Grazing on a grass based system for a 200 dairy herd

hello welcome back everyone all welcome if you're our first timer thank you for watching Remember to like And subscribe if you like our videos we're now on to our next one and we're talking all about our Grace and sister so here at Clark and hill we follow the uh New Zealand system in Mark vanson uh which basically means our cows never go back onto the same grass as they were on um and the last project basically so yeah we're just gonna go through basically everything that we do um to help with our grazing systems to explain and more black fencing actually means and yeah just going through everything so you'll understand hopefully by the end of the video better than you do now so on our farm we do night products on one half of the farm and then our day pallets are on another half of the farm the reason that we do this is coming up to Winter or when it was really dry not that long ago on iPad X they can go back to the shirts and eat silage whilst we're there on the day products we can't let them wander up and down the lane because we have cars come in too many gates to shut um and things like that we can't risk them going out onto the road basically the lane Josie speaks solve so as you can see there's just quite a lot going on so you've got like our shads there and then those Gates would lead out to the Lane which essentially leads on to the road so it's because of all of this sun it's not ideal for them to be wandering back and forth during the night so we have Day part of the night piles which actually makes it easier for us because it gives us a little bit more time to get their fences up on really busy days um and then we can't just go straight in milk and the fences for the day products are done so this is another project here so basically we're hoping to split this into four products oh the sun's coming out so as you can see the grass looks really nice it's blown in the wind um yeah so our aim is to split this field it's called The Big Big Field it's not massively big it's just called that um so our aim is to split into four so me and Pop's gonna put one fence up each now so that'll do two nights um and then we'll do another two so so it is quite windy so I'm really hoping that you can hear me through all the wind and all of you will just have to ignore my hair um so basically this is a steak so this is what holds the wire up in the air so it just stops the wire from um going on the floor basically because it goes a really long way up so how it works is the bottom bit has that a big old Spike and you put it to eat one and you literally just stamp it in like that and then it's in the ground and like literally they can't knock it over there so this bit is obviously metal then this bit's plastic so this bit means basically that you can touch this and you won't get a shot because they're a lot because the wire is electric electric won't run through plastic so it means you can touch all of this when the wire is in it and you won't get a shark um so yeah that was a good invention for us because we don't like getting sharks exactly and it stops it short and everything then so the Kick's nice and high yeah so what we do here is we do 25 steps in between each steak and that is the Nerf that we find anyway um to hold the wire up nice and strong and yeah so we just walk out 25 steps so come with me why do you find big stats because um 25 along the legs than me so I don't walk a normal step I do a nice big step and then once I've arrived to my destination my first steak is in so I just do another 25 start poppy sometimes tries to talk to me while I'm stepping it out and I can't unfortunately reply it's good for me not so good for her I have to wait in between each state to get a reply obviously obviously we don't can't Barney's stats so when I get to my place I just make sure I haven't got my line which I am at this Pleasant Moon which is great for me yeah so you make sure the fences are nice and straight [Music] [Music] so basically the ghost thing with Patrick Mason so basically the goofy move back that said is we can decide how big we want the power dogs so we based on how many cards we've got milk in whether we're carving and how much grass they need on time so because we've got a lot of dry cars we don't have our whole 200 head male kids so the parties don't need to be as big however we have got quite a few fresh cows now because we're starting to carve so they need good quality grass and but yeah this Paddock is really nice long bra so I've come in a little bit what we would normally do but that is just a massive bonus to do our own paddocks it also means that we have to bring our own steaks and guess how many steaks we're going to need and today I have foolishly predicted wrong and the worst part is Poppy go out steaks and I added two and I've been laughing too so it serves me right um so now I have to venture here with these bad boys at least you're having fun with them now that's as fast and goes anyway so now I can put my steaks aside my meal involved so this means where the electric will be to stop the cars going into the grass that we don't want them to graze yeah what I'm going to do is cook it so this is also an isolator oh gosh this is also an ice age in the sense that electric will not come to this bad thing because it's plastic so whatever I hook it onto now won't get electric like the electric won't run through there yeah so when she had gone to this um wire there that won't be live so that's not that I know all he's doing is holding it in place and then for now it is literally just as simple as walking out and plugging it in like this um [Music] I've made that look simple but that actually took me ages when I first started falling my dad taught me and I could not figure out how to put it in this day but here I am eight years then nailing it [Music] thank you because