Pasture, Soil and Vegetarianism Info

[haulmblower]

You might like this group @haulmblower https://www.facebook.com/groups/217698068580760/

They like to say they don't bash Vegan's more than they actually don't bash Vegans LOL But if you can get past that, there are a lot of people that post good articles on similar things as your podcast.
.

They let me join

I love the place

Thanks for the link @Blaithin

 

[Blaithin]

They let me join

I love the place

Thanks for the link @Blaithin

There’s a special producer one too if you want to feel elitist

 

[davieh3350]

A few good books to read are
Fertility Farming by Frank Newman Turner.

Farming And Gardening For Health Or Disease by Sir Albert Howard

The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour (not finished it yet)

 

[haulmblower]

There’s a special producer one too if you want to feel elitist

I've asked them

 

[Blaithin]

I've asked them

Doesn’t usually take them long to accept. I could invite you if you were my friend.

As I shamelessly troll for friends

 

[haulmblower]

Fire up facebook incoming friend request

 

[Ffermer Bach]

I don't really have a worming protocol, no. The problem I run into is parental notions of how things have always been done, so they must be continued that way. And lice.

Eventually I'd like to purchase a microscope and run my own fecals. I don't feel worming should be done unless there is a significant worm load there. Same with lice, if they aren't there in the numbers, why use pour on? I even bought a lice comb to use to that effect this year however when spring shedding started hitting, parental figure dug out the ivomec and went to town... If I could rig up one of those brushes like dairies have but without power and maybe a DE or Sulphur mix to help the cows scratch but also stay on top of any potential lice issues. Something to think on.

I've noticed that the cow patties don't seem to last too long, especially when compared to the horse poo piles. For some reason horse poo doesn't seem as palatable to the bugs? I just assume because it's drier. This summer I want to try the cotton undies experiment in a couple of places around the acreage as well as maybe ask a couple of the local arable guys if I can use their fields (Excuse me sir, may I bury some underwear in your field? ) I may just also do some photographic journalism type things on the life and times of a poop. Pick some days off, pick some poop and record how long it lasts. There's quite a few varieties of grasses/soil areas just on my small acreage, plus chickens in some areas, it may be interesting to see which parts seem to disappear fastest.

I am pretty sure, you dont need a microscope for FEC now, with internet, not sure how it works, but I think it is done via the web now

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I am pretty sure, you dont need a microscope for FEC now, with internet, not sure how it works, but I think it is done via the web now

8 year old son is in charge of that job here!

 

[Blaithin]

I am pretty sure, you dont need a microscope for FEC now, with internet, not sure how it works, but I think it is done via the web now

For real? Or just saying that because if you ask advice about an animal everyone seems to say worms or hardware

Microscope would be more fun anyway.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

That is a fair call, it is amazing just how irrelevant most all of the animal advice on this forum really is to what I would tentatively call "real world conditions"
-Blanket treatments being the most obvious one of those!

They don't treat the entire population with lowdose chemotherapy, because some get cancer, do they?

Yet the common advice seems to be: jag them with this, give them all a bolus, worm them all with whatever
We simply don't have a future when all this stuff is banned, regulated, or stops working due to this type of reductionist thinking

It is really only practical on small scale, supported operations IMHO, livestock returns don't pay for all this intervention, it is far easier to address the issue than apply bandages.
Remineralise the soil biome not the stock, and breed animals that are resistant; forget yield, true performance is not having to take them to the vets wrapped in a blanket

 

[Blaithin]

Definitely!

It's interesting watching the regulations come into play here. Canada not having the kind of strict regs that are already common in the UK for instance. But even more than that, social media and the groups I tend to be in (On Facebook mostly) are predominantly American. American's are an odd breed all on their own under normal circumstances, but watching the traceability programs and regulations on medications start to come into play there is almost like watching Armageddon! And they all wonder why they need such regulations, like VFID numbers which is what I think their's are called. Of course, on social media everyone is wonderful and perfect and nobody abuses antibiotics or anything else yet some of the advice I see.....

Worm for anything wrong. No matter what a fecal may say.

