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

[som farmer]

that was the second pic of the cows, out at grass, withdrew the first one, as someone spotted the one cow with shackles on. So, the one above, someone spotted the xbred bull, both those from the all dairy thread. Pretty impressive.

 

[Jonny B88]

Funny that @som farmer has seen the end of winter as I reckon it is the end of summer here too. A few leaves dropping from trees etc, and so we got into the autumn stockpile/new grass yesterday afternoon.View attachment 1023783
gave them a couple of paddocks for a start as I didn't want excitement to = heifers running through fences. Pleased with the size of these cells, bit late to change it now.View attachment 1023784

What excites them moving onto that as opposed to their ‘normal’ moves?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What excites them moving onto that as opposed to their ‘normal’ moves?

Ah, just the trek from where they were, to where they are. They aren't really used to moving further than 'to the next paddock' if you get what I mean

They weren't too bad as it happened, I'd judged the time to move them so that they were all full, and some nice grass on the way slowed them down.. by the time I'd taken down a small electric fence and caught up to them, they were trickling in nice and quietly.

Great peace of mind to have them out there and contentedly sunning themselves, I'm just making some "jumpers" up to electrify all the new lanes, so that they can be switched on and off as needed.

There are probably nicer ways to do it, but I have lots of used underground cable in the yard.

 

[som farmer]

just thinking about your mob grazing, in small cells, playing devils advocate, and after being told by a min vet, that a high % of 'welfare' issues, reported to them, by the public, are starving cows, cruelly held back from food, by electric fences, more in winter, than summer. How long will it take the zealots to start on cattle kept to 'tightly' in small areas, with not enough room, to express their natural movements. Partly tongue in cheek, partly 'here we go again', we know the truth of the matter, zealots believe they are the animals 'saviour', from cruel farmers.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

just thinking about your mob grazing, in small cells, playing devils advocate, and after being told by a min vet, that a high % of 'welfare' issues, reported to them, by the public, are starving cows, cruelly held back from food, by electric fences, more in winter, than summer. How long will it take the zealots to start on cattle kept to 'tightly' in small areas, with not enough room, to express their natural movements. Partly tongue in cheek, partly 'here we go again', we know the truth of the matter, zealots believe they are the animals 'saviour', from cruel farmers.

Yeah.

To be honest I would rather see animals "cruelly confined" with 100 day's feed waving in front of them than whatever other people think is a good idea, like having them roaming about waiting for a plant to grow big enough for them to bite it off

as I said on here recently, some pretty shitty practices are normalised, and accepted as being part of keeping livestock.

You even hear people say stuff like "we don't have enough land to rest pasture for that long" and I'm thinking, "Wow, you were smart enough to get this far in life but you can't see that time and space are different things? Wow."

I do see that point you make in that fencing animals in is imperfect, but more fence can be less imperfect (or more, depending on your actions).

 

[som farmer]

Yeah.

To be honest I would rather see animals "cruelly confined" with 100 day's feed waving in front of them than whatever other people think is a good idea, like having them roaming about waiting for a plant to grow big enough for them to bite it off

as I said on here recently, some pretty shitty practices are normalised, and accepted as being part of keeping livestock.

You even hear people say stuff like "we don't have enough land to rest pasture for that long" and I'm thinking, "Wow, you were smart enough to get this far in life but you can't see that time and space are different things? Wow."

I do see that point you make in that fencing animals in is imperfect, but more fence can be less imperfect (or more, depending on your actions).

as l said, tongue in cheek, but l can guarantee some won't like it, and will be vocal.
l wonder if attitudes will shift, as food becomes more expensive, or scarcer ?
having said that, l don't think the UK will run short of food, more expensive, yes. Rather suspect the 'range' of food will decrease, and will tend towards the 'staple' foods.

 

[Woolless]

just thinking about your mob grazing, in small cells, playing devils advocate, and after being told by a min vet, that a high % of 'welfare' issues, reported to them, by the public, are starving cows, cruelly held back from food, by electric fences, more in winter, than summer. How long will it take the zealots to start on cattle kept to 'tightly' in small areas, with not enough room, to express their natural movements. Partly tongue in cheek, partly 'here we go again', we know the truth of the matter, zealots believe they are the animals 'saviour', from cruel farmers.

I fear you may be bang on with that one. Plenty of people that are willing to give an opinion on things they know FA about.

 

[Henarar]

I fear you may be bang on with that one. Plenty of people that are willing to give an opinion on things they know FA about.

I do my best

 

[Kiwi Pete]

as l said, tongue in cheek, but l can guarantee some won't like it, and will be vocal.
l wonder if attitudes will shift, as food becomes more expensive, or scarcer ?
having said that, l don't think the UK will run short of food, more expensive, yes. Rather suspect the 'range' of food will decrease, and will tend towards the 'staple' foods.

Hmmm. I don't know.
I think Kiwis around here are still a little bit more "live and let live" about stuff like electric fencing, I mean more people were horrified at the concept of keeping cattle in a house than they were when we started putting them behind a fence.

I do see people making other people's business their own business more and more, but that's just a result of the shift in society towards unhappiness and 'muck raking' which the idiot-box has programmed them to see as normal behaviour.

