Mary Cook

The chicken tractor thing never made sense to me, as it seems a contraption heavy enough to deter predators and include nest would be awfully heavy to move so often--and the chickens can't get away from each other, they're so crowded; someone I know who used ones had trouble with chickens pecking each other till they bled, which is caused by crowding; I've never had that in at least 30 years of chicken keeping. My chickens were free range all that time until two years ago, when the predators got so bad we gave up and fenced in an area including the coop. We lost a couple since, but only a couple, over two years. I think that problem was foxes, as well as hawks. The four foot fence (and the dogs) keeps the foxes out, and much of the run is my orchard, which doesn't have many big open spaces where hawks could come in. Actually most of it is far from grass, it's weeds as much as five feet tall--which protects the chickens and supports useful insects. The run might be 100 feet square or so, and we usually have a dozen chickens, give or take half a dozen.

I have sand piles for my garden, they access those--my husband once saw a hen leading chicks out of the coop for the first time 11 days after hatching, and she led them straight to the sand pile. I dry (half an hour atop the woodstove in winter, a day on the windowsill in summer) and crush up their eggshells and feed it back to them for the calcium, but we occasionally give them oyster shell as well if it seems the shells are getting thin. It should not be mixed with the feed as too much calcium is not good for roosters.

First, if you leave it uncovered you get dogs digging in it and spreading it about, and flies breeding in it. I think it's obvious why these things are to be avoided. And as to why we wait a year or more and cover it with leaves or whatever, it's because we intend to USE the result in gardening. I do that and still only use mine in the orchard--because I use it up there and so I need other fertilizer for my vegetable gardens. As for burying it in the woods, I experimented with putting a leaf composting operation in the woods, to see whether shade would work differently than sun in making leafmold. The result was that the leafmold was so permeated with tree roots that it was difficult to remove it to use. Same thing happened with a dump of woodchips on the edge of woods.
All that said, my neighbor used a system like what you describe--had an outhouse with a pit rather than buckets, once a year he'd dig out the pit and I think he just put it in a pit beside the outhouse and covered it, and then after a time--less than a year I think--used it in his garden. I saw him doing so once and it was nice black compost. He used leaves rather sawdust after each use, and added kitchen scraps to the pit--I put them in my main garden compost. He also collected the pee separately, as I do.

This is a small landtrust with only four leaseholds plus some common land. The deal is, you don't own and can't sell the land, but if accepted after a six month trial period (and if you want to stay), you get a lifetime lease, no cost. But both available leaseholds now have houses already on them, so to take over these you must pay the previous owner for the improvements. One has a pretty good house, garage, good garden, fruit trees and 16 solar panels--at $10,000 it's maybe a tenth of what it's worth. The other has a rather crappy house you'd want to modify, a small barn and potential for clearable ,gently sloping land for pasture, orchard or garden. 4 miles from small town. We share a washing machine and freezer which are in the$ !0,000 house, and sometimes do projects together. Cost for your share of annual property tax and gravel for the 1-miles land is around $400. We all have composting toilets, so if you have to have a flusher this place is probably not for you. More info at the intentional communities website, ic.org--Hickory Ridge is our name.

You still looking? Our small land trust on a ridge in V has two empty leaserhold. Flat or rolling it ain't, but there is an acre or so of cultivable land on the ridge, wells, a livable house, 16 solar panels; you cannot own the land but after 6 months trial period if accepted and you want to stay,get a lifetime lease. For the improvements on the two, pay previous lessee $10,00 for one (a steal) or $9000 for the other (hat it's worth)

But the poster says they found tunnels three feet deep, so it's not that the varmints went through the fence. Lordie! Three feet down! I have not actually done this myself, and have lost no fruit trees to voles (just lost most of the fruit to squirrels) We have had cats at times, and are surrounded by woods, so maybe the hawks and owls and foxes keep the rodents in check--and they were all distracted too mu ch by my chickens so we resorted to building a big fenced run for the chickens, which solved that problem--and the run includes the orchard, perhaps the chickens also keep rodents in check.

Yes, pretty is enough, but there's also the pollinator food thing, and the fact that narcissi are poisonous is useful for protecting others things, I usually use it to protect other bulbs--tulips and lilies, which otherwise mice and chipmunks eat--but likely they can also protect fruit trees from voles and such. Most rodents also don't like alliums--I don't care for them as flowers, but onions and garlic could be planted in other places than the onions and garlic beds in your garden. And yes, they could be used as spring markers, but the spring blooming ones die down in summer and disappear, so then you need something to mark THEM...

Two thoughts. one is that having separate buckets for pee and poop means the latter doesn't smell and the bucket doesn't get heavy; the former has most of the nutrients and can be dumped when it's half full; there is no need for composting as it's basically sterile.
Secondly, I question the use of peat moss as they say it's unsustainable--I do buy bales, but only one bale every two or three years, for seed starting mix. I live where sawdust and leaves are plentiful; but on the prairies, is there not hay? Part of the issue is the need for long distance transport. Oh and I used to toss used pee-paper in the woodstove, till it occurred to me that it's good carbon for compost, so now I usually put in in the container on my counter that gets food scraps, to be dumped in my compost pile

We have a five-gallon stainless steel pot I use for canning, water heating, cooking down maple syrup (to finish), etc. My husband put a coat of fiberglass wrapped in tinfoil, fastened with wire, around this. But it needs replaced about annually and we keep saying: Why doesn't someone manufacture an insulated, large stainless steel pot? Even if it were just double-walled with only air in the gap, It would really increase the efficiency of the pot. The lid should be doubled too.

You said you didn't want to dump a pee bucket because it would be too frequent, but I question that. Here's our system: We have five buckets in an outhouse a short distance from the house. It doesn't smell because little pee goes in there, and we dump a handful of sawdust on top of each deposit. When all the buckets are full I take them to the poo bins a farther walk away; one side is filling each year, and in the spring I empty the other side which has been untouched for a full year. It's compost by then but I use it up in my orchard and sometimes I have some left for the flowerbed. Meanwhile, in the house we have what I call the pisseria, similar to the wooden box around a platform constructed to fit a five gallon bucket that we have in the outhouse. This does stink but the lid contains it (an ordinary toilet seat built into the box). I have to dump this bucket maybe twice a week (two person household). Most of the phosphorous and nitrogen we pass is in the urine, so it should not be wasted. But I tried a couple times using it diluted in water on plants and didn't like the results, so I dump it on compost piles; I have one by each of three gardens and a flowerbed, and I have several piles in the woods around our clearing, of fallen branches, rotting logs. etc.