Rotational grazing

Green farmer

Moving sheep every 3-4 days here but cannt build up any real wedge ahead of them, so just chasing grass around. How's everyone else set ?

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

Moving sheep every 3-4 days here but cannt build up any real wedge ahead of them, so just chasing grass around. How's everyone else set ?

Can't keep it grazed here......are you getting much rain, west seems to be badly affected by the drought
how much nitrogen have you spread, how many ewes to the acre

Green farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

Can't keep it grazed here......are you getting much rain, west seems to be badly affected by the drought
how much nitrogen have you spread, how many ewes to the acre

About 10 ewes to acre, but mixed quality land and swards. Spreading about 3/4 a bag after each grazing of 18 6 12 , but think your spot on with drought. growth got right knocked recently and sheep have overgrazed. Would love a lot of rain here as only small amounts fell.

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

About 10 ewes to acre, but mixed quality land and swards. Spreading about 3/4 a bag after each grazing of 18 6 12 , but think your spot on with drought. growth got right knocked recently and sheep have overgrazed. Would love a lot of rain here as only small amounts fell.

10 to the acre is heavy stocking, 400 going around 70 acres here and not able to keep it grazed, also have 150 ewe lambs plus lambs on 10 acres just for a trial, it's in six paddocks and working well, but are starting to overgraze now too, they'll be going to help the 400 to clear a few paddocks next week.
I haven't really worked it out but I think I'd have to apply for a Nitrates derogation for that stocking rate if I wasn't planning selling most of them in September so you must be well overstocked for nitrates

charolais0153

Green farmer wrote: »

About 10 ewes to acre, but mixed quality land and swards. Spreading about 3/4 a bag after each grazing of 18 6 12 , but think your spot on with drought. growth got right knocked recently and sheep have overgrazed. Would love a lot of rain here as only small amounts fell.

Acre or hectare

Green farmer

charolais0153 wrote: »

Acre or hectare

Sorry lads , 10 to hectare .

razor8

How long are rotations and how many divisions?

Green farmer

razor8 wrote: »

How long are rotations and how many divisions?

Im rotating them around 5 grazing paddocks, but of those some need to be split further, to create 7. Think I made the mistake of trying to keep them in paddocks a day longer then I should. Theres great heat there in the last few days that I think is going to turn things around though. Muggy weather.

razor8

Green farmer wrote: »

Im rotating them around 5 grazing paddocks, but of those some need to be split further, to create 7. Think I made the mistake of trying to keep them in paddocks a day longer then I should. Theres great heat there in the last few days that I think is going to turn things around though. Muggy weather.

ive found you need rotations to be as near 20 days as possible to see maximum benefits

Green farmer

razor8 wrote: »

ive found you need rotations to be as near 20 days as possible to see maximum benefits

I was chasing my tail since April as had ewes and lambs in two different groups and another paddock of stores , so was falling well short of the 20 days. I've tightened em up now, so hope the pendulum will swing the other way. Lack of rain didn't help either. Been so dry here I've turf ready to bring home now, a few months ahead of schedule.

farawaygrass

Need rain badly. I am getting stuck for grass big time. It was so close to raining yesterday and a bit today. We didn't get right rain bar a couple of days since paddys day

AntrimGlens

farawaygrass wrote: »

Need rain badly. I am getting stuck for grass big time. It was so close to raining yesterday and a bit today. We didn't get right rain bar a couple of days since paddys day

Running into problems here now with too much grass ahead of me, or as dairy farmers talk about a wedge!!!
Have a 5 acre field that was due to be baled but ended back up in rotation and grazed but I'll take it out now and reseed it. Had 200 Hoggs in 5 acres split into 3 paddocks and it's lasted 12 days, will skip another couple of fields and it should bring me back to 21 days. Have a KT meeting here next Tuesday on grassland management and rotational grazing so st least I will have grass to show the group. It's really only the second year I've been rotational grazing and really starting to see the benefits namely I'm massively understocked which I never would have said a few years ago.

Kevhog1988

i rotate my ewes & lambs every 14 days (im home every second weekend & dad looks them over during the week). should i leave it to every 3rd weekend to rotate them?.

rangler1

theemigrant wrote: »

i rotate my ewes & lambs every 14 days (im home every second weekend & dad looks them over during the week). should i leave it to every 3rd weekend to rotate them?.

