Permaculture =no animals? Insurance for animals?.

I'm seeing mostly plant growing on these forums...a few chickens.  Is the idea.of permaculture.a non-animal setup? Just curious.  And I'm thinking back to historically the millions of.bison.in the U.S. continent and the Natives using controlled.burns to "herd" them.  Just.my brain rolling thoughts around.

As a small acreage (13 acres).setup with a couple horses, a couple pigs and good grief, will the predators STOP picking off my chickens!!!  I'm looking at pet insurance.  Here in the States we have a thing called Care Credit that my vet accepted that I'm NOT happy with.  Loan sharks.  Between the cats getting initial checkup, shots, and fixed, dog jumped out a second story window, and horse checkups and one emergency visit for choke/pneumonia ...I used the $2,000 limit pretty darn quick, and the interest rate is abysmal, with a $45 late fee. There's.lots.of.issues with these guys, so I started looking around.

https://www.tbo5trk.com/MF3W3H/2GMH37/       #ad

So far I've checked out the first one on the list.and.it seems to be for cats and dogs.only, but they give you $20k a year to work with and pay out 90%?

I'm still looking through the others, bc I have more than did and cats.  Thoughts? Ideas?

Hi P,
I am not a permaculture expert, so please take this with a grain of salt, but I have never heard of a permaculture person doing things without some animals. Animals are an integral part of so many systems to heal the land. There is a whole set of forums just for animals here, where you can read of people setting up systems for food and regeneration.

https://permies.com/c/critters

Permaculture is a collection of tools we can use to improve the land, the harvest, the people, the planet...

But at it's heart, it's basically a tool kit and we take out the tools that are relevant to the situation.  

Some landscapes and lifestyles don't include animal care. In other places, animals are a big part of improving the landscape.  

Thinking about it another way, look at all the places around the world where people farmed on the same land for hundreds or thousands of years.  Europe, Africa, Asia, parts of the Americas...

Some of these systems, like in England for example, included animals.  poop would be spread as needed, weeds or parts of the crop not considered edible for humans fed to the livestock, or if the field was in a fallow stage, we would graze the animals there to improve the soil.  

In other parts, like some of East Asia, animals factored very little into soil building.  

So yeh, animals are a part of permaculture, for some and not for others.  Here's the category where we talk a lot more about animals: https://permies.com/c/critters



As for insurance, livestock doesn't normally come under pets.  Try agricultural insurance.  

Most livestock is home treated, so if you ever have to go to the vet, it's good to treat this as education and ask the vet all the questions "how do you identify this, what stage do we intervene, what stage is fine, what other treatment options are there...how to prevent it happening again"

Generally, the sad thing with livestock is that the worth of the animal is a big consideration.  A hen can sell for $25 in her prime, so if the vet bill will be more than that... um... we could just eat the hen.  Most insurance companies feel the same way so insuring a chicken as if it's a pet is a very bad bet on their end, so it costs the user more.  

(of course, chickens are pets, they are lovely... but insurance and farming also takes into account the economic side)

That said, I will pay for a vet if it is something new to me on the farm as I need to know how to diagnose and treat if it comes up again - and more importantly, how to prevent it.  

We keep sheep to do the mowing and provide meat.  An individual animal is worth about what a vet visit would cost, and once treated with various medications, the meat may not be salvageable due to withdrawal periods.  So, we cull injured and sick animals.  The injured are eaten and the sick buried at the foot of a fruit or nut tree.  I figure this results in a stronger herd over time.  With larger animals, the math is a bit different and a vet visit may be warranted depending on the value of the animal.  I would still cull problem animals as needed.  I was just talking with a farrier about how problem genetics are allowed to persist for the sake of selecting color, size, etc.

Everything eats chicken.  I recommend putting them in a fully enclosed pen fortified with electric fencing.  This can be made portable if you would like.

Some landscapes and lifestyles don't include animal care. In other places, animals are a big part of improving the landscape.

I agree that some places don't include animal care, but everyplace includes animals. You cannot have a thriving regenerative ecosystem devoid of animals. However, there may be a lot of places where you are not managing the animals, and simply relying on wild animals to fulfill that role.

For me animals are the only reliable source of food. It was easier for me to get super nutritious eggs that grow one parsley or dill.
I'm surrounded by inedible landscape that is happily converted by my sheep to top quality meat. Also the sheep bedding made of wood chips, pulverized by their hooves composts over the warm months into wonderful hummus that feeds my garden and allows doing experiments with seeds.
The bees are busy pollinating any flower I can produce.

Vets are costlier than the value of the animal, so one has to learn how to identify and cure.
Also I got used to the bittersweet concept of homesteading: one day 13 chicks emerge with the mother hen, then only 8 are left after few days, but then another hen is sitting on her eggs, but another one is dying from some infection. Life and death with more of the former than the latter.