mob stocking

[Kiwi Pete]

I have the luxury? of housing my cattle over the wettest months and just having lambs out on the grass, basically as soon as I can get a little bit of grass ahead I release the beasts.
They are small then though - around weaned size - and dont really wreck things too much.
70 or 80 in a mob is a good size, we have 120 odd cattle here on 100ac and finish 1000 lambs per year.
Like you very diverse and no fert in decades, min till if anything (Im experimenting with some covercropping options) and largely we just farm for animal impact.
Ideally we wouldn't have just had 5 months of dry and I could show some relevant pictures, but most of the time we run on shifting mobs 3 times per week or more, being a part time farmer doesnt always give me the opportunity to subdivide our paddocks more (avg 5.5ac) but next year we will.
I aim to eat a third, leave a third, plough a third if moisture allows

"Utilisation" is what hurts farms

 

[Macsky]

If Ivomec isn’t recommended, are there any wormers that are?

 

[The Ruminant]

Having followed this thread for a number of years, as well as other research on the subject, I am thinking of trying some mob grazing this year. Have enjoyed managing some cattle on stubble turnips over winter moving fences twice daily. Have a 150acre block with is mostly HLS flood meadows, have been managed the same way past 25 years. We graze about 20-30 acres from spring and rest is cut for hay mid July then the cattle have the whole block and run it all until too wet to graze this winter they were out until beginning of December. We only normally have 40-50 head on there all year. I would be happy to graze more cattle and get less hay. The ground is heavy clay and most is probably under water at the moment. It is next to a big nature reserve and some fields have a lot of well used footpaths so think these will be better as hay. There are a couple of water tanks in the 14 fields, but I hope I can sort water ok. My questions are how to start in spring. How much growth do you need before you start grazing. This ground has not had any fert for at least 25 years and is species rich but slow to get going. The other question is how many is the ideal mob size, was thinking 50-60 but could go 100+ 6-18 months angusx bluex and simx. Worried if too big mob they might make a mess around water if wet. Any other constructive thoughts welcome.

I visited several farms that were grazing 4-500+ with one of the largest having 1,000 head of cattle. Ideally you need plenty of water troughs as you don’t want the cattle returning to land more than 3-4 days post-grazing (otherwise they will eat the RE growth and weaken the plant).

In spring, turn them out as normal but restrict them to an area that will just give enough grass for one day. This might start off being, say, (depending on cattle numbers) 3 acres but within a week or ten days maybe 2 acres would be enough then less and less each day as the grass grows and bulks up. You soon get your eye in, by watching the residual grass, the behaviour of the cattle, their “fullness” etc.

Good luck with it and feel free to ask more questions

 

[The Ruminant]

If Ivomec isn’t recommended, are there any wormers that are?

Generally don’t need wormers. The cattle don’t graze too low and they’re moved to fresh grass every day so worm burden is extremely low.

This isn’t just my opinion. We had a chap from Rothamsted measuring FEC’s in the mob-grazed cattle all summer and he concluded this. I’ll try and dig out the link to his report.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Generally don’t need wormers. The cattle don’t graze too low and they’re moved to fresh grass every day so worm burden is extremely low.

This isn’t just my opinion. We had a chap from Rothamsted measuring FEC’s in the mob-grazed cattle all summer and he concluded this. I’ll try and dig out the link to his report.

That would be interesting!
I have been on another thread almost having a parallel conversation, I notice my FEC are higher here this year in the lambs for exactly those reasons you state - lower covers and faster rotations than I'd like - but needs must, sometimes.
Also even without the FEC I've been doing, you can tell there are more worms going through the cattle due to this:

which I can only assume is nature taking care of them.
Hope to be on a much longer grazing round soon, so hopefully can get by for now without worming.

 

[The Ruminant]

Generally don’t need wormers. The cattle don’t graze too low and they’re moved to fresh grass every day so worm burden is extremely low.

This isn’t just my opinion. We had a chap from Rothamsted measuring FEC’s in the mob-grazed cattle all summer and he concluded this. I’ll try and dig out the link to his report.

