Boobook Farm

I thought I would start a thread to share what I am doing on my just over half acre urban permaculture homestead. The site is named Boobook Farm after the common local owl species.

The aim for the site is to produce a lot of our greens and fruit as well as some of our meat. I also produce fruit trees and a little surplus food for others. I keep a blog of what we do and share information at my site http://boobookfarm.com

Site Details:

Climate - I am located just outside Brisbane, Australia. It is a subtropical climate with about 1100mm of rain a year.

Greens - I have beds in the ground and several edible trees and ground covers in the food forest (moringa, sweet leaf, sweet potato, Brazilian spinach etc). I have also just started fiddling with aquaponics but it is early days.

Fruit - Mainly tropical and subtropical fruit trees. Many are pruned for size control/ease of picking. The list is huge but includes mango, avocado, jackfruit, mulberry, black sapote, mamey sapote, jaboticaba, yellow sapote, Kwai muk, lychee, longan, banana, star fruit, dragon fruit, macadamia and many others.

Meat - I raise quail for meat and eggs in quail tractors. I also keep a few chickens for eggs and composting purposes. Off site I do a little hunting of pest species here.

I'll post back when I do things I think are interesting or with articles etc. this thread will sort of be a log on permies

The quail tractors I currently use. These have automatic water (drippers) and are easy enough to move around. They have some downsides though. They are breaking down quickly in our warm, humid weather and I really need to fix the feed delivery. Mk2 will probably be welded steel frame and will have an external feed tube along the opposite side to the water.

Anybody have any thoughts on chickens vs quail? I did a little comparison, feel free to add!

In a nutshell I find quail to be really very awesome. Quail are more economical/productive for both meat and eggs and have a much quicker turnover than chickens. This kind of flies in the face of what makes sense to some but my experience and the research I have read supports the idea. Chickens of course have other uses such as preparing ground, processing organic matter and making compost. In a permi system they can also be less work. Quail are pretty useless for these purposes, though if you have found a way please share it with me! I keep both, they both have their advantages and I need the composting power of chickens. Quail really shouldn't be overlooked, especially by those who live where space is at a premium. I would like to try ducks in the future though not for any practical reason, I just like them

I wanted to share some videos at the site.
The first is of a busy stingless bee hive on a winters day. They were unusually busy and at first I suspected a takeover. Turns out it wasn't so now think that perhaps something happened to the queen and that hive and this was the mating swarm of the new queen. Unusual time of year for it!


The second is of a small tumeric harvest.

Thanks for sharing your work here!
Have you had any problem with quail a6tacking each orher?
I would like to keep quail in reset beds,but I've read horror stories about inexplicable agression,eyes pecked out,etc.

William Bronson wrote: Thanks for sharing your work here!
Have you had any problem with quail a6tacking each orher?
I would like to keep quail in reset beds,but I've read horror stories about inexplicable agression,eyes pecked out,etc.

Hi William
Thank you for your comments. No I haven't. I had also read about aggression but it has never been a problem here. I wonder if space, numbers or even the breeding line contributes to aggression issues? I wouldn't let it stop you Let me know how you go!

Thanks D, I think you may have a point about the environment. Conventional quail raising promotes very tight quarters, with little or no natural terrain or stimulation.
A dozen organic quail eggs get more in our market than a dozen organic chicken eggs,making them even more attractive to raise.