It's important to have nice green leafy grass for sheep between 4 and 8 cms in length and any long grass that they didn't eat the last time they were in that paddock is gone too strong for them and useless in this grazing
If your grass complies with all those conditions, it doesn't matter whether it's 14 or 21 days, my ideal rotation would be 14 or 15 days this time of the year,
needless to say I don't always achieve it and the disc mower has to be brought out to speed up the rotation.
In any case every paddock is mowed 24 hrs before the ewes leave it, as I say if they don't eat it this time it'll be no good to them the next time

Green farmer

After getting a huge burst of growth in the last two days. A lovely sight indeed.

Username John

Far too much grass here. Very under stocked, which is a big problem... But the main issue is I have too much grass and no way of controlling demand - I have no way to topping / mowing, and it isn't an option in some of the fields... so just have to make the most of it...

Some fields do end up going to **** a bit, as they get overgrown, and the grass half goes to seed...

Tis a bit of a balls of a system, actually it prob isnt even a system really... but that's the way we do it

jd06

Username John wrote:

Some fields do end up going to **** a bit, as they get overgrown, and the grass half goes to seed...

Username John wrote:

Far too much grass here. Very under stocked, which is a big problem... But the main issue is I have too much grass and no way of controlling demand - I have no way to topping / mowing, and it isn't an option in some of the fields... so just have to make the most of it...

Username John wrote:

Tis a bit of a balls of a system, actually it prob isnt even a system really... but that's the way we do it

I'm someway similar myself
Just wondering would you buy some stock just for the Summer to keep the grass down.
If so what would people recommend

razor8

Would you not consider helping the poor dairy farmers and letting some heifers in for a month or 2?

Username John

razor8 wrote: »

Would you not consider helping the poor dairy farmers and letting some heifers in for a month or 2?

I prob should, the poor devils...

I wouldn't have great facilities... everything is setup for sheep - no crush, water troughs are plastic and I'd be afraid could easily be broken...

Plus, I'd only want a few, and might only want them to graze out a field, and then be gone, and then back again after a while... It would be hassle...

Plus, even though its not the best approach, and my grass would be in the better of your suggestion - I am half-odd, and just like to paddle my own canoe to be honest Razor...

ganmo

in one block the grass is way ahead of the ewes and the other its nearly skint starting to burn up over the rocks

Green farmer

slightly off topic, but with grass growth in mind, what are lads thoughts on reseeding ? or other then fert and lime, what can be done to improve swards. I've old pastures with a lot of weeds and weed grasses in them.

charolais0153

Green farmer wrote: »

slightly off topic, but with grass growth in mind, what are lads thoughts on reseeding ? or other then fert and lime, what can be done to improve swards. I've old pastures with a lot of weeds and weed grasses in them.

You'd know the fields that are reseeded . the growth is unbelievable, and the lamb thrive is good too.

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

slightly off topic, but with grass growth in mind, what are lads thoughts on reseeding ? or other then fert and lime, what can be done to improve swards. I've old pastures with a lot of weeds and weed grasses in them.

Spray weeds...
As much dung as you can get your hands on at the back end of the year...

DJ98

https://www.agridirect.ie/product/b50-battery-fencer

Would that fencer be suitable for fencing/spliiting small fields max 3 acres to block graze sheep?

Green farmer

Username John wrote: »

Spray weeds...
As much dung as you can get your hands on at the back end of the year...

It's the more stemmy fine grasses along with weed plantain that have taken over the place. Not much leafy grass as should be, but still lots of clover, so sort of rules out selective spraying . That leads me to reseeding , but hear loads of horror stories of places worse afterwards. , so thinking about minimal ground disturbance.

razor8

DJ98 wrote: »

https://www.agridirect.ie/product/b50-battery-fencer

Would that fencer be suitable for fencing/spliiting small fields max 3 acres to block graze sheep?

I've a Rutland one that cost a lot less than that and find it great for sheep. Had a mosquito one that was rubbish

charolais0153

Green farmer wrote: »

It's the more stemmy fine grasses along with weed plantain that have taken over the place. Not much leafy grass as should be, but still lots of clover, so sort of rules out selective spraying . That leads me to reseeding , but hear loads of horror stories of places worse afterwards. , so thinking about minimal ground disturbance.

Done a field in august with 3 passes of disc harrow , spread seed and fertiliser and then rolled it. Sprayed it 6 weeks after and it turned out mighty, used top5 extend grass seed and 3 bags 10-10-20

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

It's the more stemmy fine grasses along with weed plantain that have taken over the place. Not much leafy grass as should be, but still lots of clover, so sort of rules out selective spraying . That leads me to reseeding , but hear loads of horror stories of places worse afterwards. , so thinking about minimal ground disturbance.