you can see the real estate if I come to a stop I do just press against my lad because otherwise it will keep on reeling and then the Wilds get tangled but also the reason I can unbeat is because of this lock here the minute this is that if I put it down then I can't go anywhere it's on lock lock up and then I can go again [Applause] we find that this is a job that um it's just really really nice to have dogs because a lot of the time we're doing fences on our own um and it's Lush because it's amazing being outside like even on rainy days just put a coat on but like the dogs absolutely love her especially taking fans of that um and when you're on your own it's just nice to have a bit of company so I guess it's one job in particular that I really enjoy having a dog or job because especially especially and it's nice just to go for a little walk sometimes Take It All In foreign they can just be a bit nosy and they can sometimes knock the wheel off or start up your nose okay so my wheel is being reeled out my steaks are in my wheel is out so now I'm going to so until I hook it onto that track all of this is just wire which the cows could chew through they could jump over they could go under like there's quite a few things they could do and they shouldn't because they've got loads of grass and they're really happy but they are just nosy and once one goes through they'll set down the whole handles follow so it's really really important we put on electric if a cow gets an electric shock it's completely harmless that's why it's called a shock I suppose because it is just a shark um I mean I could have a Shockers it's literally completely harmless I'm gonna do anything to them apart from just tell them do not touch that again um enough to put them on yeah so I put my lock down because obviously now I don't want it to reel out anymore I'm gonna just see how far I need to read it and oh so you read it in with the handle yes [Applause] so the wires all along the lanes have got constant electric coming to them it's like an underground system and then the fan still on the electric so this wire here is electric right now so I need to connect my wire to that fence so I'm gonna hook it around here because this is all metal it will transfer now through to the wire I'm holding on to rubber and plastic because I won't be able to feel the electric on that and then I just hook it on and now the latch will be coming through that wire into the metal and then up through our and why I'm ready for our product tonight what's my feel set up buddy first product by the Hedge a fans a product for the next night of fans and then I'll definitely be able to put that into another two it's got this thing I was quite deceiving looking at it you'd be like you'd be able to split into another three without top Corner up by where the main road is it goes in like a triangle so it's quite set up the top and um yeah so as JC has just explained and the electric is coming all through this wire so that is just one big setup at the base of the farm so there's electricity like running down into an area and then from there runs all through the farm and there's like isolators where you can turn it off and on and so on so forth so this is a electricity tester that we've got from kiwi care and it's really handy because it just shows you if something is kicking without you having to touch it so our dad is quite good at just getting a piece of glass and having a little shock I physically can't do it even if my life depended on it you might as well write me off because I just it's a man to a Blog and I cannot do it like it's really not that big of a shark but anyway so you press this little button put the muscle there onto the wire and you can hear it kick in and then it's just showing me there that I've got a voltage of 4.2 and 3 which is a really decent voltage for the cows that's more than enough um so yeah it's a really really handy piece of Kit to have so as you've seen the metal wires are along the fans and then every now and again we have what is called a bungee which is this different way you can see a little dip in it not a budgie a bungee a bungee and it's got a handle here and then a metal hook which is what's carrying the electricity through and basically these are used to open and close products so I can hook it off there and then I hook it on to here and that has opened the powder cup so if I was a cow so if I was a cow I would have now bluffed milk and I'd just be walking across my truck like there and then I got to this bungee and I'd be like oh I can't go any further left turn and I'm in only I think they're more intelligent than poppy so I think they were just turned straight in and then one more thing to mention is water so water's obviously extremely important cows drink laughs do you want to carry on and we'll come back to that yeah I guess we'll just find out so so they drink a lot of water in a day um because a lot of milk is water so they rely a lot on having full tanks with clean water that they have access to 24 7. so you always make sure every project they've got a water trough um pretty close so they can just plunge them out have a little drink and go back so as you can see this one is really close and then just in the distance is another one and they're all really big concrete tanks I'll constantly refill a man as they drank and that is just really important foreign as you can see and then that's where they'll be going tonight so you can see the obvious difference so then this fence means they can't come back over onto this bit okay so we strip grace everything from six months old onwards so as soon as we're old enough to go out on grass we train them up on electric fans so these calves behind us are one years old so they came out onto grass back in March um so we put them across the road because they're basically too young to go to the bar and they're