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

[som farmer]

spreading some slurry, on our away ground, not marking it at all, drive about here, with my light truck, you can certainly see my wheel marks, today.

Last few dry cows, 4, brought in today, hoof's going in about 2 ins, on some of our drier ground.

And our little stream, is no longer running full bore, about 25% now.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

spreading some slurry, on our away ground, not marking it at all, drive about here, with my light truck, you can certainly see my wheel marks, today.

Last few dry cows, 4, brought in today, hoof's going in about 2 ins, on some of our drier ground.

And our little stream, is no longer running full bore, about 25% now.

How does it compare to last year?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Only asking, since I got a little more public with my FB sharing, a bonus is the "a year ago" memories are coming through. And often I can't believe that a year ago was only a year ago

 

[som farmer]

How does it compare to last year?

it's different soil there, and we can travel on it, last week it was just sodden up there, but dries out, spread slurry there last winter, just the gateways need watching.

here, you couldn't, not a chance, without leaving ruts.

it does concern me, that our stream is not flowing as per the past normal, perhaps we have to accept that this is now the new normal.

according to our somewhat unreliable weather forecasters, we are going to have a very cold dry snap. Which will be welcome, this muggy weather is unhealthy, for stock, everything is housed now, except for 7 hfrds on our away ground. Sheep are nicely converting lots of grass, to little round pellets of 20:10:10.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

it's different soil there, and we can travel on it, last week it was just sodden up there, but dries out, spread slurry there last winter, just the gateways need watching.

here, you couldn't, not a chance, without leaving ruts.

it does concern me, that our stream is not flowing as per the past normal, perhaps we have to accept that this is now the new normal.

according to our somewhat unreliable weather forecasters, we are going to have a very cold dry snap. Which will be welcome, this muggy weather is unhealthy, for stock, everything is housed now, except for 7 hfrds on our away ground. Sheep are nicely converting lots of grass, to little round pellets of 20:10:10.

Is the soil different to last year?

 

[som farmer]

Is the soil different to last year?

no
difference between home and away
not sure which one l prefer, in a 'nice' year, job to beat our 'home' soils, but we don't seem to get those 'nice' years now!
just goes to show nothing can be taken for granted in farming
last week it was to warm and muggy, this week freezing cold, and l know which one of those l prefer, well, at least when l am in the warm, looking out.

 

[crashbox]

spreading some slurry, on our away ground, not marking it at all, drive about here, with my light truck, you can certainly see my wheel marks, today.

No NVZ for you then!

 

[crashbox]

Help wanter in water troughs!

Not even that cold today... but above ground pipework frozen.

Hoe do people get round this with temporary infrastructure?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Smaller tanks are way better than bigger ones in my experience. Just because they're getting flowed into more often. With the micros we have never had any issue, had some with long drag pipes and a portable trough, most of the problems were on the concrete fixed troughs with buried pipes - they'd still freeze, but took all day to thaw

 

[Kiwi Pete]

You can rig up a small drip overflow, and pipe that out of the break. Just let a tiny amount overflow which keeps a tiny amount flowing in / water moving takes a lot more to freeze than water, static

 

[som farmer]

No NVZ for you then!

Some and some, home all NVZ
away ground, no NVZ.
and we can travel on our away ground.

bit of a surprise to realise 5/6 weeks, we could be legally spreading here.
this year, timing wise, seems all to cock.

perhaps the primroses out in the garden, last month, has confused me.
quite easily done.

 

[som farmer]

Help wanter in water troughs!

Not even that cold today... but above ground pipework frozen.

Hoe do people get round this with temporary infrastructure? View attachment 1081079

years back, cab less tractors, used to take hay out to outwintered hfrs, 16/24 little bales, and 1 little bale of straw, chuck the hay out, put straw bale by tank and light it, if you could feel your fingers, to strike the match.

couldn't do that now, all plastic fittings, and no cab less tractors, or those fields.
but when it was cold, it definitely wasn't nice, you just froze.

next step, FYM around the troughs, and haven't done that for years now. The last time we used FYM, was 25 yrs ago, just moved houses, and water feed in, 1 meter was above ground, and froze. Friends from Leicester were visiting, not frmrs, absolutely horrified at me piling steaming shite over the pipe !

friends in Illinois, dug their pipes up, from 6ft down, and put them 9ft down, to stop them freezing up.
we really do have some things easy.

 

[Fenwick]

Help wanter in water troughs!

Not even that cold today... but above ground pipework frozen.

Hoe do people get round this with temporary infrastructure? View attachment 1081079

You can rig up a small drip overflow, and pipe that out of the break. Just let a tiny amount overflow which keeps a tiny amount flowing in / water moving takes a lot more to freeze than water, static

I agree about what kiwipete says concerning small gear. I think as the source isn't far away from te aimals and they come individually it helps keep some flow.

