Clarkson's Farm
- Thread starter Chukzombi
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I thought those collars were neat as hell too. Dumb question here but , I was always told cattle were way more susceptible to shock than people and that shocking a milk cow would cause it to not give milk. Is that nonsence?
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Even though I'm far from an expert I did do some work on a dairy farm, mainly pulling calves. I do know that many stressors can decrease their production but I doubt there are many things that would stop it altogether. Even having a new hand can cause production to go down a bit. It makes me wonder if that is a side benefit of the fully automatic milking operations.
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BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Getting shocked often will stress them out but my understanding is that once they get trained they don't get shocked anymore. It makes noise and vibrates before it shocks them and they learn to react to that.
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Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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I was familiar with them because we had looked at one for our German just to be able to run around and if/when we get some more land. For doggos they're smaller than the big box the goats we wearing but still like $550. Didn't make sense at our little fenced in 3/4-acre lot but maybe in the future.
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BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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The cattle ones about about $250 each and require an $18 a year subscription fee per animal.
What's really revolutionary with the collars for grazing animals is that we've learned that the best way to graze is to graze a small area with a large number of animals and then move on quickly and give that piece of ground a long recovery period. What really causes overgrazing is not the number of animals on a piece of ground, but when they bite off the same plant multiple times without giving it a chance to really recover. In our area it's pretty arid and ideally you would only graze plants once a year or less but the cows have their favorite areas so if they are left in a pasture for a long time they will overgraze parts of it, and not use the other parts at all. If there's a wet creek bottom with nice soft green grass and also a hill they have to climb with dried out grass on top, they will sit in the creek bottom and graze it into oblivion and never bother to go up on the hill.
The solution is to move them every day and have small enough paddocks that they have to eat everything, not pick and choose and then once they leave a piece of ground, they won't graze it again for a year. On a place like mine that takes hundreds of miles of fence. Most people who do it use temporary electric fence that they go out and move every day but that's a lot of labor, especially in rough country. I have wanted to do this kind of grazing for years but a large percentage of my ranch looks like this...
Note the 4 tiny horses in the middle of the ridge to get a sense of the scale. Some of the pastures down there are 5+ square miles and a lot of it never gets grazed but the idea of trying to fence that into small paddocks just seems impossible, even with temporary electric fence. With the virtual fences though, it would be easy. The guy I heard speak moves his cows every 12 hours but he just sets up a whole week's worth of paddocks at a time in his computer and they just follow the collars from one paddock to the next. They all radiate out from the water tank and then he just lets them go further out after they have grazed the area they're in.
There's a lot of other cool stuff about them but this isn't my ranching blog so I'll just say I was excited to see them on the show. Goats are an especially good use for them because the joke about fencing for goats is "If it won't hold water, it won't hold goats".
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Intrinsic
Person of Whiteness
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I thought it was also pretty interesting hearing about the different preferences between lengths of grass. Had never even considered that.
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BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Yeah, the more mature grass is the less palatable and nutritious it becomes. This is especially true of tall grasses that become lignified. I have pastures with native grasses and ones with introduced grasses that are taller but it's very deceptive because sometimes it looks like the introduced pastures have more forage since the grass is taller but that short native grass packs more of a punch nutritionally and it actually stays more nutritious when it dries out as well.
Burns
Avatar of War Slayer
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Pretty good finish to the season. Some of it makes me wonder what the real story is and not the entertaining version. For example (last episode spoiler): I wonder if the two women that got the Pub/Restaurant up and running were always there temporarily and the opening deadline might have something to do with them going back to their own thing.
Also, they put in two "subliminal message" type jokes in the last episode that flash so fast you need to pause it, to even know what it is. I didn't take note of the timestamp of the first one, but here is the second, that happens near the end:
She is part of the new UK Leftist government; Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer (cabinet position). Probably need one of the local Brits in here to explain what she has done in particular to be a joke.
Also, they put in two "subliminal message" type jokes in the last episode that flash so fast you need to pause it, to even know what it is. I didn't take note of the timestamp of the first one, but here is the second, that happens near the end:
She is part of the new UK Leftist government; Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer (cabinet position). Probably need one of the local Brits in here to explain what she has done in particular to be a joke.
