[Hillview Farm]

  Evening all, I was having a little think today about next years grazing arrangements and wondered if anyone could shed some light on your systems?

Sadly we had some dog issues this year so the sheep were removed from the farm and put onto temp grazing so I missed out on my first grazing season at the new farm. The grass grew like stink so we hay'd the whole 22 acres, the hay was fantastic quality and we averaged 170 tight packed conventional bales to the acre!!!!


I'll have a better idea of how many lambs to expect around xmas time once we have scanned but around 50 lambs plus 40 mature sheep (ewes, ewe lambs, a pet and the rams) and two horses. So without the land the horses hog the sheep will have around 20 acres. The grass isn't a new lay (poss about ten years?) but yielded really well this year hay wise.

Does it sound like I'll have enough grass? Or too much? Or about right? I know its hard to say without see it etc.

Its split into three fields the largest being 13 acres and the other 5 and 4 acre. Any suggestions as to what system may work? I'm not keen on cell grazing as I don't have hours of time to fence it. Strip graze with or without a back fence? Rotation is key for me after a few high worm counts due to lack of fresh grass last year (Bloody dogs!)

Sorry for the long post 

[trawscoed]

If it was me I'd work out what my hay requirements were and put a decent hay meadow aside, only to be grazed lightly between cuttings, for the manure more than anything.

A couple of other things- resist the urge to put the animals out to grass to early, the first growth can take longer to recover. Secondly, on that note, move the animals on before the pasture is totally rinsed and it will take a lot less time to recover. In other words recovery time increases several times over the shorter you go. The last thing is horses surely like the longer sward (I don't know much about horses) so I would look in to ways that sheep can follow horses over the pasture, especially is it starts getting out of hand.

[devonlady]

I was always taught that it's the other way round. Cattle first to eat off the long grass then sheep and then horses and no species on the ground for more than 3 weeks. This also helps with worms.

[trawscoed]

a-ha! well I did say I don't know anything about horses I let the sheep follow the cattle but perhaps the OP can let the horses follow their sheep in that case

[Marches Farmer]

Depending on the layout of your ground you may want to think well ahead about putting them furthest from the house as Autumn begins then bring them in closer as the likelihood of bad weather increases.  I shut up the turn out field at the end of September so it grows slowly though the Winter, lessening the chance of grass staggers when the ewes go out.  This also decreases the worm burden, especially if you can switch between two or, better, three fields so you don't use the same field for turnout every year.

[Graemscifi]

Its never to early to think/ scheme for the coming year, what else is there so do during dark wet winter months.

Thinking about the last paragraph of your post, that rotation is your key, i suggest two things.

First if i was you split your 13 acre park in 2 to allow you to either rotate through three parks with one set aside for hay, or rotate through four parks which allows the ground to freshen more between grazings. I know you said you did not want temp fencing/ cell grazing so if you can bang in some perminant fencing, its not hard to do and it will pay for itself in short order with more hay and less worms.

secondly there is an old crofting saying that sheep should never hear church bells in the same park twice. Thats a good rule of thumb to evaluate your stock density against how they are getting through the sward in your parks, if you use the three park system and the sward is done or worse being damaged by rotating on this period, then you can move to the four field. If you try the three park system think about when you will close to grazing the hay park, i close mine at lambing so the field is clear of stock from march onwards in order to clean and grow. That works well at the moment, though as my numbers are rising and we are having a series of wet winters which cause lots of damage to the parks i am thinking of moving to a sacrafice field system or even partil housing post tupping.

anyhoo thanks my tuppence, good luck