Ya GBov I'm seeing it in all animals just different trends of breeding for a specific thing.
Psybird Yes mobile butcher setups were talked about in that conversation as well. The U.S.Duh (haha joel salatin reference there) is going to have to pull the stick out of its own back end and get moving, we just cannot have stagnant rules in a world that's always changing. I really hope it starts catching on, it's been needed for years anyways now it's make or break though.
__________ Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:22 am __________
*Slams hands down on table*
The sheep...
Are in the field...
July 30 the rams were moved from the yard to the field. July 31 the rams were moved to the next section and I planned to move the ewes over to the first section. The first section is started near a tree at the spot closest to my permanent fence, where it is easiest to create a 'hallway' of fence on one side and netting on the other. Except I have just enough netting. So the last bit of about 20ft had net on one side but moves up to the field, away from the permanent fence. So I set it up with about ten step in posts and the roll up wire with 4 strands across it. I've tried to divide big paddocks with the roll up wire and the sheep don't respect it. So I wanted Dad to go out when I moved the ewes to stand at this 20ft section and just watch. This way the ewes see him, seeing them, and
should leave it alone for the easy option of following the open 'hallway' to the nice field of grown forage. There I was all ready to go and Dad puts on his puppy eyes that we should wait til tomorrow because it's supposed to start raining then rain for ten hours straight. :? Ugh fine, tomorrow...
So of course, we got about twenty minutes of rain and that was it...
Aug 1... Everything is ready to go. I'm going to get the feed bucket and lure the ewes into the 'hallway' and close the gate so they can't run back into the paddock, they can only come back the 'hallway'. Here I go to the gate and all the ewes are piled up bellowing at me. Open the gate. Out comes every one! :| Close the gate. They wander down the 'hallway' but there isn't much to nibble because it's the edge of the yard, where the rams had been and eaten it all down.. They wander down to the creek.. Cross the creek.. Mill around just on the other side.. :|
Mind you I am still standing up at the gate and haven't moved. They are now 2/3rds the way to where they need to go. Dad is fiddling around and poking his way over to the 'hallway' and where I wanted him to 'stand guard'. I stand there watching :frypan: trying to hurry him up with the force and panicking to myself that any second the ewes are going to dart out through the roll wire section... Finally Mr Magoo is to the netting and crossing over the 'hallway' to stand on the roll wire side! I walk down and scoot the ewes the last little way into the netting paddock, put the net back to close it up,
and take the biggest deep sigh ever!
Now both other times I've moved the sheep through this same 'hallway' setup, in exactly the same way, the sheep act like they have never been moved to a new paddock before and dart around like lunatics. One will finally go through the gate where you want them, most will see that one and follow, about a third will bound off down the fence line
away from said gate bawling it's head off... Finally get them all through, go to close the gate to keep them from backtracking, only for a few to see me and rush back through it before I can, like a deer you watch cross the road only to make it to the edge only to turn around and go back to the other side. :|
Needless to say Dad thought it was the best thing ever :roll: And he is so sure that the sheep are learning if they follow the 'hallway' there will be fresh pasture for them... I have my doubts but that would certainly be nice...
So there we are! Yesterday I took the netting which had previously made up the 'hallway' and setup the new section of pasture. Move the rams into it. Move the ewes into the section that the rams just left. Now I'll take this section that the ewes left and setup the next one in front. With the 4 rams in front they don't make much of a dent in the grazing. After the ewes though it's all eaten or trampled. If the ewes were first there wouldn't be anything for the rams. With this size sections setup and the amount of sheep I'm going to move them every other day, so two days grazing per section. It's mostly to do with the forage quality and quantity. They eat quite a bit but trample a lot. There is only some QAL still standing where the ewes moved off. I'm happy with how it looks. I want to improve this field and in all my researching the optimal way to do this with grazing is to have the animals eat the top of the plants then trample a bunch then let it rest.
There is different ways to go about it but I'll try to do a condensed explanation. I think there is only a few people here, as I recall, who have other livestock but I think some are hopeful potential farmers. So here goes for anyone interested :lol:
~Graze half, leave half. ~Take the top third.
These are the two main 'rule of thumb' that I see. Grazing changes so much depending on the time of year and what kind of pasture or crop you're grazing etc. But this is a good place to start. This rule serves several purposes.
*Parasites are mostly on the first couple inches from the ground of grass/forage. If you are always grazing short then you are also always making your animals ingest parasites. Even with optimal weather and staying off an area for a long time.
*All plants have a height where they can quickly recover from. You want to leave that height of plant there so that the land and forage can always have it's 'safe zone' left alone that it can rebuild from that foundation.
*Plants are each like a solar farm to itself. The leaf area of a plant is it's solar panels. If you take all the solar panels it takes a long time to rebuild and get back to producing. If you take some solar panels and leave some solar panels then it will rebuild more solar panels much faster.