We also add a leak to the system if we see a hard freeze on te forcast.

Normally a frost thaws out here in the daytime, so even with overland piping it has not yet proved a problem.

2 years back it stayed below zero for over a week. Never seen that before. I made a corridor with mobil fence to get the cows to the stream to drink. Took me all morning.

Once they got there, naturally, no one was thirsty...... I think they were eating the snow.

I might try a couple of these this winter.

Freeze Miser - Prevent Frozen Pipes & Damage in Winter

The Freeze Miser is designed to prevent frozen pipes and damage during the cold winter months with only a few minutes of work.

www.freezemiser.com

 

[som farmer]

weather doesn't really seem to get freezing cold in recent years, one gets forgetful about it. We extended our parlour a few years back, said at the time, it was to 'open', froze up yesterday, and probably today, ( not my problem now )

But water for the cattle, dairies easy, cut back to one trough, keeps it running. The rest is just hassle, have to muddle round.

the changing climate, gives encouragement to the climate change zealots, and l really don't know which is correct, only that the weather is different, 'from when l were a lad, had snow ten foot deep ................

Watched a program about the 63 winter, on TV, can remember some of it, we had a right of way, across some parkland, which allowed us to get the milk out in churns, x2 day, in the l/rover. Bread and groceries for our 'hamlet' on the return journey.

We didn't have a loader tractor, a farmer did, with a 3ft bucker, and trip loader, l think OM was rather pleased about that, peeing into the wind, comes to mind. Midwife came in, on the back of a tractor !

looked nice, but not keen on seeing it again though.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I plan to keep the extremities under a lot more cover this winter, I think that will be the icing on the cake as far as freezing is concerned.

Going to plan so far, we're up to about 6-7 months grass in front.

More animals showing up next week, we had a steer hop in with the dairy herd next door and I hadn't realised how much grass we have down the back.

years back, cab less tractors, used to take hay out to outwintered hfrs, 16/24 little bales, and 1 little bale of straw, chuck the hay out, put straw bale by tank and light it, if you could feel your fingers, to strike the match.

couldn't do that now, all plastic fittings, and no cab less tractors, or those fields.
but when it was cold, it definitely wasn't nice, you just froze.

next step, FYM around the troughs, and haven't done that for years now. The last time we used FYM, was 25 yrs ago, just moved houses, and water feed in, 1 meter was above ground, and froze. Friends from Leicester were visiting, not frmrs, absolutely horrified at me piling steaming shite over the pipe !

friends in Illinois, dug their pipes up, from 6ft down, and put them 9ft down, to stop them freezing up.
we really do have some things easy.

I have done that straw trick to get through a Southland winter, just made a small windrow with the bale-feeder and then lit it, put the pipe in it and it thawed it beautifully. Bit of a hump of around the trough, like a donut, and that thawed out the coils of pipe on the bobbin. But I left it til late morning before doing anything.

 

[som farmer]

over the years l have seen a cold east wind, in march, burn off any grass we have, just leaving a bare ground, one of the reasons l like the sheep. Though we leave some sheltered grounds for early grazing.

On our slopes, if we get that cold wind, there is literally nothing left, but l suppose that there must be a residue left, and presume it must 'return' to the soil, just not visible!

and another thing about really cold weather, as you get older, you get cold quicker.!

 

[Henarar]

We use to pack straw dung over the pipes
this is when it would be useful to have spring water running in the yard it don't freeze up, 8 degrees IIRC, remember one year everything in the yard was frozen I walked up the field to where one of the spring fed troughs was and there was no ice, put my hand in it and it felt quite warm, no springs the yard side of the farm though

 

[Fenwick]

finally managed to watch the quorum sensing webinar @Kiwi Pete . Good stuff.

I found 55mins interesting on density, and what is being fed and what is being trampled.

1hr04 mins on the use (or rather lack of use) of a back fence.

Thanks,

 

[WPTglobal]

We use to pack straw dung over the pipes
this is when it would be useful to have spring water running in the yard it don't freeze up, 8 degrees IIRC, remember one year everything in the yard was frozen I walked up the field to where one of the spring fed troughs was and there was no ice, put my hand in it and it felt quite warm, no springs the yard side of the farm though

You could pump them to where you need with a ram pump which has zero running costs and very minimal maintenance, take a look at our Papa pumps: https://www.waterpoweredtechnologies.com/papa-pump/

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Thanks, it could probably use a "part 2" .

Obviously hugely different contexts between big Mike and myself, with us grazing grass that's had 100 days to grow