John Seay wrote:He uses very poor examples; but none the less his argument is valid. There are sustainable ways to produce meat; but not enough land to do it for everyone. The article uses terrible wording to get the point across. Bottom line - all 300,000,000 Americans can not sustainably eat meat.
Depends on what meat we are talking about. Different animals have different feed to weight conversions. Beef is not very efficient at feed conversion due to its large mass. In the authors example he says 10acres per animal, I know for a fact that you can get far more meat from 10 acres with rabbits, tilapia, quail and chickens than from 1 steer.
This is a classic example of BS in = BS out
The author has a preconceived notion that meat is not sustainable, uses an animal with terrible efficiency and worst case scenario land to justify his position.
I'm glad there is a thread going on this. This winter I picked up 100 seaberry seeds and havn't found much info on them. Does anyone know what the growth rate is like? I am considering using a mix of Seaberry, Autumn Olive, and Silver berry as support species in my Fedge.
Casey Halone wrote:maybe I need to look into getting wild rabbits to hang around my area then? let them do their thing and spread like rabbits? breed with meat rabbits?
Wild rabbits cannot successfully breed with domestic rabbits. Genetically too far apart. They can "practice" all day, but nothing will become of it.
What about rabbits that are natives? I raise New Zealands and according to the sources I have read they are native to the America's, despite the name.
I have wild brown rabbits in my hop / clover field all that time, and was thinking about trying to catch one and breed it with my stock just for shits and giggles.
Willy your absolutely right it's a combination of things.
There are far less inputs in a Fukuoka or "farm produced" system which makes the cost of production cheaper.
There are also heavy subsides on the inputs into "Modern Ag" which lowers the price of production substantially.
Very much like how Paul pointed out the true cost of CFL vs Incandescent. With subsidues they are comparable in price but the true cost is not even close.
So then you factor in supply and demand.
There is a larger supply of "modern ag" food, with a steady demand so the market price is low.
There is a much smaller, but growing, demand for "farm produced" food and also a small supply so it fetches a premium market price.
If all things were equal, with the free market able to determine the price, the natrally produced food would be far cheaper, as the production cost is much lower.
* I don't want anyone to think I am saying that naturally produced food should be this or should be that. The market determines the value, and the value is what someone is willing to pay.
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. There are many shades of crazy and many "threats" that some people are sure are going to happen. There are also many threats that some people never consider till it hits them. I know for a fact that I will lose my job in 2 months, knowing that I am preparing now. I am saving $ like mad, buying extra food I already eat when it's on sale, and securing secondary streams of income. Stockpiling guns and ammo, OK, maybe, I don't know, if that's what that person feels is important to them, then go for it. I personally have never had to defend myself in that manner, but I have to eat every day, and I have to pay my bills so that takes precident over the "tactical" mentality.
I really like how Jack calls it practical preparedness and approaches it in a rational manner.
"6. Plan for disaster in the following order of priority – Personal-Localized-Regional-State-National-Global. Despite the real possibility of a true economic melt down or catastrophic terrorist attack or some other major global disaster the most probable “disaster” for any individual is personal. Loss of a job, loss of a family member, a fire or localized weather event are the most probable threats to impact any individual. So plan and prepare for those first, then continue to build going forward."
If you have an extra minute check out this link. He has his list of 10 values of modern survivalism.
While not everyone approaches it from a rational manner, for the most part his community does. Not saying there arn't a few tin foil hatters mixed in, everything is always a spectrum. Different strokes for differnt folks, different horse different courses, and all shades of crazy.
I don't think that the people on "doomsday preppers" are regulars at the forum or listeners of the show. In your example they would be more like tha Anglicans who are pissed off at the renegade Christians for making people associate them with being kooks.
I think I read in Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivores Dilema" a quote from Joel Salatin.
It went something like this, When people say farm produced food is too expensive I say on the contrary, it's the least expensive food you can buy, because all the costs are accounted for and paid. It's not subsidized by cheap oil, cheap corn, and tax money. It's also not causing damage to the enviroment that must be cleaned up by a later generation.
I'm sure I bastardized that quote, but that's the general idea. Mass produced food only seems cheaper because it's so heavily subsidized. If the mass produced crap wasn't so heavily subsidized it would be far more expensive than the naturaly produced product and the free market would adjust accordingly. I think I have heard that it takes 9cal of oil to get 1cal of food in the "modern" system.