If I could suggest getting the Ph and the indexs right first... if you don't, then you will spend a lot getting them right, or else your reseed won't come as good as you'd like...

I think you would also want to be fairly highly stocked... you need to eat the reseed well down in the first while, but you also need to feed it... both of which are hard without being highly stocked...

rangler1

Username John wrote: »

If I could suggest getting the Ph and the indexs right first... if you don't, then you will spend a lot getting them right, or else your reseed won't come as good as you'd like...

I think you would also want to be fairly highly stocked... you need to eat the reseed well down in the first while, but you also need to feed it... both of which are hard without being highly stocked...

+1
Ryegrasses need nitrogen or they won't last, their advantage is that they grow faster than the meadowgrasses with nitrogen and compete because of that, but if you reduce the nitrogen the lesser grasses will take over

ganmo

This is the only. It if reseeding I've done here. It's a patch where I'd lit a fire. I'm not sure if the sheep are grazing it more than the rest of the grass or it's just not performing.

ganmo

This is the only. It if reseeding I've done here. It's a patch where I'd lit a fire. I'm not sure if the sheep are grazing it more than the rest of the grass or it's just not performing.

ganmo

Did it work this time?

Green farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

+1
Ryegrasses need nitrogen or they won't last, their advantage is that they grow faster than the meadowgrasses with nitrogen and compete because of that, but if you reduce the nitrogen the lesser grasses will take over

After reseeding, how many bags of 18 6 12 would you recommend a year, for grazing paddocks. reckon paddocks here mightn't have been reseeded since the 60's or possibly longer. A neighbour told me there was some grants or scheme to do it back then.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Username John wrote: »

If I could suggest getting the Ph and the indexs right first... if you don't, then you will spend a lot getting them right, or else your reseed won't come as good as you'd like...

I think you would also want to be fairly highly stocked... you need to eat the reseed well down in the first while, but you also need to feed it... both of which are hard without being highly stocked...

+1 on this.

If you get the grasses you have growing first with lime and P&K and enough N, you will automatically grow more grass. If you get your paddocks going properly, and that will take a few years of making mistakes in allocating and cutting bales /silage off, you will be growing more grass again. And feeding the grass will encourage the better grasses to increase in the sward so in a few years you will have a much better sward without spending much on reseeding.

Each stage will mean having and feeding more animals. At that stage, you will be better able to utilise the new reseeded paddocks to their max and get the best return from it.

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

After reseeding, how many bags of 18 6 12 would you recommend a year, for grazing paddocks. reckon paddocks here mightn't have been reseeded since the 60's or possibly longer. A neighbour told me there was some grants or scheme to do it back then.

You should be getting some level of response from the fertiliser that you're putting on this year, land here is index 2 and 3 in P and K so not over fertile and the PH is 6 to 6.2 so not that high in lime either.
It got two bags/acre of 18 6 12 on the 20 march and will probably need one hundred weight CAN/acre in the next couple weeks and we're stocked at 7.5 ewes/acre
because we're so heavily stocked this year we're measuring grass weekly to ensure that there's always 12 -14 days grass ahead of them. As soon as that reduces under 12 days we'll go with nitrogen
Just edited to saythat reseeds last 7 -10 years, our land hasn't been reseeded since the 1980s, so if I was in your position I'd be pushing out the 18 6 12 and wondering why you're not getting a response before I'd gamble a reseed on the land, there has to be something else wrong

Green farmer

[quote="rangler1
Just edited to saythat reseeds last 7 -10 years, our land hasn't been reseeded since the 1980s, so if I was in your position I'd be pushing out the 18 6 12 and wondering why you're not getting a response before I'd gamble a reseed on the land, there has to be something else wrong[/quote]

Ya, I gave it 2t of lime in February and working off a low base of 1 of p&k's , but trying to reverse this with compound fert. Ive been getting down and examining the award and there's loads of non productive vegetation there ( I'm guessing 50 % of sward ) . It's a lovely dry field, so just want to try and get it right. I was talking to another guy who said he adds clover seed into sheep ration in early spring, and the sheep pass it out in their manure. Sort of encapsulated in its own fertiliser pellet. Then chain Harrow it around.

Kevhog1988

Has anyone else seen a serious amount of buttercups on land this year??

