is easy, get the cow to eat large quantities of quality food/fodder, whether grass or silage/hay, for maintenance +, we know the cow needs more, to produce more than 10/12 litres, maize, and conc, sorts that, the better/simpler the ingredients, the better the conc. The most interesting 'bit', when at a party, speaking to a human nutritionist, re cow rationing, we are so far ahead, on our cow rations, versus human, both she and l, were gobsmacked.

Absolutely!

For me, it shows that although we have a comittment to "run the farm in a really profitable and resilient manner" or whatever's there, we can kinda collapse it into some kind of expectation - maybe about what it looks like, or maybe that the cows have to give X number of litres to get that most profit or most resilience

and with expectations, come disappointments?

Not many people would be commited to producing X number of litres even if it meant sailing bloody close to the wind, or going bust -but it's very human to turn something we say we're committed to, into an expectation, because we want perfection

key difference is that when we fail to meet expectations, we aren't in a powerful position

when we don't meet a commitment, we're still just as powerful, even if we're not fulilling it, it's still there tomorrow and the next day

that's what I was meaning about "the consultant", who actually needs them, if we are saying we want something but not really prepared to give something up in order to get what we said we want?
They'll simply give more expectations, put another way you would be paying for someone to give you more to be disappointed about and their ideas will cost you money and resilience to complete their package

 

[som farmer]

most processors want 12 months forecast, updated every 3 months, some have 5 -10% leeway, and price differential on over, or under forecast. Local c/maker pays 2p under AMPE, a figure concocted by the industry, as COP, Ampe is well over their headline price, so 41p rather than 33, roughly. The rest of the post, pretty correct.
Consultants, are a moot point, banks love them, and most are tied to a feed firm, those are not without bias. Ours is independent, a bit better, and we use her not only for nutrition, but cashflows, forecasts, budgets, grants and up to date research, and she hates little bags of 'add-in' extras, the reps love to sell, exception, minerals and urea, the latter has gone from £525, to £1097, in about 4 months, it is still the cheapest protein to buy in, cows have 110grams/day.
Also, she is quite ruthless, if she thinks we have 'strayed' of the narrow path, and she likes herbal leys.

Expectations, it is the natural behaviour of farmers, to the 'bigger/better/more' syndrome, it is not till we get older, do we lose some of that, and reps exploit that, quite easily, and substantially, more cake = more milk, it's only 50p cow/day etc. Been through that stage, certain the answer is less, done properly = more, the potential is there, in most stock. The done properly bit, is very important, and goes right through your system, from grass growth, to fodder production, to herd health, the closer to that, you get, the simpler it all gets. Or, good solid farming = good solid results.

 

[Jonny B88]

That's really good. Our idea here is to use the first "round of deferred pasture" to defer another part, then another part, then another part.

Instead of thinking we have a pasture surplus in the spring (grass fever) the true surplus is what is left at the end of winter, ie very little of what we see as surplus actually is

You’re “deferring “ pasture simply by allowing for long rest periods over all farm ir do you purposely defer certain paddocks for longer periods?

 

[Percy Veer]

My immediate hunch from what you've said is that your recovery period is too long for the utilisation you're getting.

Yeah, I'm coming to that conclusion too.

If the grass is getting too long, shut it up for hay, or pre-empt that by rotating the sheep faster.

I like the idea of 'som farmer' using an aerator to push stems into the ground after grazing, though I would prefer to leave the tractor parked in the shed.

Roll on next season.

I may get the hang of it one day.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yeah, I'm coming to that conclusion too.

If the grass is getting too long, shut it up for hay, or pre-empt that by rotating the sheep faster.

I like the idea of 'som farmer' using an aerator to push stems into the ground after grazing, though I would prefer to leave the tractor parked in the shed.

Roll on next season.

I may get the hang of it one day.

As someone bright said once, there are only two types of grazing - selective grazing, and nonselective

if you plan for nonselective, and it escapes, then my thoughts are "act quick". Next rotation won't be any 'better' and you can soon lose acres, I would say it's easier to come back from overgrazing than undergrazing?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

You’re “deferring “ pasture simply by allowing for long rest periods over all farm ir do you purposely defer certain paddocks for longer periods?

