mark anstice

Thanks Chris. I'm thinking more of the easily moveable 9' x 6' x 2' sort, which are kind of cage-like (if one is honest) regardless of daily moving. But I wondered if Guineas adapt ok to not being able to roam more freely and whether, for example, they start to show more aggression towards one another, Rumblefish style?  And also, how long would it take for them to get up to weight?  

Greetings All.

I was just wondering if anyone here had tried raising Guineas for meat in a Joel Salatin style 'tractor' system?  Can they cope with being in a cage all day? I can't find any mention of such a set up so I'm assuming they're not suited to it??

Thanks for your thoughts

Well, this is a very old thread but I hope my dilemma attracts a few glances, and thoughts.

I am about to put a barrel vaulted roof on a 4x8m (13'x26') room here in Morocco. The exact span measurements will be 14.4' wide and 5ft high, so a relatively flat arch! The plan is to do it on a metre or yard wide moveable form and to lay locally fired bricks down first so we have a really stunning interior for our permaculture classroom. A thin layer of cement will go over the top of those, then chicken wire, then 10mm rebar (3/8") in a welded mesh, then expanded metal lathe, then the cement in one go. A final layer over something for insulation, probably polystyrene, will follow.

The problem: My walls are not strong, being built of limestone with an earth and lime mortar, 1.3' or 40cms thick by 3 yds/m tall and split by 3 large arched doorways on one side. There's compressive strength but cohesive strength is minimal and there is no possibility for buttressing. I could put a couple of steel bars, say 1" thick, across the bottom of the span but would like to avoid that and achieve a clean space if possible.

There is an existing 8"x8" reinforced concrete ring beam atop 8 x embedded vertical pillars. I decided on ferro cement as I would like this roof to be self supporting with regard to shear forces or sideways thrust. The added weight of 2400 bricks for purely aesthetic purposes is a risk but they amount to less than 2000kgs/4000lbs which, spread out over 26' doesn't seem too much??

I have been advised to solve thermal expansion issues by simply having the roof sitting, unattached, held there by it's own weight and inertia, on a strip of asphalt along the ring beam. This seems to make sense until you come to the question of whether or not this roof will actually be self supporting or not. Should my ring beam be imparting strength to the roof as well as the walls, or will the roof take care of itself?

I have a tendency to over engineer things and am putting another ring beam on top of the first (because the first wasn't made very well in my opinion) but the more I get into shear forces and the like the more bamboozled I become and I don't want to knock these walls over. If any of you can illuminate me a little I'd be very grateful. I'll post up a picture of the project on the facebook page below tonight when the internet connection allows.

Many thanks and happy New Year.

Mark
Fertile Roots Foundation
www.facebook.com/fertileroots

Thank you all.
Brad Lancaster's first book translated into Arabic goes straight to the top of the list, not because i could make head or tail of it, but there's a few of the younger men here who can read and it ought to be circulating around the houses here. I'll get the English one for me.
Nabham's book sounds ideal too. I've just downloaded a scanned PDF of Mollinson's Designer's Manual but it's slightly out of focus and is hard work to read.

I'll get shopping! Thanks again.

Mark
www.facebook.com/fertileroots (website to follow)

70m asl, no soil, hot and windy, more wind, salt too and 1.1mm since April - I must be a loony

Hey All

If you were starting a project in a very dry land, which book would you have on your desk before any other?

Here I am in Morocco starting quite a large permaculture project involving several hundred, very dry hectares and the 30+ families living in them and I don't have a single book on permaculture. If I was to buy just one, which would you recommend?

Of course I've devoured every video and lesson that our crappy internet connection allows - I have to travel 200kms to see any of Geoff Lawton's unfortunately - but it's so easy to be distracted using the net and I think we ought to have some books here. And naturally I would love to have Bill Mollinson's definitive guide but we're a start up charity and money is tight so for the moment €200 on a book is out of the question, especially when a lot of it will have only vague relevance to the problems here. Or am I wrong on that?

Any advice on this will be acted on immediately!

My thanks

Mark
Fertile Roots Foundation