Chris French

I would really like to be apart of doing something really big in honor of Toby, I think it would be amazing if you could get some land together like a sections of Pauls Place, or I have 2 acres I would gladly give over. That we can all come together on in maybe like a one year memorial and plant an entire few acres forest in his name.

Tony Hill wrote:

Chris French wrote:Killing the fox is the type of thinking that got us in this mess.
Foxes are an important part of the eco system, and closely related to your dog.

You will probably kill the foxes and complain about mice and rabbits next.

UPDATE:
The fox attack never repeated. The dog does stays out at night. Problem solved.

But I am NOT into whining as you describe.

If I killed the fox, it would be okay, the same as if a coyote or dog killed one. There are large populations of both in our area.
The mice... our chickens eat them. They absolutely LOVE eating mice. They take out the snakes, too. Not many vermin live very long in our yard.

We have lost one chicken in three years. Not too bad. We have a really good German Shepherd. She herds them and is really protective. But I think putting her in the pen would test her a little too much. She kills animals regularly, and I don't want her getting annoyed at a chicken and discovering how tasty they are. That is hard to reverse once it happens.

-Tony

I am glad you didn't have a problem with the fox again.

I didn't mean to infer that you are "whining" I was just trying to point out that the "kill it" mentality should be the very last resort, because everything has a place and should be giving that space.

I would much more prefer us to think about out smarting a fox, rather than killing it, because we are supposed to be the "smartest" ones right

I like to see everything i see alive as a biography and not so much as biology, that fox has a place and a life, maybe we do end up killing it, but new thinking should be applied first I feel.

Thanks for thoughts and hopes. This was a two part thought in my mind, one could I have them around in the forest, for additional biodiversity without external foods. I am guessing, I probably can get that point, but will probably need to maybe just have less of them over all.

Secondly, I feel like as standard raising animals, we should be putting a lot more pressure on our selves to be net 0 from the store.

thanks for thoughts

John Wolfram wrote:

Cj Verde wrote:I think it is possible because people have raised chickens for hundreds of years prior to feed being available to purchase. Purchasing feed is simply a matter of convenience.

While people have been raising chickens for hundreds/thousands of years, in areas with snowy winters people may have reduced their flocks in the autumn (harvest festival, Thanksgiving) and then gone through a lean time in the spring (Lent) as they rebuilt their flock. Trying to keep a summer sized flock through the winter is going to be tough without importing feed.

This is interesting to me, I am always interested in the history of the wierd things we call culture I will look into this as well makes logical sense.

Killing the fox is the type of thinking that got us in this mess.

Foxes are an important part of the eco system, and closely related to your dog.

You will probably kill the foxes and complain about mice and rabbits next.

Hi, so been an avide permie for almost 2 two years now, also I have been a vegan for 15 years. I have a small 1.5 acres, with 30 chickens. I gift the eggs, and all the birds live a full life til they die and I bury them.

My questions are after two years of trying, is it really possible to raise chickens legitly in temperate climatr with snowy winters, sustainably.

I personally think, if we are requiring imported feed, that was most likely a monocropped pesticide festival, just so we cam raise birds to eat eggs seems very wasteful. And backwards.

We could simple eat the grains for straight up better use of energy. Or just not buy it at all, or the chickens.

I feel like a very permie thing to do is go get chickens and feel like you growing your own food. But really your just converting biomass from hundreds of miles, into poorly managed grains, and shipping that to feed to a bird, to eat.

Personally I am strongly rethinking keep any animal around that needs me to ship in food to feed.

This is a great video, my bees don't have a roof but I think I am going to make one after watching this, I did build them a fenced wind break.

One other thing you might want to add to this, that I have on my lands is a small little fountain, where the water gets sand wet. I have done several waterers over my years a beekeeper and wet sand seems to be the preferred method for drinking, they can rest of the sand and drink the water off the sand, with out getting caught in the falling water. let me see if I can go find a picture.

Plus is is water that doesn't pool so no need worry about stuff living in that is bad

I just wanted to drop my placeholder in here until I can take more videos this is the first I heard about this contest but I would have totally takin more photos because I had this exact same thing happen at our place.

I had 8 transplants and than I had a huge bush of different volunteers pop up from where last years were planted. This attached photo is entirely from the volenteers


I live in Utah, where we can't start them until after mothers day.

I live in the suburbs, I have 1.7 Acres, and I am planting a healthy forest of different trees and such, I have just split my land up into 3 large sections to practice this paddock shift system, I have listened and read about. I was wondering, I live probably 5 solid miles of suburbs before anything you would call wild, and I don't have racoons, or skunks in my area, so why do I NEED a coop?

I have a horse barn stall I set a side for them to sleep in during the winter months, but during the warmer months, couldn't I just let them find a favorite spot in the trees?

So I have been starting a bunch of trees from seeds.

Last year I started several apples, and pears and they are doing good. about 28 inches high.

This spring I got two peach pits to sprout, and I put them both on the top of two different swales, so that is one difference.

One of them was planted with sun flowers near it giving it some shade, which i thought a young tree might like.

the other one was getting full sun, and was growing through a mass of sweet potato vines.

Not only did the peach tree near the vines out grow the other peach by probably 24+ inches and several branches, this peach tree from pit out grow all of my other seedlings from apples and pears that were two years old.

SO my question is, do peach trees just grow fast, and the other seedling is a weakling? or do you think the vines really provide it that much more energy.

See attached photos