Tend to pick "projects" and give them the most proper deferral - eg banks, poor bits, areas that have been hammered - the paddock we just grazed was hammered in the snow,, and not really much diversity (probably great in some peoples eyes in that its a proper named ryegrass, but not what we want)

then really just a bit and then a bit more and then back into the techno, with it all getting an extra few weeks in the sunshine

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

l started when cow rationing, was HE, or hay equivalent, remembered as 2 flaps of hay, and a shovel full of soaked sugarbeet per cow, over night, when tied up, day was kale.
Then along came the 'new' system, SE starch equivalent, focusing on 'energy', for us, that was straw yards, self feed silage, and adlib hay. Both worked, simple and profitable.

After them, not sure which came, all in ever increasing complexity, and today, you can easily feed a highly complicated, carefully weighed TMR ration, containing little bits, of 'all sorts', which are claimed to do, x y z, and expensive. And breeders have produced a cow that probably does need all those 'bits', to give you up to 15x1000 litres.

most of us do not have the time, inclination, or the cows, to do that, so we still try to follow these rations, and fall short, cows don't milk so well, acidosis, ketosis, DA's etc follow. In fact many are reverting back, to pre holstien type cows. And as l have said before, farmers are experts at complicating farming systems, the true winners, are the reps and millers. Millers need watching, especially with what they include in their concoctions, probably better than what is in some highly processed human feeds.

But even the HE and SE rations work quite well today, with the simpler bred cows, and as KP said, rationing is easy, get the cow to eat large quantities of quality food/fodder, whether grass or silage/hay, for maintenance +, we know the cow needs more, to produce more than 10/12 litres, maize, and conc, sorts that, the better/simpler the ingredients, the better the conc. The most interesting 'bit', when at a party, speaking to a human nutritionist, re cow rationing, we are so far ahead, on our cow rations, versus human, both she and l, were gobsmacked.

The current state of nutritional knowledge in our health services is a disgrace.….,

 

[Kiwi Pete]

The current state of nutritional knowledge in our health services is a disgrace.….,

There's every possibility that they know full well, but it's simply better business to have less healthy people? Same in the livestock sectors, there is so much money to be extracted from people, simply by promoting that animals "need" environmental and dietary requirements that don't exist in reality - just change the reality

 

[Woolless]

Leader followers with sheep in front and cows behind works great but you need either more cattle to move the sheep forward when the cows have finished or get really good at knowing when to move the sheep so that so that cows aren't stuck behind for days clearing up when the sheep have left too much behind. Can be quite a balancing act at times.

Just having another mull over this . Obviously, the smaller the percentage of the cover the sheep are forced to eat, the better they will do but there has to be some sort of compromise or the cows will lag behind. Is 50/50 about where you want to stop before compromising sheep growth rates?

 

[hendrebc]

Just having another mull over this . Obviously, the smaller the percentage of the cover the sheep are forced to eat, the better they will do but there has to be some sort of compromise or the cows will lag behind. Is 50/50 about where you want to stop before compromising sheep growth rates?

Not too worried about the sheep growth rates in they are in front of the cows but I suppose it depends how long and mature the grass is your putting them into. I try and keep it relatively short for ewes with lambs and lambs after weaning now because it was too difficult to get them to grow well on more mature stuff with the infrastructure I have in place. Maybe if I had more fences and could move once or twice or more a day it would work but moving them once or twice a week they didn't like long grass much. Dry ewes and ewe lambs that are already big enough to top I'll put in long grass and they're fine.
But the problem I have now following the sheep with cattle is that there isn't enough grass that is long enough behind the sheep for the cows to graze
What I'm thinking of doing now is have the store cattle in with the sheep and then just have the sucklers following somehow if they need to clean up somewhere and/or have them on a separate round say a month in front of the sheep even. I've done a bit of that and you can grow some lovely lamb food behind cows if you can get them to graze low enough. Balancing numbers to do things like that is difficult though I've found myself moving the cows quite a long way sometimes to clean up behind sheep for a day or two when it's needed just to move them back again after they've cleaned up the field. Its hard work but still easier than topping I suppose.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

There's every possibility that they know full well, but it's simply better business to have less healthy people? Same in the livestock sectors, there is so much money to be extracted from people, simply by promoting that animals "need" environmental and dietary requirements that don't exist in reality - just change the reality

I'm lost for words about the way Gary Fettke was treated in Aus. His crime was to point out that hospitals were exacerbating the diabetes of patients he'd done amputations on because they are fed high carbohydrate diets. IN HOSPITAL.
He was almost stuck off for saying it.

Vested interests trump healthcare, it seems.