Dale, first off I have to say that I really respect you. Your one of my favorite people to read posts from on this forum, always thinking outside the box and actually doing rather than talking. That being said I think your characterization of preppers is a little off. Don't get me wrong that show is full of lunatics, but those people are the lunatic fringe of that group. Being a "reality" show they have to make it interesting so they seek out some of the most F'ed up crazy's they can find. Then they take it further and coach them to say and do things for the camera, and edit it to make it look even worse. One of these people came onto Jack's site, The survival podcast, and gave his account of what had really gone on behind the scenes and it was nothing short of slimy sensationalism. I had never heard of prepping until Paul and Jack did those cross over shows, I liked what I heard and headed over there to check it out.
Then I took a look at what they advocate, and what I already do:
I hunt.
I fish.
I raise my own veggies.
I raise my own meat.
I can food.
I own guns and enjoy plinking with my .22
I train MMA.
I have entered and placed in national Jujitsu competitions.
I avoid debt, and pay in cash.
I am working on gaining energy independence.
By all accounts I would be considered a prepper, even though I had no idea there was such a thing. I think most people that are living or moving towards living a homesteading lifestyle would be considered preppers as well, even if they don't consider themselves to be. I would highly recommend listening to a couple of Jacks podcasts to get a feel for what prepping is really about, I wouldn't say it opened my eyes, but perhaps helped me see things from a different perspective.
Hell yeah looks like we got more MI permies here than I thought. I know there are others, hopefully they'll decipher the title of the thread and make their way in.
Update on my stuff: Tilapia are breading and I think I have all I need for this summer. I am going to keep the breeders going though so if anyone wants some fry let me know.
Rabbits are due to give birth this week.
Quail is still on the agenda.
/rant on
This is total BS. The DNR is trying to get everyone all worked up about this "Feral hog pandemic". While I can see how they can and have cause crop damages in other areas they are not running rampant and eating everything like they try to sensationalize it. My room mate and I both hunt and after hearing these "killer hogs on the loose" reports from some friends, we don't watch the idiot box anymore so we hear it from word of mouth. We were like hell lets go hunt them! So we check the DNR website to see where the sightings are:
Wow, so out of 80+ counties we have 0 sightings in 39 of them, and 1 sighting in most of the rest. Hell there's more than one sighting of bigfoot per county on a yearly basis.
It's the same sensational BS over and over...
The gypsy moths are going to decimate the forests!!
Zebra mussels will kill everything in the great lakes then come for you and your children!!
There's a healthy population of coyotes in most of the state, and an even healthier population of hunters. Our state's going broke, the state parks are in desperate need of upkeep, and this is where the resources are going...
They say "feral swine pandemic", I say, "Challenge accepted."
Got a swine problem, send me a PM. Have gun, will travel.
I've been working on this at my house also. I've never lived in a house with A/C but grew up on a lake and that helped a lot. The house I'm in now has no A/C and it will get no A/C.
Block as much sun as you can from hitting the house.
Focus on the South and West if you are in the northern hemisphere.
Plant deciduous or annual vines or shrubs in front of all Eastern, Southern, Western windows.
Shade the North side of the house as well and you can get a natural air flow from N. to S.
Keep the light from getting into the house through windows, block it from the outside.
Use light colored heavy curtains to block light on the inside.
Sprinkler on the roof on a timer can be a huge help keeping the roof cool.*
Open windows at night to bring in colder air, close before sunrise.
Cook at night or outside.
Fans, fans everywhere, but only if blowing on a person / animal.
There are tons of other options but I'd say go after the "low hanging fruit" first.
Keep the pics coming I want to see how this turns out. I have plans of making my own Chinampa system, but not till next year. I was blown away when I saw the PDC DVD with Mollison and Lawton talking about Chinampas, had to rewatch it about 5 times. According to Lawton, "its the most productive system ever recorded."
Geoff Lawton reccomends this in his Soils DVD, as human urine can help inocculate your compost with lots of benificial goodies. To avoid being on a sex offenders list I use a jug instead of "directly applying" if you get my drift.