Something didn't eat all their food? Just give it Resflor. Or Draxxin. Or Baytril.

But the worst one I cannot STAND and see regularly, is treating navel and joint ill with higher than label doses for extended periods of time - like 3 weeks - with drugs like Penicillin and Oxy. Those are over the counter, you don't need to go to the vet, you don't need to have a proper diagnoses, you don't need to pay the cost of the more expensive drugs. Just poke your poor calf multiple times a day for a month....

That is like a recipe of antibiotic resistance. Not to mention joint damage. These VFID's and PID's and any other number that's making OTC drugs harder to get are the end of the world because they're preventing gross misusage of drugs like that.

Not that social media is all negative, I really enjoy the fact of being able to get advice and see people giving advice for things like probiotics and herbal treatments. Whether most people are actually learning and believing that those are useful possibilities I don't know LOL But I use some of them

But too long farming has focused on isolated products. Cows only. Crop only. Hay only. Their benefits to one another were rarely utilized. They were developed to stand alone but they don't do that very well so they in turn developed to require the crutches of technology. Pesticides, parasitics, hormone implants, etc. etc.

As an example here, in feedlot alley, conversion rate is a big, big thing. The beef councils promote that the average conversion rate of cattle on finishing rations is down to 6. Most cattle will fall between 4.5 and 7.5. This is with the use of ionophores, hormone implants, prophylactics, beta agonists and the like. A long term study done at the local college has Galloway's at a 3.85 conversion rate. (This is stated as being on a common finishing ration so I'm unsure if it includes all the previously stated products or not.) But still, the average for Galloway conversion blows other breeds out of the water. Why are those genetics not being promoted more? Why is the focus on finding more products, like ionophores, to help carry the animals and improve their conversion rate. Focus on breeding them to do it naturally.

I've also had GMO discussions stating my opinion that I'd like to see more focus on maturity times of crops to align their times of seeding and harvest. Thusly opening up more potential for companion cropping on larger scales. Having a polyculture in a field can be astronomically better than a monoculture, lets work towards that! I dare you to bring that up in some places though. You'll just about get attacked by how inconceivable and impossible that is.

For some reason humans have decided we can manage things better than nature and despite getting kicked in the guts over this assumption multiple times every year, we continue to think this. A great mystery of life or just another example of how self inflated our opinions of ourselves are.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Definitely!

It's interesting watching the regulations come into play here. Canada not having the kind of strict regs that are already common in the UK for instance. But even more than that, social media and the groups I tend to be in (On Facebook mostly) are predominantly American. American's are an odd breed all on their own under normal circumstances, but watching the traceability programs and regulations on medications start to come into play there is almost like watching Armageddon! And they all wonder why they need such regulations, like VFID numbers which is what I think their's are called. Of course, on social media everyone is wonderful and perfect and nobody abuses antibiotics or anything else yet some of the advice I see.....

Worm for anything wrong. No matter what a fecal may say.

Something didn't eat all their food? Just give it Resflor. Or Draxxin. Or Baytril.

But the worst one I cannot STAND and see regularly, is treating navel and joint ill with higher than label doses for extended periods of time - like 3 weeks - with drugs like Penicillin and Oxy. Those are over the counter, you don't need to go to the vet, you don't need to have a proper diagnoses, you don't need to pay the cost of the more expensive drugs. Just poke your poor calf multiple times a day for a month....

That is like a recipe of antibiotic resistance. Not to mention joint damage. These VFID's and PID's and any other number that's making OTC drugs harder to get are the end of the world because they're preventing gross misusage of drugs like that.

Not that social media is all negative, I really enjoy the fact of being able to get advice and see people giving advice for things like probiotics and herbal treatments. Whether most people are actually learning and believing that those are useful possibilities I don't know LOL But I use some of them

But too long farming has focused on isolated products. Cows only. Crop only. Hay only. Their benefits to one another were rarely utilized. They were developed to stand alone but they don't do that very well so they in turn developed to require the crutches of technology. Pesticides, parasitics, hormone implants, etc. etc.

