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Livestock & Forage
Outwintering cattle on herbal leys
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<blockquote data-quote="Kiwi Pete" data-source="post: 7194754" data-attributes="member: 63856"><p>It's up to personal preference and logistics as to how you structure your cattle - custom grazing can be one of the best ways to get started as you can "dial a mob" and adjust numbers to suit your forage levels. </p><p>The least attractive option to us is the suckler route, because it's the least flexible way to stock your farm. Ideally you need a contingency plan for them for wet times, especially if you're using them as tools for improving your land.</p><p>Stores can be pretty good if you stock up in the spring and offload before you get too wet, but you can also take a hiding if you don't trade right.</p><p></p><p>The main thing we found is to avoid "strip" grazing and aim for the squarest paddock shape possible, over winter we used lanes about 35 metres across so the fences were fast to move (as opposed to fences hundreds of metres long) because we get pretty damp we shift them often to prevent damaging the soil and use portable troughs moved with the mob. </p><p>150,000kg/ha is as low as I'd want to go, 300-400 tonnes per hectare is better as they have a rapid knockdown and grazing is non-selective.</p><p>Once you get up much higher than that your timing of shifts becomes pretty critical, especially if you have other stuff going on. We sat on about 850-1000 tonnes per ha but I shifted them a lot, winter is my quiet time. </p><p>Now we're lazy farming at about 200,000kg/ha (springtime) on ½ha cells. </p><p></p><p>We use a pogo (long fibreglass rod with a hook on top) for shifting, as it holds the wire about 6 feet high and they move underneath, this means they aren't reliant on a gateway system or rolling back reels. </p><p>Fields are fenced up into grids of small paddocks and our mobs move within the grid of paddocks; meaning I can just fly in, stick the pogo in for one mob, repeat for another mob, and job done. </p><p>Very fast way to move stock.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Kiwi Pete, post: 7194754, member: 63856"] It's up to personal preference and logistics as to how you structure your cattle - custom grazing can be one of the best ways to get started as you can "dial a mob" and adjust numbers to suit your forage levels. The least attractive option to us is the suckler route, because it's the least flexible way to stock your farm. Ideally you need a contingency plan for them for wet times, especially if you're using them as tools for improving your land. Stores can be pretty good if you stock up in the spring and offload before you get too wet, but you can also take a hiding if you don't trade right. The main thing we found is to avoid "strip" grazing and aim for the squarest paddock shape possible, over winter we used lanes about 35 metres across so the fences were fast to move (as opposed to fences hundreds of metres long) because we get pretty damp we shift them often to prevent damaging the soil and use portable troughs moved with the mob. 150,000kg/ha is as low as I'd want to go, 300-400 tonnes per hectare is better as they have a rapid knockdown and grazing is non-selective. Once you get up much higher than that your timing of shifts becomes pretty critical, especially if you have other stuff going on. We sat on about 850-1000 tonnes per ha but I shifted them a lot, winter is my quiet time. Now we're lazy farming at about 200,000kg/ha (springtime) on ½ha cells. We use a pogo (long fibreglass rod with a hook on top) for shifting, as it holds the wire about 6 feet high and they move underneath, this means they aren't reliant on a gateway system or rolling back reels. Fields are fenced up into grids of small paddocks and our mobs move within the grid of paddocks; meaning I can just fly in, stick the pogo in for one mob, repeat for another mob, and job done. Very fast way to move stock. [/QUOTE]
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Outwintering cattle on herbal leys
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