Dan Slee

paul wheaton wrote:Just to be clear, there are many types of hedges and the type of hedge we wish to create is something that will keep animals in. Something that you grow for two or three years and then do this:

So in order to pull this off, it must be a tree with a central leader and not a shrub. It must also be a coppicing species. Non-coppicing species just wouldn't work here.

It seems that thorns could be wise to keep animals from testing it too much.

Any food production would be a secondary feature.

We decided to not put sea buckthorn, for example, on the list because my impression is that it is a shrub and not a tree. You could, indeed, make a decorative hedge, but it would not do well in keeping animals in or out.

Really like the idea you guys are putting together for long term hedges that serve many uses. From your species list, and the post with the picture of a traditional hedge after maintenance/setup, I'm guessing you guys are going to establish the non-thorny base hedge first and then reinforce with thorny species later on? Just seems like asking for a whole lot of trouble down the line if you start out with that amount and prevalence of thorny species, especially when doing maintenance or establishment of the hedge. Also, you are going to be cutting into the benefits of having feed available to the livestock from the hedge, which sure is a great benefit once they are established well and thriving.

Would love to hear more about the plan and expectations, great thread

They all sound like great solutions, but are mostly long term which helps very little especially dealing with the invasion of biters your poor cows are dealing with now. Production more than likely also suffers in the mean time until the longer term solutions start to work to varying degrees. I'm not criticizing any of the solutions, I think they are great, and the right thing to do, I just know you can't sit and wait while your herd as a whole (even the ones not getting bit probably are annoyed or picking up on the unease/restlessness of the bitten ones, stress causes sickness, keeping sick animals with healthy ones is a good way for things to spread).

I know that you mentioned 1) specific oils being suggested 2) short term effectiveness 3) Doesn't last very long / wasn't very effective.

I'd love to hear more about what you've tried, specifically with safe volatile oil plant extracts and how you tried.

I don't have much experience personally with this as an issue, but I know Geoff Lawton has had success suspending a towel doused in strong smelling oils with ropes over his cattle laneway, and when the cows passed through, it coats them with a fresh application along the top of the head and back. I would imagine its not pure essential oils, but also added to another cheaper oil to lengthen the effectiveness, cheapen the per application cost, etc. So theres lots of ways to try and I'm sure with some research and discussion can find specific smells, oils, and additives that are safe and will help get you to the point where the long term solutions can be of use. Its always tough to know what the solution is, but not how to get there.

Hope this helps, and thanks for putting this out there for discussion

Edit: Forgot to add that for the irritated teats, I know that farmers have in the past and some still continue to this day, in fashioning a makeshift bra to cover the damaged/raw teat from exposure to insects. Sounds like this is a different area, but might be worth exploring if even to give her a few days to heal up without the fly exposure. Food for thought

-Dan

Hey all, I am a part of this year's PDC w/ Geoff Lawton as well, and I'm so excited for the next batch of videos, it is like purgatory waiting for the release after watching the Intro directly after enrolling.

But yeah, my name handle over there is Dan Slee, and looking forward to lots of interesting discussions and some great learning experiences.

connie me wrote:how about this... build a mold for your core and ship that(along w/the formula for ericas mixture). i'm a ups person and can tell you about the process of shipping up to 150lbs if you'd like.

Brilliant solution to the problem, while injection molding and roto are still very expensive, there is no reason some ingenuity and engineering couldn't be put to good use in coming up with alternative cheap and easy solutions sourced locally or provided in "disposable" forms.

Definitely should be explored more.