As an example here, in feedlot alley, conversion rate is a big, big thing. The beef councils promote that the average conversion rate of cattle on finishing rations is down to 6. Most cattle will fall between 4.5 and 7.5. This is with the use of ionophores, hormone implants, prophylactics, beta agonists and the like. A long term study done at the local college has Galloway's at a 3.85 conversion rate. (This is stated as being on a common finishing ration so I'm unsure if it includes all the previously stated products or not.) But still, the average for Galloway conversion blows other breeds out of the water. Why are those genetics not being promoted more? Why is the focus on finding more products, like ionophores, to help carry the animals and improve their conversion rate. Focus on breeding them to do it naturally.

I've also had GMO discussions stating my opinion that I'd like to see more focus on maturity times of crops to align their times of seeding and harvest. Thusly opening up more potential for companion cropping on larger scales. Having a polyculture in a field can be astronomically better than a monoculture, lets work towards that! I dare you to bring that up in some places though. You'll just about get attacked by how inconceivable and impossible that is.

For some reason humans have decided we can manage things better than nature and despite getting kicked in the guts over this assumption multiple times every year, we continue to think this. A great mystery of life or just another example of how self inflated our opinions of ourselves are.

So very pleased it isn't just me that has such a view of agriculture!
I sometimes almost wonder if I am the crazy one and everyone on here knows something I don't but the direction is wrong, things should be getting easier not harder, which is why I keep plugging away at getting the message out there to be critical not only of the methods but also the thinking, the thought process that led us all to what we plan to do today, tomorrow, next year

Quite a challenge, we are as a species very arrogant, sometimes the only way to get a point across is to be as arrogant.... I find that a struggle, too

Will be extremely interesting to see what the future holds - when you look at resistance issues already in evidence eg Blackgrass.. how long it will take for polyculture to catch on as a way around the issue.

Much of this "stamp on it, spray it, kill it" is not going to be a futureproof model - "the farmer mentality block" as I have coined it at our focus group the perception of the "problem" is the problem.

Nice to see some of the seeds that we've sown around the district are starting to pay off though a challenging summer has really shown just how some of these messages can pay off - a mate has made a lot more profit simply by outsourcing many of the problems he would normally have just tackled head-on.
Anything not performing was straight out the gate being proactive instead of reactive pays dividends

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

It's starting to sound like you two should start a political movement

I'm behind you both, but learning. I get just as frustrated as @Blaithin at folk thinking there's a treatment for everything that they perceive as "wrong". Much of this thinking is the result of decades of big industry (Pharma, fertiliser, spray etc) spending big money on teaching us to think this way.

All of the research money is backed by corporations with a vested interest in a result that allows them to sell us stuff. It's what economists call "Economic growth" and I'm beginning to think their definition of it will kill us all.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Very true - but farmers point the barrel at their feet and squeeze the trigger!
Some is engineered but much is simply the wrong type of thought process for the long haul, carpe diem et al

 

[davieh3350]

Been reading the books above, and it's made clear that the way I've been clearing out sheds and dumping the muck to rot down slowly is incredibly wasteful. Putrification in anerobic conditions, loosing valuable nitrogen, (that smell you can smell is the nitrogen disappearing seemingly), the heap goes acidic, the feed value of well rotted farm yard manure is half that of than properly made compost.
I've been dumping it then spreading it a year or two later.
What I should've been doing is to have been putting the heaps in sheltered spots so the wind doesn't chill the heap too much, on a loose bit of ground so it can breathe (never on concrete) lightly stacked up in a long low row, green waste like grass, old hay, hedge trimmings, leaves, pretty much anything organic thrown in with the muck, then turning after a couple of weeks to get air into it and get the bacteria breeding. After another 2-3 weeks turn again and then finally stacked up in a heap. It should be kept moist like a squeezed out sponge but not wet seemingly.