Attached is the report

 

[Brisel]

 

[Dead Rabbits]

View attachment 676472 View attachment 676474

May as well start a dairy herd

 

[Brisel]

May as well start a dairy herd

No thanks! Not enough grass growth in the summer. Very few milking herds left around here on the chalk because of this. A neighbour keeps his followers on the meadows & these mob grazing plots. These are dairy heifers. We used to milk 450 but ceased in 1992 so the investment in buildings etc would be very big.

 

[tw15]

Spring milking herd with outside milking bail like what the young mr foot has set up near Dorchester ?

 

[Brisel]

Spring milking herd with outside milking bail like what the young mr foot has set up near Dorchester ?

Lower overheads but still insufficient grass from July - September

 

[Farmersdaughter]

just start my first go at a bit of mob grazing. Will take a while to figure out, with water tanks and footpaths but at least made a start, and pleased with how they are eating grass. May main problem is that hedges and fences that have kept them in other years when set stocked are not so stock proof when they are on restricted area and first two days they got out.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

Lower overheads but still insufficient grass from July - September

That's how it is here for the most part. Poor cool season grass growth for several months.

 

[The Ruminant]

View attachment 677150 just start my first go at a bit of mob grazing. Will take a while to figure out, with water tanks and footpaths but at least made a start, and pleased with how they are eating grass. May main problem is that hedges and fences that have kept them in other years when set stocked are not so stock proof when they are on restricted area and first two days they got out.

That’s unusual because when I’m mob grazing they tend not to push the boundaries at all. They’ve always plenty of grass and new stuff every day. If I leave them on the same block for a few days, that’s when they start to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.....

 

[Samcowman]

View attachment 677150 just start my first go at a bit of mob grazing. Will take a while to figure out, with water tanks and footpaths but at least made a start, and pleased with how they are eating grass. May main problem is that hedges and fences that have kept them in other years when set stocked are not so stock proof when they are on restricted area and first two days they got out.

What age are they? Do you think they can finish or will they be housed for finishing? Are you seeing what growth rates they are doing on this system? Sorry for all the questions but also have some stores I've got behind electric for the first time this year and interested to see how others run the same age of cattle get on.

 

[Farmersdaughter]

What age are they? Do you think they can finish or will they be housed for finishing? Are you seeing what growth rates they are doing on this system? Sorry for all the questions but also have some stores I've got behind electric for the first time this year and interested to see how others run the same age of cattle get on.

They are about 12-15 months mainly aax out of dairy cows ( home breed). They have only been grazed this way 4 days so far. We don't have any scales so I can not tell you live weight gain, we occasionally finish of just grass but normally cattle are back in on silage and rolled barley to finish.
Not sure grazing went so well today, they had not finished as much as would like when mived fence yesterday so gave then less grass. A combination of almost 2 inches of rain and not being able to move fence to late afternoon means they made a big mess today. My father is not convinced and thinks they should be allowed to run back on to 10 acre field they have been set stocked on before starting this grazing. Hope that the field will recover, but the water tank is in one corner and there is a foot path diagonally across the field so will be hard to back fence them off muddy area.

 

[Samcowman]

Can you limit the muddy area they are going to be on again? In my experience with paddock grazing the muddy area recovers really quickly so I shouldn't worry about it.
I have an area that is going to get cut up a bit where I have my steers behind a wire as the field is split into pizza slices to enable them to get to water in every section.

 

[Farmersdaughter]

Can you limit the muddy area they are going to be on again? In my experience with paddock grazing the muddy area recovers really quickly so I shouldn't worry about it.
I have an area that is going to get cut up a bit where I have my steers behind a wire as the field is split into pizza slices to enable them to get to water in every section.

Think muddy area will recovered, they did much better today.

 

[dt995]

Been through all of this thread, and just finished going through the BFF thread. Now just have to work my way through the various external links I opened into browser tabs as I went along.[1]

Although if I bought all the books mentioned throughout I wouldn't be able to afford to keep any stock.


[1] It's a little bit like this: https://xkcd.com/214/

 

[ChrisStep]

Any bright ideas for getting electric fence posts into rock hard soil? I've 4 different types of posts and managed to snap the foot step off every type, and rip a hole in the side of my boots in the process. I've taken to drilling a guide hole with a masonry drill bit, but that's slow. I'm on gravel land and when it's wet I guess the post tip pushes the stone out the way as it goes into the soil. Not much chance of that now. We're carting 36 litres per head per day for 400 kg steers, eating standing hay.