Strider Wardle

Im on 3/4ac and i only have 1 electric fence. Its a 162’ double spike premier one poultry net plus. Its a pretty fancy fence since i only have 1 and use it for everything. I needed it long so I can make 2 side by side pens using a figure 8 type of pattern. I mostly use it for 1 group of birds in one area, but I used it mostly for the goats when they were here. I had a hard fence for the chickens to go everywhere, and the goats would rotate around inside the smaller poultrynet plus. Id like to have a wide selection of net types, but things change so much that it helps to just have the taller poultry net. If I buy another net it will be 100’ drivable spike style to work better with my clay soil in all seasons.

I buy a 20% chick mash from the local feed millby the ton. Last pickup was 2020lbs for $444.41. I dont have a hopper or feed buggy at home so I have to scoop it from the 1 ton bulk sack into 55g blue plastic barrels with the clamp ring. I feed it to all ages of bird, after fermenting and free choice feed grit with oyster shell. Every morning i pour the ferment liquid onto the next bucket of fresh dry feed and top off with rain water. They get scraps mixed in the ferment slop and then I pour into 3 bowls located around their paddock. I normally rotate every week, but during the rainy season they stay in one place much longer until everywhere else is seeded with forage and cover crops. Usually the weeds from the seed bank get established first and chickens eat those as they come up in their current pen, but will somewhat protect the non-native custom seed mix as it comes up. It has brassicas, cow peas, various clover, radishes, parsnips, beets, and a drylands pasture mix. Chickens go for the short grasses first and work their way up.

Caitlin Mac Shim wrote:

Wow thanks Strider that’s great info! It’s helpful to see how you improve your lines through a few consistent processes. I too don’t have the space or infrastructure (or knowledge in my case) to manage the development of a breeding program as Dr Gil has, but if attention to a few more easy to manage selection processes helps over time, then that’s great news for me.

I’m moving my family back to my folks place, which is about 2 acres, with less than an acre of it suitable for domestic animals and gardening. The rest is steep riparian Bush. And what’s available is still quite heavily treed, And steep, so it’s great to find out more about what can be achieved on a smaller place. I’d love goats and pigs, but would be courting trouble with the council. Goats maybe if I’m careful. No chance of a pig sadly.

Thanks again for the info!

The hillside forest is perfect for rotating chickens, goats, sheep, and pigs through. Make sure you put feed or water at the top of the hill and the other one at the bottom, this ensures they travel more, exercise, and have to walk by the most bugs, forage, etc. I dont have any hillside, but all the animals love the forested areas.

I’ll admit my breeding program could be improved. This guy’s system he describes where he catches every hen that lays an egg and records it...amazing. I havent been selecting for speed of weight gain in particular, just total weight and size right before the fall molt. Any birds that are scrawny get sold to people for egg laying/backyard pet. Most cities in Orange County have a maximum of 4 hens per lot, so its not too hard to sell any hen of any age. Therefore I rarely eat the hens and 99% of the time its roosters were eating. I keep about 10-15 to stay through winter and be the mothers if the next generation. I keep the same rooster for a couple seasons and bring in new blood from more professional breeders. The males are usually cheaper so I buy a bunch and keep the best. Again Im only selecting based on size of birds, and size of eggs. I dont really have a system for identifying which eggs came from which birds and so i cant record which hen laid which egg. Any hen that goes broody gets a leg band and usually gets to stay in the flock longer than usual and contribute an extra year of genetics towards the flock. When I set eggs I always set the biggest ones first, then the perfectly shaped but smaller size ones. I set 96 eggs and about 85-90 usually hatch. Ill sell or butcher all the males except for the best couple. All the females stay with the flock for 18 months through one chick hatching season and then are sold in the fall if they dont make weight.
I dont really have enough room to do a clan mating type of breeding program, its just too much space and infrastructure. I pasture rotate my 3/4 acre lot with a chickshaw type of device, and theres turkeys and geese coming in march and july respectively. Before that it was goats in the rotation, and i think i want to do sheep or pigs next. Im always looking for land, but its really hard to get a big spread in OC for a decent price. The land thats cheap enough to farm in the county is the land that you cant build houses on in the fire zones, so id have to commute about an hour up dirt roads to get to it, lol. Im trying to convince myself that ill enjoy driving 2hrs every day or it wont be that bad.