I had a similar issue with my house when we remodeled it. It's a 1927 Montgomery Ward bungalow with plaster lathe walls. There was little to no insulation in the walls. We were going to do blown in insulation but because of how difficult it would have been to repair the plaster we ended up using foam board insulation on the outside under the siding. When we installed the foam board we took care to tape all the seams to help reduce air infiltration. While the added R value did help with heating costs the biggest difference I notice was that when the wind blows hard outside I no longer "feel" it inside.
I know styrofoam is not a green material, and if you don't want to use it you might consider using a housewrap like Tyvek or similar.
In my opinion I weighed the "greeness" of conserving energy over the life of the home as being greater than the one time production and use of styrofoam.
So for me I considered it an appropriate technology for rehabing an 85 y/o house, some might not.
Brenda Groth wrote:appears most places require you to order 50 or more..can't do that
Just sent you a PM. It turns out my BIL's family raises about 10,000 bobwhites a year in OH and I am planning on heading down there to check out his operation and get some. If things go well I could bring some up when I come get some of those sunchokes from you.
Dale Hodgins wrote:This one is 2 minutes old. The BBC channel mentioned that the queen has been on the throne for 60 years. This got me thinking --- Perhaps she should increase her dietary fiber.
Wow thanks for all the responces everybody, it's much appreciated!
Craig Dobbelyu wrote:Electric poultry netting might be an option if you can afford it. It's mobile, very good deterrent and can be solar powered. You could do away with the tractor and just leave the coop for roosting at night. Or keep the overhead cover if birds of prey are an issue.
This seems like a good idea. I stopped by the local farm store this weekend and they didn't have anything except the single strand line. I'll check the other local farm store this week and see if I can get an idea for price.
Chris Kott wrote:...getting a small livestock guardian dog or two (they are social animals, two or more are better) and keeping them from the start in chicken tractors designed with an integrated doghouse would work well, provided you found the right dogs and trained them to task properly. As it would be a life for which they were bred, and the only one they would know, it would be fine for the dogs too.
This would be my favorite option if it was my property. I also already have a dog and both of my roommates each have a dog and the county says no more than 3 dogs per household. But yeah once I have a farm of my own I think this would be the way to go for simplicity sake.
Morgan Morrigan wrote: the old timers used to just hang up a racoon carcass on the back of the coop. seemed to work well. might want to gut 'em first, and just let the meat rot, or try skinning and just hanging a badly dressed skin up.
since they will let you hunt and trap the area, think you have a great way to get the chicks some protein, and thin out that racoon herd.
if you are a meat eater, you can try the pee trick, and i think the trappers can use coyote urine too.
you can also figure out what their food source is, and trap out there on the forest edge. if you set out a live trap, you can set other ones near it. the commotion of trapping one will draw others in.
They don't appreciate anti-trappers there at all, but if you need info, they have it. lots of interesting wildlife habits are picked up by these guys. prob the only ones watching wildlife in urban interfaces more than anyone else other than pure researchers.
Thanks for all that. I'll check that link out in a minute, I've got no problems with trapping or hunting them. They way I see it humans have chased out all the natural predators in the area so, to paraphrase Sepp Holzer, now I must do the work of the predator. I'm not OK with killing something just to get rid of it so at the very least I will tan the hides, but I was wondering what to do with the carcasses.
Ivan Weiss wrote:I hung a roadkill raccoon carcass inside my chicken tractor in a 5-gallon bucket that had 1-inch holes drilled in the bottom. The theory was that flies would lay eggs on the carcasss, and the maggots would drop through the holes to become chicken feed. I never saw any maggots -- maybe the chickens got to them first, maybe not -- but that carcass is still there, and I haven't been bothered by raccoons since.
I should add that my chicken tractors are all walk-in, with standing head room. I'm looking for another roadkill raccoon to add to my other chicken tractor.
Ok, that's like the 3rd time I have heard of this so I am going to put some stock in it. At first I was a little resistant to the idea, because I don't want the farmers to think they let a Dahmer Jr. out on their property slinging dead carcasses on everything, but since it's in a bucket it might be more acceptable.
I was about to start looking for info about paw paws soon, I just got 22 seeds in the mail last week.
One of the seed packs said that they don't transplant well, I think it said they had like a 2' taproot when they only had their first set of true leaves. Does anyone know if that's true?
I was going to start them in deep pots and move them outside once they got their first leaves, but if that's true about the taproot then I think direct sowing would be best.
