mike morris

Joseph wrote:
...harvesting a chicken in front of other chickens... Does it affect the "survivors"?

@Joseph,

I can't speak for Paul, here, but my own experience is that, as soon as some chickens are headed for the chopping block, the rest of the flock knows exactly what is going on. (And they scatter!) As a result of the behaviour I've observed over many years, I take good care to remove the culls well in advance of the event, and to make sure that, as far as possible, the rest of the flock are unable to observe the proceedings.

Can't speak for "other livestock" -- don't have any.

Great! Thanks, Paul.

Africa?

There's plenty going on in Zimbabwe (though 'net access might be difficult there) Uganda, Ghana, Egypt...

Jennifer Hall wrote:
There was an elephant rescue near here when I lived here before.  Not sure if it is still there or not.

Not sure if it's the same thing, but there is an Elephant Park about halfway to Plettenberg Bay. Bit of a tourist trap, really, but they really do good work looking after Elephant orphans... There was an attempt (about 10 years ago iirc) to introduce 3 babies into the Knysna Forest herd... the whole thing was very poorly thought-out, and one of the baby ellies died; the other two were rescued and ended up at the Elephant Park. Turns out that the forest ellies don't take well to interference or strangers.

Mike speaks:

Hi all. This looks like a great place to be! We live on a 1.7hA (4acre) smallholding in the southern part of South Africa where we've been permaculting like mad since 1995. (Before then we permaculted in Cape Town's southern suburbs.) Current residents are myself and wife, 2 dogs, unknown number of chickens, billions of yeasts and bacteria, Older Son and his wife resident in a separate cottage, and occasional visits from Younger Son who is at university.

Main interests revolve around design in many forms - permaculture, software, sustainable energy systems, dwellings,... self-sufficiency, home brewing, seed saving and breeding. Never did do the Official permaculture design course for lack of simultaneously having 2 weeks to spare and the money to afford it (let's not get into South African permaculture politics!) so have had to pick it all up through the Design Manual, Mollison's shorter condensed book and David Holmgren's "Principles and Pathways"... and loads of trial and error and just plain Doing It and relentlessly experimenting.

More about our smallholding on our website (mikro2nd.net), particularly the permaculture design angles (and yes, I must write lots more there --  there's still a huge amount to tell!)