Rotational grazing sheep!!

[Shann_mann]

So long story short. I’ve got a neighbour who likes to mark up my sheep as his own. So I’m for moving my flock of a 25 acre bank onto 24 acres of better grazing. I normally run 80 Cheviot ewes and lambs on it. But this other block of grazing is made up of 11 fields so I was thinking if I paddock/rotational grazed it how many more ewes would I get on it. So the question is how many ewes and lambs would people graze on 24 acres on a paddock system?

 

[mixedfmr]

I d have 7 ewes and lambs/acre set stocked on there with SOME fert, if it was a ley as mine, Maybe the same and no fert, or just keep introducing a few more and see how it goes

 

[Global ovine]

You stated that 24 acres are better grazing, therefore I suggest you may run more to the acre than on the 25 acres.
Keep in mind that pasture DM produced over the year depends on many things; soil fertility (lack of limiting nutrients), soil temperature, pasture plants and grazing management being the biggies.

Compared to set stocking, trials have proven up to 30% more DM can be achieved by rotational grazing where spelling time between grazings is adjusted to suit the seasonal growth rate. The largest gain is in efficiency of pasture DM usage to animal production. That affects both profit (important for enjoyment of the job) and GHG emissions (if you believe you can save the world).

Personally I would not give you a number of sheep per acre until I had some comparative data of the soil fertility status and assessed pasture composition.

 

[gpcwm]

Could you 'sort' the neighbour out? You'd then have 49 acres of grazing...

 

[Shann_mann]

Could you 'sort' the neighbour out? You'd then have 49 acres of grazing...

I’d swap some store cattle on to the other bit. But yeah the neighbour and his landlord have both been sorted out.

 

[Hill Ground]

If they're your sheep, isn't it your job to stop them getting onto your neighbours in the first place??

Not excusing your neighbour for keeping them, Just saying!!

 

[Shann_mann]

If they're your sheep, isn't it your job to stop them getting onto your neighbours in the first place??

Not excusing your neighbour for keeping them, Just saying!!

Don’t think I said mine got out did I? . But there’s a foot path gate between us and after a busy weekend of D of E kids the gate is always stuck open. Very rare you go a full summer where sheep haven’t swapped fields because of it. There’s 3 of us in a row and we normally swap sheep back over at shearing or weaning. The 2020 summer was fantastic not a walker anywhere. But 2021 was awful. After lockdowns I bet i had 70 sheep that weren’t mine and 70 of mine in the 2 neighbours.

 

[Hill Ground]

Don’t think I said mine got out did I? . But there’s a foot path gate between us and after a busy weekend of D of E kids the gate is always stuck open. Very rare you go a full summer where sheep haven’t swapped fields because of it. There’s 3 of us in a row and we normally swap sheep back over at shearing or weaning. The 2020 summer was fantastic not a walker anywhere. But 2021 was awful. After lockdowns I bet i had 70 sheep that weren’t mine and 70 of mine in the 2 neighbours.

Fair enough, apologies for jumping to conclusions!!!