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I kept trying to pause that in the right place to see WTF that was. Thanks for posting the image but it tells me not much.
Also , I don't know how things are done in the UK regarding a restaurant but I do know how they are done in the US from an electricians point of view and there are multiple and I do mean multiple inspections for electrical / water / etc before the restaurant can get up and running or even have non construction people in the building. I think a lot of that was for 'show drama'. I did hate that it was the last episode. Damn shame they had to get too old to do cars any more.
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Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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My experience with inspection protocols in the US is largely based in CA (specifically SoCal) but yeah, you end up with initial, tested, permit tested, and then whatever the fuck the final test thing is called for almost any installation. Literally thousands of dollars to confirm the initial inspection wasn't bullshit or something. I sort of get it, but also get that it's largely grift. The second test should have been the final confirmation.
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Haus
I am Big Balls!
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I also agree I think a good bit of the pub stuff was manufactured drama. Maybe pubs opening in England are just like that. But in the US a place like that would have had a "soft opening" before to iron out all the kinks of the staff and operations. And with as much introspection and "up in your ass" about stuff as the council governments obviously are in the UK the idea that they'd be finding new electrical problems and fixing them on opening day is hard to believe.
Also, it makes me really feel for actual British farmers. The stuff they talked about involving "worst harvest in recorded history" wasn't made up, and unlike Clarkson (who is literally making millions a year so long as even the Grand Tour is still in the rotation on Amazon in the archives, on top of still hosting a British TV show, and residuals from whatever else...) all those local farmers are really in the "we might have to sell out equipment to keep ourselves fed and buy seed for next year" phase. But they kinda have to hide that reality some as otherwise the show loses a lot of charm when it becomes "stupidly wealthy actor playing farmer to make content".
With that said, I still really enjoyed the season. Looking forward to more. They have confirmed a season 5, right? I can't imagine Amazon letting this cash cow retire yet. Over/under on how long before Harriet has a "farmgirl OnlyFans"?
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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I liked that he acknowledged that he doesn't have to make a living on his farm and talked about how hard it is to make money in agriculture. I think it helps people to understand why agriculture is subsidized like it is. If you want a cheap, reliable food supply it's better if the farmers aren't all going broke every time they get screwed by the weather etc. because that shit happens all the time. In a country the size of the US you're not usually going to have a "worst harvest in recorded history" across the entire country, but it happens to somebody somewhere every year. In poorer countries, farmers commit suicide all the time because a failed crop can easily mean your family will starve and no matter how good of a farmer you are, crop failures are going to happen. I don't think all of the farm programs are good, but I do think it makes sense for there to be a safety net for people who are doing a good job and still lose their ass because of weather or markets or whatever else that's beyond their control.
One thing that strikes me about the show is how different the trucks and trailers are over there. Everything is almost unrecognizable. Is there no such thing as pickup trucks in England?
I forgot to mention this earlier, but I had to laugh at him getting all excited about the birds of prey following him around when he was plowing. They were following him because they were eating the hundreds of rodents he massacred when he plowed the field, just in case you're a vegetarian and think no animals are killed to produce your food.
One thing that strikes me about the show is how different the trucks and trailers are over there. Everything is almost unrecognizable. Is there no such thing as pickup trucks in England?
I forgot to mention this earlier, but I had to laugh at him getting all excited about the birds of prey following him around when he was plowing. They were following him because they were eating the hundreds of rodents he massacred when he plowed the field, just in case you're a vegetarian and think no animals are killed to produce your food.
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Kalaar kururuc
Grumpy old man
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We do have pickup trucks in the UK, but nowhere near as prevalent as in the USA. Some are driven by tradesmen/farmers, but the majority you see are driven by knob heads, and will never see a dirty field.
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stupidmonkey
Not Smrt
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Hatorade
A nice asshole.
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Hammond talked about that, he says anything in the back of a pickup truck won’t be there past one red light. Meanwhile state side that isn’t a thing, at least I have never seen or heard of anyone that was looted at a stop light.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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I'll go out on a limb and say the difference in gun control laws between the two countries might have something to do with that. And stereotypes. Thanks country music!
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