WINTER

Winter

Winter crop grazing... Its been in the NZ media lately. Damming photos of cows up to their udders in mud & paddocks with bad pugging and run off. Agreed there are places that I think wintering stock is not ideal & many practices that don’t work resulting in poor animal welfare and soil erosion. Farmers graze winter crops to give permanent pastures a rest. This is how we do it. (Pics 1&2 break feeding multi species crop, pic 3 paddock after its been crop grazed)
We are fortunate here that we don’t have huge amounts of rain, which is nice in the winter, but not so great in the summer. This year was our first year of grazing proper multi species crops & the results have been great. With breaks moved every day, plenty of foliage left as mulch, and roots left in the ground, the fields have fared well. The biggest saviour to avoid damage, improve animal welfare, stop flooding and run off is in the quality of the soil. Healthy soil = great water infiltration, which means little to no run off, less mud, less pugging and soil erosion. The balanced mix variety diet means the stock poo’s are solid, full of seed to regerminate & fibre ready to fertilise them. Here you can see how even in early August (with a few warm days!) there are still things growing, and plenty of mulch to protect the soil. Happy paddocks, happy stock = healthy stock and healthy paddocks, better for the environment and everyone! Win win win. YAHOOO!!