Anyone do it this way?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Been reading the books above, and it's made clear that the way I've been clearing out sheds and dumping the muck to rot down slowly is incredibly wasteful. Putrification in anerobic conditions, loosing valuable nitrogen, (that smell you can smell is the nitrogen disappearing seemingly), the heap goes acidic, the feed value of well rotted farm yard manure is half that of than properly made compost.
I've been dumping it then spreading it a year or two later.
What I should've been doing is to have been putting the heaps in sheltered spots so the wind doesn't chill the heap too much, on a loose bit of ground so it can breathe (never on concrete) lightly stacked up in a long low row, green waste like grass, old hay, hedge trimmings, leaves, pretty much anything organic thrown in with the muck, then turning after a couple of weeks to get air into it and get the bacteria breeding. After another 2-3 weeks turn again and then finally stacked up in a heap. It should be kept moist like a squeezed out sponge but not wet seemingly.

Anyone do it this way?

Interesting.


And completely contradicts the BPS cross compliance conditions which say field heaps must be kept headed high and occupy the minimum possible ground area

 

[davieh3350]

A few good books to read are
Fertility Farming by Frank Newman Turner.

Farming And Gardening For Health Or Disease by Sir Albert Howard

The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour (not finished it yet)

Edit...
Humus And The Farmer by Friend Sykes is a very good read too.

@Blaithin he says how well galloways perform in the last book.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Been reading the books above, and it's made clear that the way I've been clearing out sheds and dumping the muck to rot down slowly is incredibly wasteful. Putrification in anerobic conditions, loosing valuable nitrogen, (that smell you can smell is the nitrogen disappearing seemingly), the heap goes acidic, the feed value of well rotted farm yard manure is half that of than properly made compost.
I've been dumping it then spreading it a year or two later.
What I should've been doing is to have been putting the heaps in sheltered spots so the wind doesn't chill the heap too much, on a loose bit of ground so it can breathe (never on concrete) lightly stacked up in a long low row, green waste like grass, old hay, hedge trimmings, leaves, pretty much anything organic thrown in with the muck, then turning after a couple of weeks to get air into it and get the bacteria breeding. After another 2-3 weeks turn again and then finally stacked up in a heap. It should be kept moist like a squeezed out sponge but not wet seemingly.

Anyone do it this way?

That is what the aim is here once I get a turner made.
Went to see a fella not too far away doing exactly as you describe - rows about 300 metres long and covered with breatheable covers not much unlike what you guys would call landscape mat?
The turner they had was like a mower conditioner, minus the cutterbar, and they would crawl down the row at very slow speed aerating it whenever the temperatures got above 65° to prevent cooking the microbes. Sometimes added water via a tanker as well.

I have a vision of making my own machine with a truck diff as a gearbox, and some heavy steel pipe like a culvert, when I can find a length to suit.
The paddles ideally almost skim the ground and direct it inwards to keep the pile in a pyramid.
I knew I wouldn't get a chance for the first couple of years so used some pea straw to hopefully have a higher N for a starting point to mitigate the losses will put the fresher manure from this muckout into a row and then put the older heap on top, as I have some used bits of silage sheet to help cover it this time the older manure has composted relatively well but I really want to make the most of it, add some other goodies and get it out before it loses its zing
I leave mine indoors until it is almost completely dry before mucking out in the autumn, it doesn't overheat this way.

 

[davieh3350]

Interesting.


And completely contradicts the BPS cross compliance conditions which say field heaps must be kept headed high and occupy the minimum possible ground area

That might be beneficial to stop it getting too wet, a bigger heap looses less heat than a small one too, think the main thing is to get the air in.
The compost pits (different to heaps of muck like mine) are made up of alternative layers of green waste, manure, soil and urine are given vertical vent holes to get more air in to them.

I'm going to be adding ground limestone through mine to keep the ph level up. 6mm to dust as its a fair bit cheaper.

I wish I had a better memory for facts, as I'm needing to go re read the books again

 

[Kiwi Pete]

@Farmer Roy had a neat design for a composting reactor that had some good points - breathes all the way around, and had half a dozen tubes going in which were carefully removed once the thing was stacked up.
I thought of the bodgeineers and baleage wrap tubes, would be a way to increase aeration.
Also you could put down a big row of unusable straw/hay as a base for the pile?