also too old to be at the sheds at Home they're much better off being out on the grass so they're out here being strip waves [Music] so this product you can see now is where they've been grazing for the past uh three days it's been you can just see the funds in the distance so with these calves because Jason said they're about a year old and a bit younger so we don't like to graze them too tight because they can then start to pick up things like worms and because of their age we don't like to push them too hard we also want them to keep being able to grow and put on weights we tend to move them as soon as they look like they could do with a little bit more so that's what we're here to do today yes okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] same now the carbs are all super happy Grazing In There lovely fresh piece of bar what we're doing now is putting up there or moving their back down to have water that's obviously really really important that they have access to clean fresh water at all times so we basically just have to move this back Vance to enable them to get to water so that fence now is going to stop them going back over what they've just been on so that's gonna have lots of chance now to grow back ready for them to come back to nap time and then there's the front fence [Music] it's that lock it's just stopping it from unraveling so this lock by here is why it won't just like all real why it's tight how many kids that we don't have to have so many solar panels we've created like a wire so as you can see I've got a bit of live wire on the end here it's not life at the moment obviously otherwise they definitely wouldn't be touching that what we do is we just wrap it around like that nice and tight so you can't get it off and then as you can see it's coming all the way through the hatch [Music] like a protective black plastic around the wire because it's not live or through this side so obviously the solar panel isn't on yet coming out by here and then we've got another uncovered end here while we do that not going as smooth as you would have liked no this is I think you need to answer out the whole thing I don't want to if you have yeah we've got like plenty of maps back for that if we need to go further down the field we can but like it is causing me a bit of embarrassment right now oh amazing embarrassing so if I was doing nothing tonight I'm gonna be on but like I know it is then but background lots of times so now when we turn the electric onto this wire it will be feeding all the way back to The Back Fence as well which is over there and the reason the wires go in here and we never have to move the black wires like poppy said because the water tank is there that's very Central like they always have to have water so the wheels are always going to be either side of the water tank like poppy said the black wire is slightly longer so if the wheel ends up further down there we can bring it to where it is [Music] the further we move on from all those yesterdays happiness gets nearer [Music] every day twice a day and after every single milk and they go back onto fresh pasture meaning that they have a new Paddock after having milk in so they have a date Paddock and an iPad egg so our day park is down here down the bottom end of the farm and so basically after every time we fetch them in we just move the fancy van so that next time they come down they'll have fresh grass but we have it so that they never go back onto the same grass so the grass that they've just come off has a chance to go back ready for the next time they come round so it's just a really efficient way of helping the grass grow without them just grading all the time so the fields come back quicker [Music] yes today's product today's product but they are currently leaving [Music] so behind me is where the cows have just come out from so where they've been grazing today so this is the fan start with the news today now typically actually today sorry tomorrow they'll be going on to the paddock you can see by there and it's actually the end of the field so we don't actually need to put up a new fence but even so we'd still take this fence up and then if it wasn't the end of the field we'd really put it up in this case we're just gonna bring it back to use on a different field so yeah just like you've seen these wheels are really handy because you can't literally take them up and reuse them then so that's what we do next so what I do is grip on again and just lift off the electric and then I've just got to unravel it from the metal here in order to be able to reel it in so I leave that on the floor for a minute and then we literally walk all the way to the bottom of the field as we go we just cut them off of the steaks like there but so if we're working as a team as often we are usually we get to about halfway and then one person will go to the top unreala Air while the other one goes and unhooks off all the rest so it can reel in nice and easily without having to maneuver through the steak it just means you're a bit quicker on the one for sure the one you're on your own you're on your own and what can you do sometimes the fun feeling really energetic I will run I've been quite off someone actually [Music] I say this stuff near highlight of the day for the dog if you're very lucky you might catch Barney doing a forward run [Music] [Music] okay so the end is now off so now it's time to back up the field and now on our way up we're gonna take the stakes with us so that actually will just stay there now marila in [Music] surround me in poppy work as a team which is most the time obviously if we're on our own what's to all but when we fetched cows together poor people collect the steaks and I'll reel it ends so yeah actually the expert is going to show you how it's done pork that's really hard oh dear I'll be part to have a break this guy like went off a bit