I bet the didn’t
, watch out for the thunder storms predicted for the west ![]()
I am supremely jealous that you are able to get so many bales from a paddock that size.
I’ll check with the quartermaster/boss on the size of field, we got 23 big bales, our best crop ever. I’d say that around 80% of our needs for winter. Just mental growing conditions this year after the last few. We got 14 off the same field lasted year and a lot later in the harvest season.
Great paddock as well, it’s now got a tone of clover, sorrel and other legumes. For non farming types these add trace minerals that sheeps need and means we don’t have to supplement additional nutrients.
It makes me laugh as I wouldn’t have a scoring what all that meant 8 years ago. ![]()
That photo with where I count about a dozen bales looks to be a couple of hectares (lets call it five acres). Obviously not the whole paddock, but if you are getting better than two 4ft rounds per acre, plus with what I can also see is ‘left over’ for regrowth… I’m moving to Wales ![]()
Once again I have to tell you how much I enjoy you two posting about your sheep and other farm stuff. It is so intriguing for me to see how you both do kind of the same thing, but in such drastically different environments.
Keets’ sheep never get bitten by poisonous animals or hit by dropbears or something, while Harry’s farm is probably 10 times as large for the same amount of sheep. Keets gets more rain in a month than Harry has in a year, and has never used a water trailer for the pasture (knowing Wales there is likely a creek or pond) while Harry has to bring one every day. Keets has probably never had a sheep die from heat while Harry’s have never seen snow. I don’t even know if the same sheep parasites exist in both farms. Given Harry’s location I wouldn’t be surprised if he told us that he drenches his sheep every two weeks while Keets does it once a year. Or is it the other way round? I have no idea, and that’s exciting!
Like above with the grass: I never really thought about it, but here in Germany you get between 8 and 12 bales per ha. (1ha = 2.5 acres I think).
Edit: Example: Horse people here say that you need roughly 2ha (5 acres) per horse, of which one is needed if you don’t want to buy food for winter. I wonder how that would work for you, Harry.
So yeah, I love your posts and they make me want to play Farming Simulator again. Keep posting, please!
The boss agrees with you @Harry_Bumcrack - 5 acres. Good eye. ![]()
@Aginor - I wish this were true. Sheep die sometimes, just because they can. ![]()
We’ve had sheep stuck in brambles by the wool, refusing to pull themselves out. So you walk all the way over to them and hey presto the magic Velcro manages to dislodge itself and they detach. if you don’t go over they stay there “stuck” until they die.
Exhibit A
This one decided rather than walk round the open ring bale feeder to go through the bars. Then got “stuck”. It’d been there for hours. I went over to it after taking the picture.
My laughing was enough to encourage the bars to widen or its hips to narrow themselves and it walked out. ![]()
They drown themselves, choke themselves to death on Y shaped branches because they refuse to walk backwards.
I honestly think if the UK had any dangerous animals sheep would be queuing up to present themselves for death.
Yeah I think you mentioned before how they might not exactly win a price for intelligence. But this is… wow. Not much going on inside that head I fear.
I wonder if wild sheep are equally bright, or if that is a side effect of domestication.
A non scientific observation. The most stupid sheep in the UK are on the island of Yell in Shetland. They see a car and go out of their way to run onto the one road and lie down. After that it is Papa Stour where they queue up to block the runway, but only on the one day a plane is expected.
Great refreshing beer for warm days that ![]()
Just to clear up a couple of things. We have cattle (x2) and Horses (x2). We had a small herd of 10-15 cattle but we de-stocked during the drought and bushfires of 2019/20. The two steers we kept are ‘tame’ and will come when called. That comes in real handy when you have a larger herd and you have to move them because you can call the tame one’s and the rest follow… no need to be a ‘cowboy’ and wrangle them.
And they have all seen snow. We have already had one light fall this year and as I type this it is 7am and minus 5 celcius outside.
As for the rest of it. We have lost a cow to snakebite and the cattle are drenched twice yearly (liver fluke can be a problem) and vaccinated annually. We get the vet in for the horses once per year for a general chrckup, vaccinations and to have their teeth done.
We are on a regenerative farming kick and are not ploughing, seeding and fertilising but encouraging native grass species to grow. Which is better for the horses because stuff like clover with the high sugar content is bad ju-ju for horses.
However because of this we work on 10 acres per horse, and the same for the cattle. Plus we rotate paddocks regularly. The steers can probably get by on less, they are Galloways, not fussy eaters and get fat just looking at grass.
While we are on the subject of sheep. This belongs in the ‘what we are watching’ thread but I saw Three Bags Full - Sheep Detectives last night (the one with Hugh Jackman).
A tear jerker with some genuine laugh out loud moments. Highly recommended and I don’t think I will be able to eat a lamb roast for a while.
And that is why we had (have) cattle) ![]()
I can visualise a hectare quite easily these days. But not because of farming. In the Rural Fire Service ‘fuel load’ is calculated in tonnes per hectare.
Liver fluke is bad here with the sheep. As soon as we get to October/November they get a drench. Again Jan/Feb before we bring them in for lambing, otherwise they come in jowley (symptoms of fluke)
One thing we do suffer from a lot is foot rot. For anyone else apart from Harry, this is a condition sheep get where bacteria infects the hoof and causes a nasty infection. It’s virulent like most things on poorly rotated flocks and wet ground.
We now vaccinate against this, it’s been a game changer for our small holding, but it’s pricey and has to be given at the right time of year (no lactating or in lamb ewes).
I’m guessing down under foot rot is still a problem, but less prevalent because it’s much much drier.
Cattle for us is a massive overhead because of TB testing. As a hill farm the cattle are in 6 weeks longer than a lower pasture. I haven’t the shed space or the land to get rid of the
to make it pay. The numbers are way more attractive/higher risk than sheep.
I know I could make it work and enjoy the cattle, particularly as we’re going back to a pre-intensive farming rotation, however I’m not sure of the additional stress involved.
Footrot isn’t an issue here, as you correctly surmised too dry. Possibly an issue in the much wetter coastal areas of Victoria (but that is mainly dairy farming country) and Tasmania?
Very much a New Zealand thing though, a Kiwi cartoonist made a fortune with this: https://footrotflats.com/
Interesting what you said about cattle we don’t have any problems with TB. Is BSE still a thing for UK farmers?
Here cattle are much easier than sheep (if you have the space). Even though we never saw the returns like we would have with Angus cattle, we chose Galloway’s specifically because they can tolerate extreme temps and do well on poor pasture. Ours have plenty of shade and water and don’t need a barn or ‘artificial’ shelter. They pretty much look after themselves.
Another plus for us is that most cattle parasites don’t infect horses and vice versa. So by rotating pastures we can break the parasite life cycle. e.g. horses will ingest the ‘eggs’ lying dormant but their digestive process kills them.
Enjoy that looks wonderful!