Ive been on the buff orpington train for 3 years now. I do mix in genetics from other breeds from my foundation flock, but the roosters are always pure buffs. The egg color is the main variation, I have some 87.5% buffs that lay eggs like a welsumer (medium dark brown with dark brown speckles). And I had another 87.5% buff that laid green eggs from her ameracauna grandma, but she passed on. I dont really breed to a buff standard, but my roosters I choose all match the american standard. Ive noticed larger eggs, and bigger carcasses over time. But most people I sell chicks to dont really care, they either want truly pure buff orpingtons, or they think the buffs are a boring looking chicken.

I have comfrey next to most of my fruit trees for a living mulch. The chickens will eat it down pretty good and then it bounces back. I do rotate my chickens, but I can have them in a 1/8 acre paddock for over a month and the comfrey bounces back just fine. Ive also covered my lot with 6-12” of wood chips from local tree trimmers. The chickens spread out all the piles for me when I dumped them. Now they dig through it in their current area along with eating grasses, weeds, bugs, lizards, scraps, etc. My main forage thats prolific in the seed bank is mallow, apparently it was used to make marshmallows at one time, but it could just be a legend. The chickens love it, and its basically goat crack. When my goats get moved they eat all they go straight for the mallow, then olive leaves.

Edit: im in OC, CA mediterranean climate 11-14” rain, zone 10a, 3/4ac lot.

Not sure of your water situation, but the drip line for my fruit trees gives plenty of water to the comfrey too. As for my “pasture” area that is unirrigated and only natives or other low water usage plants can survive. The natives that were overgrown and taking over the lot when i bought it are: olives, 6 various CA oaks, lots of invasive ash, california pepper trees, nopales/tunas, mallow, native nightshade (not sure of the name, but small purple fruits and a sticky stalk and native peoples ate it). All animals hate the nightshade weed, so I pull it before it gets too sticky and before the fruits develop.
During the rainy season in winter i rainstorm seed behind the chickens. I throw out a custom seed mix of forage crops, drylands pasture mix, and tubers to breakup the hardpan clay. The chickens mainly eat the greens on the radishes, parsnips, beets and then come back later to peck at the tubers that poke above ground, and come back a third time when the tubers are filled with bugs and worms and what not. The brassicas in the mix will get grazed and some of the kale have gone perennial for me. All the forage crops are not really human varieties, but Ive tried them all and are good in soups or salads with normal human varieties to balance out the bitterness.

I get custom seed mixes from great basin seed co in UT, they dont really make a mediterranean mix, but are pretty good at custom mixes and they have a lot of great premade mixes for most other biomes. Their prices are fair and the shipping is fast, and they give a veterans/military discount. I cant really say anything bad about them. I just wish they had more mediterranean species.

Anyway, my advice is to basically let your land go wild in some patch and see what grasses and weeds you have in the seed bank. Chickens will find something in every paddock.

You definitely dont need to worry about the heat from the metal roofing. They are usually designed as a radiant reflector with all factory paint colors. Also, the only birds that would be in the coop during the day are the ones laying for short periods of time. I wouldnt waste any time trying to insulate from inside, just paint it with a RV roof coating. It will make it the correct color (white) for reflecting heat better and is thick enough to insulate slightly.