I'll follow the links and see if I can answer my own question.
Jennifer Whitaker wrote: Another person said that if the pile has been composted it should "burn" out any of the chemicals or they could also leach out as the pile gets rained on etc.
I was wondering that also, would composting it help?
Geoff Lawton mentions composting a goat, and a human body in his and Mollisons PDC DVD's and says that the composting process will kill all pathogens. I wonder if the heat would degraded the chemicals....
Olde but goodie
"A man walks into a bar and sits down at the bar. He orders a drink and as he is drinking it notices a sign that says, "Win $500, ask the bartender for details." So he asks the bartender about the sign and the bartender tells him there is a standing challenge at the bar for anyone who wants to accept.
The man asks, "Well, what's the challenge?"
The Bar tenders says, "You have to down a 5th of tequila, no breaks, just chug the whole bottle, Then we got an alligator tied up in the alley, he's got a bad tooth and needs it pulled. Once your done with that there is a 98 y/o woman upstairs who's never had an orgasm, you need to go make that right with her."
The man bawks and says, "I'm not doing that!"
Well the hours go by and the liquid courage starts to fill the man up, finally he staggers over to the bartender and says, "gives meh that bottle of tequila!"
The bartender hands him the bottle. The man slams is straight down, whipes his mouth, and stammers, "shwhere's that 'gator?" The bartender points him towards the alley door. From inside the bar the patrons hear a horrible racket, screams, growls, breaking glass. The bartender is about to go out and see what the rukus is when the man emerges from the alley. His clothes are torn, he is bloody, bitten and badely hurt.
The man looks at the bartender and says, "Shwhere's that womern with the sore tooth?"
Damian Magista wrote:You don't really need any room. You only need enough room to place the hive and be able to walk around it. The bees will fly out and forage within about a 4 mile radius. You could put quite a few hives on 1/4 acre.
There is no issue with putting several hives right next to each other.
Tyler Ludens wrote:#1 worked pretty well for us under heavy pressure from raccoons. You may want to stake the flaps down between moves to make digging even less convenient. Frequent moves also help discourage digging, that is, move no less than once per day. If you're a male, urinating around the perimeter may help drive off raccoons. May not work with female urine, which may be an attractant, apparently.
Awesome, Thank you!
I was thinking either a heavy rock, tent stakes, or wire clothes hanges bent in a "U" and pushed into the ground might work. I didn't know about the urine, but if I have my coffee on the way there, there should be a surplus of that...
They will be moved early every morning, maybe more than once if needed.
Does Sepp's bone salve work on raccoons, or would that attract them.... hmmm....
What's a ballpark for how many acres per hive? I know like everything there are huge variables, just wonder if it's ~1/4 acre, ~1 acre, ~20 acres. I've never thought about keeping bees before, but I do like making mead...
5 isn't very practical though... who really wants to sleep in a tent guarding their chickens for the rest of their life?
If the pitbull can be trusted outside to guard, you might just let him sleep outside by the chicken tractor.
Yeah 5 was kind of a joke, it wouldn't be for the rest of my life just the chickens life. The dog can be trusted, but it's not my property and I wouldn't want to leave him out there alone.
As an aside pits and bulldogs are different breeds, vary similar, but slightly different temperments. Pits are Old English Bulldogs crossed with a Terrier to increase the "gameness" of the Old English. American Bulldogs are the closest living descendent of the Old English. My Amer Bulldog likes to make a game of catching mice and baby rabbits and dropping them at my feet unharmed.
So I got some great news last weekend that I want to share, and bounce some ideas around. I decided that this summer I am going to put some of this permaculture knowledge I have been cramming into my brain to good use. I put the word out to some friends that I was looking for some property ~3 acres to lease to do chicken/quail tractors at. A friend of mine has been running a landscaping crew for a local Christmas tree farm for a few years now, he said he would ask them.
2 weeks later I met with the owners son, my friends boss, he is probably late 20's early 30's. He had googled Joel Salatin and chicken tractors and was very interested. We BSed for a bit and he showed me around, they have chickens, pigs, cows, and horses. The property is 110acres with 14 acres fenced pasture, some hills, natural ponds, Christmas trees, and hardwoods.
So after the tour I asked, "Ok so what are you thinking about for a lease?"
He said, "Well, we tried raising broilers before and it ended up not being that profitable for us, so just go ahead and do it."
