Kat Lawless

This guy is amazing. He uses styrofoam to make habitat infrastructure, from ponds to fences to…

https://youtu.be/IpVDPxT1xH4

And he has tons of videos on different applications.

Hi! We have a 5 acre homestead, on which we run 3 miniature cattle, to girls and a boy. My understanding is that as herd animals, they are not at all happy when alone. They may bond better to humans in this case, but it isn’t what’s best for them. I’ve heard of people keeping them with other herd animals, such as donkeys or a couple of goats, but other cattle is certainly best for them.

In terms of breed, there are certainly better breeds than others based on climate and intended use. We are in Florida so we have miniature Zebu. They are well suited to our climate based on their evolution; they have a short coat and a lot of subcutaneous fast-twitch muscle, which helps with pests. If we lived up north, perhaps we would consider highland cattle or something like that.

Our primary use here is soil building, as we live on a sugarsand ridge and can’t grow much without a lot of amendment. And cows do one thing very well ;) if you wanted one for milk production you might look at dairy breeds. Same for meat. Grade of milk is a consideration if you want dairy cows, based on buttermilk content. Zebu have very high quality milk, although they are a little headstrong. Ours would NOT tolerate milking. But that’s as much nurture as nature.

Finally, consider whether you have infrastructure in place for cows; shelter, water, adequate fencing (multiple paddocks are better to allow the fields to rest - called rotational grazing or intensive pasture management). And, do you have access to veterinary care? Large animal vets are a different breed than regular vets (pun intended). Will they come to you or do you have to transport your cattle to them? What kind of setup will they require to care for your cattle if they come to you? We use a Temple Grandin design of a sweep, chute with a 180 degree turn, and a squeeze.  

Some food for thought, anyway. Good luck!

We’re in central Florida and it has been an unseasonably hot year so far, even for us. I designed our coop to be on a decommissioned trailer so it could be mobile, but it serves several functions to help with heat. The single pitch roof, combined with a ventilated floor, creates a “chimney effect,” and exchanges hot air in the coop with the cool air below constantly and very effectively. The area under the coop also remains very cool even when the coop is in direct sunlight, and the chickens will hang out there exclusively during the heat of the day. Further, the onboard rainwater collection system has a “boom” with watering nipples that extend down so they have access to water when they’re hanging out underneath. This design is also excellent for aerial predators, as they can take cover from 360 degrees and don’t have to find a door, and remain there in comfort as long as necessary for the eagle, hawk, or owl to give up and leave. I have a vid of the design I will try to post in case it might help someone else.


   

Our property is on considerable slope with southern exposure; one of the reasons we bought it. We live in central Florida. We are going to implement the ideas used in Chinese greenhouses by grading our greenhouse into the hillside then building masonry walls on the east and west sides. The northern side will be built into the hillside, of course. We get considerable rain here, being subtropical, so the drainage system that the retention wall will require will empty into barrels on the interior north wall. That water will fill a small, below grade sump chamber, and in the summer provide water to our plants. In the winter, the barrels will be left full so that the low winter sun can heat the water and help keep the plants warm through the night. The system is going to be designed around a lot of thermal mass, which will also help considerably with our extreme heat. The main reason to greenhouse in Florida is for protection from our brutal summers, and for a propagation and transplant  program. We are currently working with a prototype to get proof of concept, and have determined that shading all the way up to the apex of the greenhouse roof on the north side, and on the north half of the east and west sides, provides critical cool shade in the summer but does not interfere with necessary exposure for robust growth in winter. Using the chinese greenhouse method of replacing that shade cloth with masonry will serve to add more heat mass, which will further stabilize the interior climate of the greenhouse. If that doesn’t keep it warm enough, we’ll add a RMH. Always wanted to build one but, hey, it’s Florida. Might be my only chance.

We bought our first "homestead" last year, and our greatest focus has ultimately been on developing compost. Yes, we are doing many different things, but most of it comes back to compost. We got miniature cows to produce high-quality manure (due to our research, we believe there is a significant advantage to 3-stomach ruminates producing your manure), and got free-range chickens as part of our IPM (integrated pest management) program, as they help keep worm populations from reinfecting livestock, and are generally not vulnerable to the same types of worms as cattle. That allows us to reduce worm treatments with harsh antibiotics. We test our livestock every 3 months for worms, but do not worm profilactically. On another note, we implemented worm farming to act as a seed microbe population for our compost. Additionally, we use no chemicals on our farm, and purchase only organic produce and meat. We made a compost tea brewer, which seems to have helped significantly, and built a couple of biochar kilns to add biochar and therefore tilth to our compost. We purchased a shredder for our smaller yard waste, and use every bit of newspaper and cardboard that comes into our house in our compost. We acquired a Terramite, basically a miniature backhoe, in large part to turn our compost. Our compost heap has been given the most prime, flat, open area we have close to the house so that it can be turned with our Terramite on a regular basis, and still be accessable to take out kitchen waste. We are even considering biodynamic compost preparations. Yes, we love our compost. :

This has largely to do with the fact that we have no soil. The property we purchased is basically on an ancient sand bar, and due to its slope, it has historically washed away any topsoil the vegetation was able to produce with the first good Florida goose-drowner storm of the spring.

At least in our situation, I don't believe too much emphasis can be put on developing a composting protocol. Not only can we thus insure that it is organic, but we can contribute to its mineral content and structure significantly.

We are in the process of terracing 2 acres of pure sand on our property to try to build some living soil, as when the Florida rains come to our sloped property, they simply strip away any topsoil that has accumulated. We are incorporating hugelkultur beds as our terraces, for several reasons. First, the dense thicket of branches and brambles that form the "bones" of the beds help resist water washout. Second, they create a bit of a "backwash," which allows most of the soil to settle out uphill, rather than washing away. We are fundamentally lazy, and would rather let mother nature grade it out as she sees fit. We angle the beds slightly downstream as Sepp recommends, but make a concerted effort to slow down the water to allow it to be absorbed. We have a lot of downed trees on our property that we can harvest, which is very helpful. The hugelkultur beds will certainly erode in time, but we hope to use this technique to help build soil and to buy us time, and eventually back up these terraces with stone or black locust trees (which we are currently fostering in our nursery). If we still have issues with Florida deluges undoing our soil efforts, we will likely implement some keyholing ponds to help control it. We don't know exactly what we are going to do with this acreage, but whatever it is, it will certainly require living soil. It will evolve as it evolves.

Just another perspective on hugelkultur and terracing, for what it's worth...

BTW, our slope is, at greatest, about 15 - 20 degrees.

Welcome Holzer Agroecology Team! Really wish I knew German!