🌱 This week at Red Ants Farm
A few frosty mornings, and a rethink on rest periods.
We've had frost here at Red Ants Farm a few mornings this week — that first proper cold snap that tells you winter has actually arrived. It got me thinking about paddock rest periods, and whether the frost changes anything about how long a paddock needs before it's safe to graze again.
My instinct, like a lot of lifestyle block owners, was that a good frost knocks the worm burden back. Turns out that's not quite right — and it's worth understanding why, because it changes how you should think about rotation through the colder months.
❄️ This week's topic
Why frost won't save your paddocks from worms.
It's a reasonable-sounding idea: a hard frost kills things, so a frosty paddock should carry a lower worm burden than a mild one. Unfortunately for anyone hoping for a shortcut, that's not how it works.
Several of the common gut worm larvae found on New Zealand pasture — including Trichostrongylus — survive freeze-thaw cycles without much trouble. A couple of frosty mornings will not clear a paddock. If anything, the opposite is closer to the truth: larvae that would only survive two to three months on pasture through a hot, dry summer can survive up to eight months in cool winter conditions, and in some cases over a year.
That's the trap with rest periods in winter. Grass grows slower, so it's tempting to move stock back onto a paddock as soon as there's a bit of cover on it — but a shorter winter rotation doesn't mean the worm challenge has dropped to match. If anything, the larvae have had longer to sit and wait for their next host.
The rule of thumb worth keeping in mind: rest periods should generally get longer through winter, not shorter — often 60 to 90 days, rather than the 21 to 42 days that might clear a paddock in summer. Slower pasture recovery and slower larval die-off both push in the same direction.
📖 Further reading
Beef + Lamb New Zealand's Wormwise programme has a good breakdown of how long worm larvae survive on pasture through the seasons.
🛠️ What's new in My Block Hand
Two new tools landed this week.
NAIT record-keeping. If you run cattle (or deer), My Block Hand now tracks NAIT tag numbers, registration dates and the 180-day tagging deadline for each animal, plus a simple log for movements and losses. It doesn't submit anything to OSPRI for you — you'll still need to do that in the real NAIT system — but it keeps your own records straight and flags anything approaching its deadline before it becomes a compliance headache.
Milk production tracking. For anyone milking goats, sheep or cows, there's now a way to log production per animal or per herd — tucked away so it only shows up on farms that actually need it.
Both are live now. Look for NAIT and Production in the sidebar (you may need to mark an animal's purpose as Dairy/Milking or Fibre/Wool first, for Production to appear).
Running cattle or deer? Try the new NAIT tracker this week and hit reply to tell me what's missing — that's exactly the feedback that shapes what gets built next.
🚀 What we're building next
A seasonal rest-period upgrade, and a real App Store release.
Straight off the back of this week's topic: paddock setup now suggests season-aware rest targets instead of one flat number for the whole year — roughly 25 days in spring, 32 in summer, 48 in autumn and 75 in winter, based on typical NZ ranges. Set up a new paddock now and it'll already point you toward the right ballpark for the season, winter included.
Bigger picture: we're working towards getting My Block Hand onto the actual iOS App Store — a real app, not just an "add to home screen" shortcut. Screenshots and testing are in motion right now. I'll let you know here the moment it's actually downloadable.
💬 A community question
How long are you actually resting paddocks this winter?
From chatting with people in the Facebook groups, it sounds like most of you are already leaning into longer winter rest — pushing paddocks out to 60+ days where you can, and supplementing with hay or silage to bridge the gap rather than grazing early. Does that match what's happening on your block? Hit reply and tell me what's actually working — it'll shape what goes into next week's issue.