So guys I decided to design a rotation system for people wanting to keep cows or other animals like sheep, goats whatever.
I started by doing the same size circles in a circle surrounding a circle, then I made the inner circle smaller as its role was purely to move the animals from one paddock to another. then when I started to connect the circles something really funny happened, the pattern resembled a flower!!! this was not my intention to start with.
I was happy with this as Bill says things work better if it represents a pattern that occurs naturally somewhere or other.
So to talk you through.
My goal is to field as many animal as I can on the given
land, my modal is based on a 4 acre plot but you can expand or make it smaller to fit.
there are 6 paddocks each with there own
shelter probably much like sepps modal. In each paddock there is a raised
chicken arc so the
chickens can be safe at night, this is so the
chickens can scratch through the animal poo, removing parasites such as intestinal worms, lungworm and other stuff. So each paddock will have its own ground bird population. each paddock is surrounded by a live barrier,
ash trees can be grown coppiced and when the coppice grows, they can be layed to create a live barrier/ fodder, so the barrier is the food also, other plants other than ash can be used as to make sure the animals have a varied diet.
Each paddock is to be planted with over 20 different species of grass, this is so the animals can stay outside All year round without chewing up the ground. see fordhall farm part of
video a farm for the future.
put simply most farms now use 4 different types of grass, whereas if you have
alot more species the grass grows at different rates and has different root strengths and depths, and grows better, this mixed with clover and other wild plants that suits your animals dietry needs.
Additionally to this each paddock twins up as an orchard, the orchard
should have as many different type of fruit tree as possible or any you know that would suit the animal, apples, maybe pear nuts etc. these trees will flourish from the poos of the cattle and chickens. The animals will eat the windfall and you ca eat the harvest, windfall from paddocks that doesnt currently have animals in can be made into cider or fed to the animals.
as you see the outside of the flower pattern there is a circle which on the drawing I have put as willow coppice as have design this to go as part of an eco comminity that has fuel needs, but these too could be forage or fodder for the animals, the whole idea of this is to be able to complete feed these animals all year round.there are triangle shaped inbetween the paddock and the outside which could be used as rotational pig area or just areas to grow stuff.
I havent put it in the diagram but I would also introduce a 2
swale /dam system that goes through 3 paddocks then another 3 paddock below. the dams would be outside of the design but they back flow into the swales at the desired height of the designer, the top swale dam would then over flow into the lower swale, dame system providing
water all year for the animals harvested purely from the land and then push it out hyper fertilized to other growing systems.
Using this principle I would start small regarding animal population and build up!! you can then monitor and decide if your size system can handle more animals. I would imagine that each paddock size and how many naimals in each paddock would determine how long you live them in there for. At most I would have 3 paddocks with animals in at anyone time then rotate given 3 at rest aswell. because the barrier if food and the windfall is food, it will mean they wont eat the grass quite as fast or even half as fast.
I have not put this to practice but will do one day.
All opinions and criticisms welcome