The Grass is Greener……….in the far paddock

The idea for the 3 acres of land that we have dedicated to livestock is to create a rotational grazing system. When we originally purchased the property it was an open paddock with an existing narrow and sparse shelterbelt through the middle. We fenced 2 large paddocks with the idea of running sheep, cows, and goats, maybe an alpaca or three and oh yeah some pigs and swinging them between the two. All we knew is that we wanted loads of animals and we wanted to create our own little Charlottes Web type set up for us and the kids. Fast forward 5 years and our less impulsive and irrational brains were put to the side and thankfully logic prevailed. After careful consideration of what was actually achievable and manageable, we settled on starting with a couple of ewes with lambs at foot. This has now grown to a total of 12 sheep and 1 ram. (We do slaughter lambs for the freezer and move our rams on once a year. Keep your eyes out for a future blog)

Working off the principle of 10 sheep per acre, we have more than enough pasture to keep our sheep happy. However living in sunny South Gippsland, our winters can become very wet and very cold. We like to keep our wooly friends warm and with full bellies in the wintertime, so they are not standing with their bums to the wind and lying on wet ground. This winter our neighbour generously donated a large round bale of hay which we put inside the sheep shelter. They thought this was fantastic, they munched on it, slept in it, rubbed all over it. This is when we decided to make our own hay. So for the first time this year or early next year we will harvest our pasture into square bales.

There is always a good green pick in the springtime, and with the additional paddock we made to create a 3 paddock rotation, we have been able to restrict the pasture needed for the sheep and give up our biggest paddock to harvest for hay. We closed off the far paddock of our rotational system 6 weeks ago to allow for the grass to grow on and thicken up in preparation for harvest in late December early January. This timing will depend on how the season progresses. My son and I hand cast chook poo pellets over the paddock around 3 weeks ago, or at least I did and he dumped them in piles, and with some rain and sunshine, the grass is looking very happy. So it will be a case of monitoring it and harvest at the optimum time, this is generally late in the season, early to mid-summer.

We decided to make square bales for a number of reasons. One we don’t have a tractor to shift round bales so the square bales are far more manageable for us. We can lay hay on the shelter floor for warmth and bedding and hang is through a mesh feeder for the sheep to graze on. Square bales are easily managed to service the chickens, same idea of warmth and bedding. Straw or hay can be added to the compost to keep a healthy balance within this system, and finally, it can be laid on the veggie patch and watered in to keep the moisture in the soil. It will have a number of really effective and important uses on our little farm.

We are lucky enough to have the best neighbours in the world that have a tractor and the machinery to help us get the job done. They will help us out with the mowing and teddering and a local agricultural contractor will come out with the square baler and produce perfect size square bales for $3 a bale.

We will keep you updated with this process as things happen and the season progresses.

Seed you soon!