*Plants have a cycle of how fast they grow and how nutritious they are. Little baby grass hasn't learned to walk yet and goes slow. Teenage grass is growing fast and very nutritious. Retirement grass is going with the flow, it's seeding out and ready to relax because it's job is done, and the nutrients have been pushed to the seed head so it's not as nutritious. I highly recommend watching some videos from Joel Salatin, he speaks very eloquently and straight forward, and explains that better than I probably did.
Point being, the more you manage the forage to keep it in the teenage grass stage, where it grows fastest and has the most quality, then the more grazing you can get on the same amount of land.
Another complexity of grazing is
what kind of grazing you do. Yup, take a moment, there is more grazing management than a building, fence, gate, livestock.
*Continuous grazing: This is your classic field that always has animals in it. Whether it's a few animals on a few acres or a lot of animals on hundreds of acres. The animals always have access to the entire thing. They have favored spots and spots they never go on. There is weedy inedible areas overgrowing. There is tasty favorite grass that is always eaten down to the crown. There is dirt patches that used to be tasty favorite grass areas.
*
Rotational grazing: Technically all it means is the animals do move. It might be fifty cows alternating between two fields of a hundred acres. It might be five pet goats on two paddocks of one acre. I might be twenty sheep on ten acres split into fifty paddocks. Any moving of animals to keep them off some land for a period of time is an improvement. The more you can manage the animals to contained areas and off of some areas, the more improvement in forage and soil quality you can affect.
*
Paddock shift: Technically this is very similar to rotational grazing except to say there is X many paddocks and I move the animals every X amount of time. Whether that be the cows on two fields being moved every six months.. The pet goats being moved every two months.. The sheep being moved once a week..
*
Mob grazing: More than one species of animal grazing the same area, at the same time. Also, multi species grazing.
*
High density grazing: A rotational grazing system where you are watching an amount of animals at a certain total weight per acre. For example, the fifty cows on 100 acre field would be 50x1500#=75,000# /100acre= 750# of cow per acre.
If the farmer took his 200 acres and further divided it into ten 20acre fields and move them more.. 75,000# /20acre= 3,750# of cow per acre. Now he has the same amount of cows but more impact with what they graze and where they poop. Now instead of wandering 100 acres they are confined to 20 acres and are forced to eat more variety and not just go searching for the candy. They also will poop more evenly across the land.
Let's say the farmer wants the cows on the fields equal amounts so he moves them every 18th day. (20 fields x 18 days= 360 days). Now each field gets grazed for 18 days and gets a rest for 342 days. The farmer could easily move the cows twice as often. 9 days grazing, 171 days rest.
*
Ultra high density grazing: There is this kind of scale of how much of an impact your grazing has at different levels of total animal weight per acre. The more total weight, per section of land, with more moves... The more of an impact you make. Now of course if you aren't paying attention you can mess things up badly just as much as you can improve things greatly doing it right. Different climates, different soil types, different livestock, different times of year,... There is a lot of different ways to impact the land to accomplish different needs.
Going back to the cows... Let's say the farmer has the same 50 cows and 200 acres. He uses 5 acre paddocks and moves every day. 75,000#/5acre= 15,000#/acre. He can use bigger or smaller paddocks and move them faster or slower. Depending on the forage and weather. Maybe the weedy overgrown areas he makes 1 acre paddock and moves them twice a day. 75,000#/0.5= 150,000#/acre. He would really beat the heck out of the area. The cows will tromp around to find some goodies among what they don't like and knocking the weeds down and stomping them. Also being in such a small space for half a day they have to poop in that confined area too. Now the farmer could easily walk around and throw out some seed to start taking back the weedy area.
The sort of scale I have seen is:
Below 10,000#/acre- very low impact
10,000-50,000#/acre- low impact, better grazing distribution
50,000-100,000#/acre- some impact, much improved grazing distribution
100,000 or more #/acre- ultra high density
What I'm doing is aiming to break into the high density grazing. The current total flock weight is 1,512#. That's a fair bit lower than 10,000#. However. :mrgreen: Using the netting to retain the sheep to a small area at a time I can start to get higher impact than if I had them on a bigger area.
My current netting setup is about 75x89ft= 6,668sq ft or 0.153acre. It takes 6.5 net sections to make an acre. Therefore.. 1,512x 6.5= 9,828#/acre
I already have strips mowed on this part of the field to setup the next several sections. I'm going to evaluate this part of the field then. I'm considering mowing the rest of the strips differently. If I setup the nets another way I could make long rectangle sections about 25x139ft= 3,493sq ft or 0.08acre. It takes 12.5 net sections to make an acre. Making it 1,512x 12.5= 18,900#/acre. The sheep would be moved every day instead of every other day, being just over half the size of the current sections.