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

Ya, I gave it 2t of lime in February and working off a low base of 1 of p&k's , but trying to reverse this with compound fert. Ive been getting down and examining the award and there's loads of non productive vegetation there ( I'm guessing 50 % of sward ) . It's a lovely dry field, so just want to try and get it right. I was talking to another guy who said he adds clover seed into sheep ration in early spring, and the sheep pass it out in their manure. Sort of encapsulated in its own fertiliser pellet. Then chain Harrow it around.

yea,That's how nettles get out into the middle of the field in sheep pastures.,
They eat the seed heads in the ditch and **** it out in the middle of the field....great medium for propagating seeds anyway
If the sward is as open as you say it should work, I got a great take just spreading it and walking it in but the sward got way too thick and smothered it
How much 18 6 12 have you to the acre so far this year

Green farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

How much 18 6 12 have you to the acre so far this year

I think it's got about 2 bags so far, spread at a rate of 3/4 bag at a time. It's also got the kick from lime. It's coming back fast, but just not gone on what's coming up. The ground has a lot of that small flat growing plantain that's smothering out the grass, but on a positive note loads of clover.

razor8

I've done a lot of overseeding with good success. It's a cheap way of turning around land. Costs €50/acre to stitch it in, €50/60 for seed & whatever it costs to burn it off with round up. Doesn't take as long to come back into rotation either compared to ploughing

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

I think it's got about 2 bags so far, spread at a rate of 3/4 bag at a time. It's also got the kick from lime. It's coming back fast, but just not gone on what's coming up. The ground has a lot of that small flat growing plantain that's smothering out the grass, but on a positive note loads of clover.

probably should've put it all on at the start, it's easy grow too much grass in may and hard to grow any grass in april so I don't target any N for growth in May. From your description, reseed is probably the best way in your case

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

Ya, I gave it 2t of lime in February and working off a low base of 1 of p&k's , but trying to reverse this with compound fert. .

From my soil test, we're index 1 for P - the results said it needed 35-49kg / ha...

35kg P would be 12 bags of 18-6-12, per acre that would be nearly 5 bags / acre...

I think P is needed for root development, putting in a reseed into ground without fixing this is a bad idea...
I have the ground to prove it...

10-10-20 might be a better fertiliser for you? I got 0-16-0 this year, as I don't need the N or K...
They are all fcuking expensive tho

rangler1

razor8 wrote: »

I've done a lot of overseeing with good success. It's a cheap way of turning around land. Costs €50/acre to stitch it in, €50/60 for seed & whatever it costs to burn it off with round up. Doesn't take as long to come back into rotation either compared to ploughing

Do you not use lime or 10 10 20

razor8

Started off at very low base of lime of 5.7, have it up to 6.2 plus now. Have only used urea til now and will use pasture sward from now on. All land is index 4 for p&k

Username John

razor8 wrote: »

Started off at very low base of lime of 5.7, have it up to 6.2 plus now. Have only used urea til now and will use pasture sward from now on. All land is index 4 for p&k

Ah, go way with yourself and don't be rubbing your index 4 in our noses...

rangler1

razor8 wrote: »

Started off at very low base of lime of 5.7, have it up to 6.2 plus now. Have only used urea til now and will use pasture sward from now on. All land is index 4 for p&k

lime is needed at direct drilling because the trash decomposing on the surface lowers the PH of the top inch and effects the germination, obviously not a problem in your case

razor8

I am very sceptical of my index 4s!!

Always majority of fields come back 4 but fields don't look like it

I challenged one lab and they said in a few circumstances the Morgan test for soil can through false readings in a few areas around the country. Think Kildare was one area. He said to get it tested in Northern Ireland who use a different technique, can't remember the name and see what comes back. On the to do list

razor8

Interesting article on how complex the whole area of soil sampling is

http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/Why_Labs_Have_Different_Soil_Test_Results.htm

farawaygrass

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

Username John

farawaygrass wrote: »

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

Growth is gone mad here the last 2 weeks, you couldn't keep ahead of it without taking out paddocks or topping (neither of which I do)
But I think if you want top class grass all the time, you will need to do one or the other at some point...

ganmo

farawaygrass wrote: »

Put a big emphasis on getting grass right this year. Need to split up field still though. Put out a lot of 10-10-20 and Richland to get p and k up and rotating cattle and sheep a lot quicker than previously done. All that said, a lot of my fields are gone stemmy and gone to seed. I'm wondering where am I going wrong? If ran right, am I correct in saying there is no need to top?

sometimes ya just have to top or you are suffering for the rest of the year.