How did it go with the pigs? I tried using pigs to tackle brackon but i lost both of them to bracken toxicity. It was a big mistake. Thats not to say it cant be done, the levels of toxicity effect how the pig reacts and they have a huge tollerence to the stuff. They can go up to six weeks consuming the rhyzomes without experiencing adverse effects, but if they consume too much for too long then they will suffer a deficiency in vitamins B6 and B12 I believe. It can kill them in a very sudden and unpleasant way. As far as i can see at this stage, Brackon may be one of the things that can only be dealt with the hard way. I'm going through three or four times per year and cutting them everytime they unfurl, this way they expend energy and dont get the opportunity to photo synthasise. I have neighbours who successfully eradicated them this way and im seeing positive results in the second year. That being said, the pigs did work wonders by disrupting the rhyzome systems, and they really fastforwarded the process on the patches where they were folded. I'm very curious to hear about your experience because to me it seamed like the pigs reaction to the toxins in brackon is very circumstantial and people have different experiences.
I'd love an update from you 2+ years on to see if you got round to adding the pigs to your farm and how things went. The bracan (however it's spelled) is a big problem alright. I see it all around the countryside.
Lovely premises and ambitions. I hope it is going well for you. I find personally that it isn't even so much the bracken and ferns that's restrictive in the Irish countryside, but the blasted BRIARS. You can't traverse through any patch of woodland scrub or copse of trees because of the briars. It's like nature's barbed wire. I wish we could be rid of a lot of it, and have our countryside covered in a healthy amount of woodland again, with all its huge diversity of life and mega fauna.
I'm actually thinking they are useful in that way. Much preferable to horrible wire that i loathe so much... Excellent edible, sustainable boundary. Interplanting quick growing saplings it will make an impenetrable thicket relatively quick. Any mischievous sheep will be held in a grip it will not escape from lol.
Excellent
I like what your saying. Ireland needs more native woodland. Unfortunately, any farmer I know views trees as weeds.
How did it go with the pigs? I tried using pigs to tackle brackon but i lost both of them to bracken toxicity. It was a big mistake. Thats not to say it cant be done, the levels of toxicity effect how the pig reacts and they have a huge tollerence to the stuff. They can go up to six weeks consuming the rhyzomes without experiencing adverse effects, but if they consume too much for too long then they will suffer a deficiency in vitamins B6 and B12 I believe. It can kill them in a very sudden and unpleasant way.
As far as i can see at this stage, Brackon may be one of the things that can only be dealt with the hard way. I'm going through three or four times per year and cutting them everytime they unfurl, this way they expend energy and dont get the opportunity to photo synthasise. I have neighbours who successfully eradicated them this way and im seeing positive results in the second year.
That being said, the pigs did work wonders by disrupting the rhyzome systems, and they really fastforwarded the process on the patches where they were folded. I'm very curious to hear about your experience because to me it seamed like the pigs reaction to the toxins in brackon is very circumstantial and people have different experiences.
Ferns were used to bed the cattle years ago.
I'd love an update from you 2+ years on to see if you got round to adding the pigs to your farm and how things went. The bracan (however it's spelled) is a big problem alright. I see it all around the countryside.
Great video! You've gotten a new subscriber!
Lovely premises and ambitions. I hope it is going well for you.
I find personally that it isn't even so much the bracken and ferns that's restrictive in the Irish countryside, but the blasted BRIARS. You can't traverse through any patch of woodland scrub or copse of trees because of the briars. It's like nature's barbed wire. I wish we could be rid of a lot of it, and have our countryside covered in a healthy amount of woodland again, with all its huge diversity of life and mega fauna.
I'm actually thinking they are useful in that way. Much preferable to horrible wire that i loathe so much... Excellent edible, sustainable boundary. Interplanting quick growing saplings it will make an impenetrable thicket relatively quick. Any mischievous sheep will be held in a grip it will not escape from lol.