Strip grazing

[Farmermilkin82.050]

Is anyone on their last rotation?

Or are the cattle all indoors now would be interested to hear, thanks, James

dairy farmers around here have the cattle in and so do we, was a great growth year and I recorded great kgs of growth, I would say in most fields there was an average of 30-40 kg of grass unit .

I hope next year is as good :D

[Gav836]

We're kicking our lot back outside tomorrow, they came in for weaning on Monday and the cows will be off out onto 10 acres kale tomorrow, once thats eaten off they will be working their way through 50 acres of Redstart kale/forage rape hybrid, all strip grazed, while their offspring remain inside now until they are sold in February. The cows themselves won't be coming in again now until January ready for when they start calving in February.

[Farmermilkin82.050]

We're kicking our lot back outside tomorrow, they came in for weaning on Monday and the cows will be off out onto 10 acres kale tomorrow, once thats eaten off they will be working their way through 50 acres of Redstart kale/forage rape hybrid, all strip grazed, while their offspring remain inside now until they are sold in February. The cows themselves won't be coming in again now until January ready for when they start calving in February.

I take it your a beef-suckler farmer, have you many calves weaned off? whats kale and redstart kale like a a feed ?

Don't hear much about it, does it work well?

[Gav836]

I beleive we've done 80-85 out of 100 so far as thats all the spare shed space we had at the moment, the rest will be done as soon as this lot are outside. Kale is ok as a feed but they need planty of straw with it, we'll never put out youngstock onto it again though after we lost two to nitrate poisoning two years ago when we tried it. They love the taste of it and stuff themselves on it to the point that their digestive systems can't cope so we just put the cows on it now. We use the Redstart as an alternative to stubble turnips as we always seemed to struggle to get a good crop of them due to flea beetle and root flies, they don't affect this too much.

It works well for us as it saves us a considerable amount of money and time having them outside in the open and the cows seem happier out there as well.

[Farmermilkin82.050]

I beleive we've done 80-85 out of 100 so far as thats all the spare shed space we had at the moment, the rest will be done as soon as this lot are outside. Kale is ok as a feed but they need planty of straw with it, we'll never put out youngstock onto it again though after we lost two to nitrate poisoning two years ago when we tried it. They love the taste of it and stuff themselves on it to the point that their digestive systems can't cope so we just put the cows on it now. We use the Redstart as an alternative to stubble turnips as we always seemed to struggle to get a good crop of them due to flea beetle and root flies, they don't affect this too much.

It works well for us as it saves us a considerable amount of money and time having them outside in the open and the cows seem happier out there as well.

Very interesting Gav, we have sold seven calves that were being weaned off for a few weeks, I wasn't pleased, as he sold some of the good heifer calves, but you can't always have your way