far yeah okay should be fair oh I will say it is dogs love it though no [Music] well done I'm nice and that is what I don't go to the gym so as you will have seen across the fan slime we do have bungees situated in certain places in order to open products set up but that doesn't always work out 100 how you want it to so in this field we have had a really really nice amount of grass so we've been able to split the part it's quite small um which is more than what we'd usually do so a house Mount that our last product has ended with it isn't a bungee there's not a bungee currently it doesn't mean we won't put one in the future but there isn't at the moment so what we do in a situation like that is we just move the Reel and bring it to an opening which is fine we won't open up too much of what's been grazed but just enough so they can walk in to their fresh grass and it's just a way to basically get around if you don't have a bungee exactly where you need it the secret to a good Gateway is to make it wide enough that they're not going to make a mess walking in and also not have it so wide that you're wasting grass that you don't need to so we'll take this off and then we'd probably go to about that Thursday and then just gradually come out and join in then to the entrance foreign I've turned it so that when the wire is tight and it's pulling like that it's pulling on the closed end because if it's ever cut in that way there's always a chance like if some you know anything could come from it in it'll be off and there's a lot more chance that would happen so we just make sure it's on the closed end when it's pulling tight the third one I made earlier last project that you've just seen is the cow's eighth grazing in this field so we're now going to film the whole field so you can get a feel for the size of it it's called the 26 acre but it's actually only about 23 now because we put the tracks in but we're gonna try not to focus on that it's still called the 26 Acres of the wood and the word has taken up a few Acres as well but anyway we're going to show you the size of it and then we'll get to the first Paddock that they grazed and you can see how that's grown back in the eight days they've been in here foreign [Music] thank you so if you just joined me here down with the grass I believe that this is the same fear and this is exactly why we do what we do because they could quite literally nearly come straight back into the same field don't get me wrong we have gone from one extreme with the weather to the next um just a couple of weeks ago we were desperate for grasses haven't grown March um but then just to say that that was even more recent because then it gave this even more chance to grow back so this was grazed seven days ago and it is literally like yeah I mean you conceive yourself it's done great so the perfect weather for Grayson is Sun rain Sun rain like pretty consistently and often and warm weather then yeah like warm sun rain warm sun and that is exactly what we've had lately you can make a wrap but like the pressure did get to me it's a funny one wants to sign each other and give me another chance but yeah obviously in the June and May and June when we had absolutely no rain that was too much sun and it just dried out for now but obviously if it was raining constantly that's when things just get really whacked it's really difficult to not make a mess it was a bit like that in March April um so yeah as Farmers it is quite difficult to keep us happy weather-wise but yeah for grazing it's been a dream so we're just going to show you a couple of things and so first of all ask Poppy's mentioned daily we've got water tanks dotted all along the lane so you probably can't see it now but there's another one by there um sometimes they get further up the field they have a water tank just to save them walking back and forth then Poppy's gonna show you now as she said earlier we've got bungees okay false yeah so this is the bungee and you just hook it off and open it to enter into the powder so this is the first one so that will always get used because it's the very first car dark and then as we go up the track you'll see then how they're dotted so just to explain you know I thought it was the 2016 field and then we lost the makers due to the track so Dad did actually specifically put these tracks in place um so that the cows could walk down without actually walking in the fields they're proper like Barb trucks with austrative on top and like I said they'll stop some walking on the grass because um when we first started this crazy system we use an electric fence to go up instead of a track and then to go as this became so because they were walking up at all the time became so muddy and all it kind of just made sense to put a permanent truck in better for their feet and all as well so as you can see damages we're just about to approach the next bun here another one here so then that gives the opportunity to open the second product now towards the end of the grazing season or by the start chances are we wouldn't raise this close because it is quite small so then the exact same amount up again there's I think four stakes in between including this one there's another bungee so then we could just go to that one instead and there's always a chance you can put your fences on a bit of an angle or something if you need to make it bigger or smaller but it works really really well thank you [Music] thank you so much for watching our video and we really hope that we've made science and that you've learned something about back fencing the way that we Farm yeah definitely hope you enjoyed and we'll see you next time we're actually off to do a fence now bye

Channel: Sisters in wellies

Views: 8,986

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Id: Pbx-C6WbWDw

Length: 37min 4sec (2224 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023