Also since this field is 5 acres, and another acre above the terrace, one full rotation to cover it all will put it at Oct 18th. I'm going to breed in November for April lambs so that gives me two weeks in the lower part of the field to cover again before breeding groups.
__________ Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:22 am __________
I have a TON to update we'll see how much I can fit here.
Shearing is Jan 30. Thirteen days. I'm not prepared. Shearing happens every year, and every year I'm running and juggling and kerfluffle-ing. Thankfully what needs done isn't all that much. I just feel better mentally/emotionally if I can do a few things at a time, over time, to be ready ahead of time. Rather than doing ten things a day for four days leading up to shearing. The weather may turn wet and/or snowy. I have a bale set next to the barn, ready to be hand rolled in to feed the sheep during their lock up to keep them dry before shearing.
Breeding seemed to go fine. Chonk got the proven ewes and biggest ewe lambs for about a week. With the CIDRs the proven ewes should have all cycled and bred at that time. That week 88, the retained ram lamb, got the rest of the ewe lambs. After that until the end of the month (october) they were all together for breeding. 88 did not fill out as much as I'd have liked, especially for how nice he looked when he was younger. He filled out like a shetland rather than his cheviot side. Beautiful fleece though. 88 did very little ewe chasing so I'm expecting Chonk to have sired most of the lambs. That's fine with me.
87 & Benny you ask? :| Well... 87, died suddenly from what I'm putting down to parasite load. Later Benny did as well. I later learned that the breeder keeps a small drylot for their sheep. They rarely get out to graze some yards and fields. And once again I have paid handsomely for a ram of a breed that was not raised in the way of it's standard. And once again the breed standard can tout anything it wants, that does not magically make all the sheep of that standard. And breeders don't feel the need to share that they are kept dry lot and have no parasite resistance. Even after many messages back and forth that I'm breeding for land based animals that eventually will only graze all year long with no bought in feed.
It has been difficult. It's been no small amount of money down the drain to feed worms in the ground. I have adopted some new standards of my own of what I'm allowing myself to buy in stock in the future, but that's a ramble for later on.
So October breeding makes for lambing due date as early as Feb 23. The ewe lambs could lamb any time from 2/23 to 3/26. The proven ewes should lamb 2/23-3/4, or if bred the second cycle lamb 3/15-3/24. However with two ram lambs, mostly taller ewes, and skittish unknowing ewe lambs... I was noticing alot of interest at the fence line. I decided to throw the rams in again Dec 15-Jan 7. Due 5/11-6/3. This was not the original plan. However, March 30 is a special sheep and goat sale at the big auction. Depending on how many there are and which ones left then I can decide to take and sell them as bred ewes. Get the money and not have to worry about lambing more.
I have more rambling to do on the goals with the sheep however I need to do some other animal rambling now.
CHICKENS! I'm getting ready to put in my order for early March chicks. Did I say chickenSSSS? Plural? You bet! 75 actually!
25 Freedom Rangers, red feathered meat birds.
25 brown egg layers assorted breeds, hens.
25 heavy assorted breeds, roosters.
Why on earth do I need 75 chickens when I've only myself ever raised 5 banties myself? Because I'm crazy? Maybe partly that... But honestly I don't. The layer hens will all stay, excepting any not thrifty or not up to par. 5 of the freedom ranger hens will stay on for experimental breeding. 5 of the very best of the rooster assortment will stay on as the lucky breeding roosters for my breeding. The rest of them will be butchered. I'll be trading some as meat with family. We won't be short on meat that's for sure.
What else is meat? HOGS! Just in case there was any benefit of the doubt as to my insanity... I'll be getting 3 feeder pigs to be butchered out in the fall as well as 2 gilts (females) that I'll be raising to become breeding sows. I have several acres of woods they'll be helping me sort out underbrush. I have cover crop seed to broadcast behind them that will make the second round more nutritious for them and help outcompete the weedy/brushy plants I'm trying to clear out. How well it goes will help me turn these areas into silvopasture the sheep will be able to graze as well.
Part of the hogs training to the electric fence will be inside my permanent sheep fence. As they are moved I'll be planting the rabbit forage 'gardens' behind them. <br /><br /> __________ Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:57 am __________ <br /><br /> Chicks have been ordered and paid for. Decided on shipping date of 3/29 and 3/30 so be here early April. This means lambing will be past and I'll have a month to get them settled before possible late lambing more in May.
The neighbor's farrowing early March so that puts me at starting the piglets either early April to May depending on when he's planning to wean and sell them.
I have more to share but I'm recovering from bronchitis, courtesy of the lil nephew from all my babysitting time. Of course the week before shearing. So I'm finally ready for shearing which will be Saturday. Fingers crossed the snow holds off til Sunday. The weather forecast changes every time I look at it.
