elle sagenev

I live in the high desert, 11" of water a year. I plant trees like a crazy person.

What we have done is dig the hole deeper by about 6", put biochar and manure in the hole and that's it. I don't even water.

Following your journey fills my heart with joy! You are amazing!!

I've attempted to grow a ton of trees from seeds. None of them have survived. Some places planting a seed is as easy as throwing out an apple. Here, well I can hardly grow well established trees.

I'm wanting to do drip irrigation for a 4 tree deep line of trees. I'm going to planting it as a sort of hedge for pasture division. Nut trees in these only. I figure I'm going to need irrigation pipe in a line going up and then lines coming off of that to get to each tree. I'm just not sure what all I need to accomplish this. T fittings I imagine and individual emitters for each tree. Any other input? I think I'm going to be doing a swale in the middle and irrigation will be temporary and only as needed.

rough drawing demonstrating such.

Things don't exactly like to grow here so throwing stuff on top of the ground does the trick for me. I use hay in my garden and I've recently started getting wood chips for free for the rest. Probably not great barefoot though, the wood chips. Though considering the only plant that really likes it here is russian thistle, the wood chips feel just fine.

I had a mixed flock for years. I'm not doing it now because I want uniformity when we cull.

Buy that many birds and you'll get half in roosters. It's the law of chickens. Hope you're ready to slaughter.

So I did a test run on this concept and it went really well. I mean I definetly need to get a few more things. My husband and I split duties when we do our birds so I wasn't completely prepared to do the killing, scalding, plucking. I should have brought buckets, a spray nozzle for the hose and a few other things. So I think I can comfortably do this. Also I decided to charge by the hour. The first hour will be $100. It includes the set up, equipment and teaching. I'm confident that I can do that in an hour. After that my presence is a luxury item as I am pretty efficient at the whole thing. So I am debating what to charge for each additional hour. I also think charging by the hour is a good idea. Then if the people procrastinate or waste time doing other things I am not standing around for free.

Did have a few things that were interesting though. We plug our plucker and the scalding pot into the same outlet. Doing that at the test house blew the breaker. Took longer to set up because of that. Had to run more extension chords. We did 16 birds in about 4 hours but that was with set up and tear down included, problems and all.

wayne fajkus wrote:If you have all the stuff, then it costs very little to give it a go. Just get the word out.

My concerns would be the number of birds to make it viable for your customer.  And do your potential customers need that many birds processed. I would guess that people processing 50+ birds already have it handled.

The numbers I've been hearing are around 8 turkeys. 14 chickens. Etc. Probably under 20. I wouldn't really be going for farming business. More of the beginner homesteader or city person wanting to get a home raised bird on the table.

My husband and I have been processing our birds and those of family for many years now. We have all of the equipment and knowledge necessary to get the job done. People borrow the equipment from time to time, at no charge as they are only people we know well enough to trust several hundred dollars of stuff to.

So I've been playing with an idea based upon lots of stories I've been hearing this year. Lots of people in the area are getting into processing their own birds. Few of them have done a good enough job researching or purchasing equipment to make a good go of it. The horror stories I've heard, shudder.

So I've been playing with the idea of consulting. I bring the equipment and knowledge. I teach them how to process their birds the first time. My husband is very much against me renting equipment to people who haven't been taught to use it. So the consulting is REQUIRED the first time they ask to rent equipment. After that equipment can be rented out without me.

I thought I might offer a discount if people brought their birds to my land (So I can remain in my comfort zone and not haul a bunch of stuff around). I figured I would have to build a pen far from where I keep my own birds for this. Would this be a bad idea for bio-safety reasons? What would be the risk to my farm if I did this?

I also thought I'd start selling different services. Like I'd do all the processing for a price per bird. Or, since backyard chickens were approved in town, I'd offer rooster removal services. For $10 I'll take your rooster away. I figured this would need to be a pick up business because people have already started abandoning their roosters in the country and I don't want to give them my address so they just dump them.

So I'm not sure what to charge. I struggle because I feel like the consulting services would be priceless if it prevents the crazy I've been hearing. However, I understand that people processing themselves aren't going to want to pay a lot. So...what to even charge? Do I charge a flat fee for it? DO I charge per bird?

Ideas please

Kyle Neath wrote:A cheap rubber snake will scare squirrels away pretty well. It might be worth it zip tying some to your new trees and seeing how that fares. That being said, I still have doubts that squirrels are your real problem. If you have holes around your trees, that sounds more like voles/moles than squirrels. Squirrels usually dig to bury, not really for the sake of digging or hiding. I've still yet to see a single vole in my property, but I'm certain I have hundreds of thousands of them.

I understand what ya'll are saying. I can understand your disbelief. Unfortunately we have them everywhere. We shoot them. We find random dead ones. We have a cat that gifted us a few. I know it's them. It's their tunnel system. I'll try to get some pics for ya'll.