I said, "Wow, well what about some profit sharing or something?"
He said, "Yeah we could do that, but honestly I would want you to make sure you get your money and income out of it first. In all honesty my dad would be ecstatic to get maybe $100-$200 out of the deal."
I said, "OK, well I don't really feel comfortable using your land and not helping you out in some way, what about labor?"
He said, " Really? that would be awesome, actually that would be the best thing. I am busy all summer running the landscaping crews and my dad is getting up there in age and just doesn't have the motivation that he used to."
So I ended up getting access to the whole 14 acres of pasture and I get to help with some farm choirs.
My friend having known this guy for a few years has told me that he really wants to convert the farm to an organic farm. However he is busy running the landscaping / snow removal business and his dad is content with doing Christmas trees. I am hoping that I can show them a profitable way to raise poultry and perhaps start letting permaculture loose on the land. With the structures they already have( parking lot, sale building) a u-pick Holzer style maze would be a perfect fit into the landscape and not interfere with their current enterprises. I am going to start slow and hopefully they will continue to be receptive. The son is very receptive, he was very interested in permaculture asking questions and writing stuff down to google later.
Any way I found this whole encounter rather encouraging and thought I would share it with the group. I'll make sure I take lots of pics and maybe start a thread of the progression.
*Oh and raccoons seem to be a major problem on the farm. They are fine with hunting trapping them, though they don't want to do it themselves. Any suggestions to keep the raccoons out of things?
Questions, comments, concerns, suggestions all welcome.
I'm looking for ideas to help make a chicken tractor(s) as raccoon resistant as possible. I recently got permission from a local Christmas tree farm to run some chicken tractors on their pasture. I asked about predators in the area and he said there are tons of raccoons around. They have even given up trying to grow a kitchen garden because the raccoons destroy everything. I asked if he would be OK with me hunting / trapping them, and he said Hell yeah I would be OK with that. So aside from putting some hunting pressure on the population what are some other ideas to help reduce the likely hood of finding a couple of empty chicken tractors in the morning.
The chicken tractors are going to be a Salatin design, 8'x8' wooden frame wrapped in welded wire. Flip top 4'x4' lid, 3/4 of the roof solid material.
Ideas I am considering:
1) An extra layer of fencing folded out at the bottom, about 1' or so, so they coulding dig right under the cage. They could still start digging under from a foot back though.
2) Strand of barbwire around perimiter of cages.
3) Strand of electric fence around cages. (Might be out of my price range at the moment)
4) Live traps placed next to / near cages. I'm thinking then if they do make their way out to the cages maybe they will think the live trap opening is a "way in".
5) A tent, American Bulldog, banjo, spotlight, and a shotgun.
I just got the OK to run some chicken tractors at a local Christmas tree farm this summer. When I met with the owners son and did a walk around I noticed a ton, 30 - 100 didn't count, pre-cut trees left over from Dec. I asked him what they do with them and he said they burn them. I offered to take all of them for him, he said, "Sure, why?" I told him briefly about chicken bedding, hugelkulture, and composting. He seemed pretty interested then pointed out a pile of wood chips, maybe 100 yards, varying in age from last year to 6 years ago and said I can take as much of that as I want too. They run a lawn and tree service in the summer and just pile up the chipped wood and lawn clippings on the back 40, oh the possibilities....
I was just thinking how great it would be to have a local group of permacultrally minded people to trade, barter or share with. Maybe have some meet ups, BBQ's, or whatever.
I guess I'll start:
Location: SE MI, 48346
Surplus: Livestock:
New Zealand Black rabbits
Blue Tilapia
Quail* This summer
Plants:
Hop Rhizomes - Casacade, Chinook, Columbus, Centenial, Nugget, Williamette - Digging up soon so I'll see what I got.
Seeds /Starts - Just ordered a ton of seeds from the web, depending on germination I may have a surplus of a few seeds or starts.
Labor:
27 with a strong back and not affraid to get dirty. My room mate is a personal trainer with the uncanny ability to see physical labor as fun exercise....
Homemade:
Homebrew beer: Lots of flavors, changes frequently.
Looking for: Perenial vegtables.
Mulch plants.
Comfrey.
Apple / pear scions.
Fruit bushes.
Anything I don't have that will grow here.
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