Im building the Justin Rhodes version of the chickshaw now with my own tweaks for cost and weight savings. Mainly using 2x3s for the corners, and kreg jigging the whole thing instead of using 100 tiny metal brackets. Ive already built one of my own design on a small harbor freight trailer that used to be a goat trailer, that turned into a goat tractor/feed wagon of sorts. That one is moveable by hand, but its a struggle for sure. Its just harder to hookup the tractor and have to remove whatever implement is on there. Id like to build a hoop-shaw next. I really like the hoop design, eliot coleman has another version using fence posts and fencepost brackets. However, yours seems like the cheaper and lighter way to go. The problem I see mainly is you only have 1 way to access the inside of the coop. Sometimes my hens lay eggs while they sleep and then I have to open a side door to retrieve them. If I had to crawl through your 3x3 door to get an egg or chicken, or for whatever reason, I would be upset. Rhodes coop does have the lid and makes it easy to access all parts of the coop. Ive been trying to think of a way to build in a curved door on one side, but youd have to have a whole other emt structure to hold the door “roof” metal. Maybe if you had a Rhodes style milk crate egg box you could solve the access problems. After the crates are out the bottom is wide open to stick your torso inside to handle things. I think Id still want a door.

Have you had any access problems catching birds, retrieving eggs, etc?

I wasnt going to worry about a grease trap since the water and solids will be sent to mulch basins. Most, if not all, leftover food goesto the chickens, things they cant eat goesto the compost. Grease from pans gets collected and recycled, but Im sure some is going to wind up in the mulch basins. Ive seen people use mulch style grease traps, so why not just skip that and send it straight to mulch next to the tree? Will grease kill avocado trees?
I didnt think 1/4” would be big enough, Im just wondering how others are getting away with it. Ive thought of the valves, but that increases costs and seems like it would have the same effect as a smaller line. I see a lot of systems on youtube using the 1” poly pipe going to 1/2” PVC tees for the “emitters”. Maybe this just happens to work out for them, or its designed for a level ground orchard/garden?
I already have a sizeable portion of mulch near my house, termites are an issue in Southern California, but I dont have any signs of them yet. There is a gap between our house and the mulch, so I think were ok so far. I understand water close to a foundation isnt a good thing, but I have dreams of greywater espalier, this saves on piping and helps cool the house as well as getting more fruit per gallon of water. I could probably have the outlets to the mulch basins 3’ from the house and plant the trees between that.

Thanks for the quick reply and the thoughts.

Im in the design phase of my greywater system in a 1 bathroom house on a raised foundation. Kitchen sink and dishwasher will be routed to the front yard for 2-4 avocado trees and whatever else we plant on the edges of the mulch basins using a branch drain style system. We expect this system to provide 10-15G/day(GPD) and should be relatively cheap and easy to install. However, the backyard will be a little more complex. We will have water from the bathtub, bathroom sink, and laundry room flow out this way. Were expecting closer to 50-100GPD out of here depending on if our boys have a bath night and how many laundry loads were doing, but on average through the week 50-100GPD. Ive got lots of trees to water, but I think making all the branches in the system and leveling the ells is going to be too complex. Ive seen people using 1” irrigation piping to make it easier, and just use a 1/4” or 1/2” tee to deliver the water.
How do they make sure all the trees get the same amount of water if theyre not making all the tees level?
How are they flowing out such a skinny opening and not clogging the pipe?

I already have drip emitters running to my 50+ fruit trees and have toyed with the idea of a constructed wetlands with filters and pumps to use the existing line, but it just seems like too much work and money for that. The side of the house that this greywater pipe should be coming from is not heavily planted so anything is possible as far as how many trees get it and what kind. Its also the side of the house that has the rain tanks. Ive though about making it really simple and sending it to a pit inside a banana circle or 1/2 to a banana circle and 1/2 to a papaya circle. Theres also a 3’ deep hugel pit with a 3’ hugel mound on top thats a possibility for the water, but Im more interested in how that plays out this year without supplemented water. Im in zone 10a mediterranean climate and can grow some bananas, but not coconuts and it chills enough to get apples and stone fruits. Im hoping to get this piped and planted out before the rains come in a month or so.
Are there fruit trees that do better than others with greywater?
How close to the house can you safely dig mulch basins?