I tend to cut pretty straight to the chase and just ask what the problem is - life is to short for making what people think, MY business; especially if their view on right and wrong came out of a TV set

 

[som farmer]

we have been running cattle in 2 parishes, other than ours, 1, a newbie moved in, and took an instant dislike to us, quick to ask for a 'favour', and tried to get 'rid' of us. Basically by whispers to the owner, and downright lies. But generally there, we are looked upon as illiterate peasants, that have no right to be there, by everyone, bar a couple, they won. 5 acres, so inconvenient rather than disaster.
The other block, is in another village, criss crossed by well used footpaths, we get nothing but praise for our 'very' quiet stock, a few will come up for a scratch, by some. They are all interested in what we do, and we are quite happy to tell them, its great. Any 'trouble', we get phone calls, and offers of help, usually someone hasn't shut a foot path gate.
The difference between the 2, is chalk and cheese, would love to know why.

I am expecting to order grazing lucerne seed this week, and nobody has suggested any other herbs, to order, as usual, results will be on here, chance for people to see how they perform, or even what they look like.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

"Perception is reality"??

I think what it comes down to, is that people don't get that reality is actually internal, that is to say what we might think of as "reality" is all in our own minds.
So it only really takes whispers and feelings to completely blow whatever that reality looked like, into something completely unreal.
Generally it is automatic, like we tend to put meanings to things is automatic?
If you put a tray of cakes to cool and a fly lands on one, it doesn't mean anything about the cake it lands on or the fly, but a human mind will usually try to make sense of it by landing on a meaning about it.

Sounds like someone just landed on a meaning about you or your cows and helped others land on a similar one, like ten flies on the same cake can't be wrong?? We're an incredible animal.

 

[Guleesh]

Quite a an interesting one. I've been moaning on another thread about the current chicken lockdowns and the fact we're not legally allowed to produce free range eggs, and from what I can gather, it's to protect bigger businesses, including those that produce eggs from caged hens. Although I too can see the imperfection of having animals confined behind an electric fence I do judge it as an acceptable level of welfare, as a very high level of natural behaviour is still possible.

Trying to make judgements on these matters puts into question the entire ethics of animal husbandry. My personal take on it is as much as I can, to let sheep be sheep, let pigs be pigs and let chickens be chickens, and intervene as little as possible or is necessary. What people seem to forget is that humans have co-evolved with our domesticated animals, it truly is a symbiotic relationship. But of course, we are easily capable of turning that relationship into pure exploitation.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We're also quite as easily capable of doing a bloody good job with sweet FA "outside assistance" and that's part of the problem, as far as big business is concerned.

If you drop out all the shiny steel and things on finance, it's actually really difficult to compete on price or market share with a switched-on solar-powered production unit. - and in a weird twist of fate, the lower your actual impact the more you're targeted by those who pollute merrily and seek to feed everyone sloppy subsistence diets of highly processed, sickening swill for max profit.

Surely you need a roof or some toxic substances or undeclared ingredient? Because that's what it wants to become.

I don't mind eating the odd spider in my sleep or a moth when out shifting cattle at night; but I'll be stuffed if I'll see our farm planted to pines while we live happily ever after eating kale and insect smoothies in a concentration camp

 

[GC74]

The Groundswell protest claimed regulation and taxes are unfair to farmers – the economic numbers tell a different story

Farmers from the Groundswell movement want more concessions from the government but the environmental and economic cost might be more than New Zealand can afford.

theconversation.com

This is a fascinating read by some amazing authors check out their roles on the right hand side. Enjoy I did

 

[Kiwi Pete]

The Groundswell protest claimed regulation and taxes are unfair to farmers – the economic numbers tell a different story

Farmers from the Groundswell movement want more concessions from the government but the environmental and economic cost might be more than New Zealand can afford.

theconversation.com

This is a fascinating read by some amazing authors check out their roles on the right hand side. Enjoy I did

Those names ring a bell....

 

[som farmer]

Those names ring a bell....

mate called in today, reminded me of something his dad, a professor of economics, who wrote the definitive book on the CAP, when we joined the EU, used to quote.
'economics is dead simple, its called supply/demand, - until the politicians bugger it up'

 

[Jonny B88]

The Groundswell protest claimed regulation and taxes are unfair to farmers – the economic numbers tell a different story

Farmers from the Groundswell movement want more concessions from the government but the environmental and economic cost might be more than New Zealand can afford.

theconversation.com

This is a fascinating read by some amazing authors check out their roles on the right hand side. Enjoy I did

Agriculture accounts for 10.6% of NZ GDP? Surely thats low?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It's more like 5%, at around $10.6 billion, dairy is ⅔ of that

(but facts don't matter)

 

[GC74]

Agriculture accounts for 10.6% of NZ GDP? Surely thats low?

Reported Sector GDP is earnings minus expenses so really shows the profitability of each sector…..nothing to do with exports though that’s reported separately. These GDP figures are used by the anti farming brigade to argue farming isn’t needed……but forget 15 odd billion appears in other sectors profit if that make sense?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yes - all part of that subsidy package!!!