Reid O'landers

thoughts? Please :/

Hi, I want to eventually get 2 babydoll sheep for my 1 acre (.7 acre actual lawn) yard. Currently the yard is a mix of weeds and some sort of turf looking grass that goes brown during the winter. I cant lie, the current grass is really thick, like a mat, and is really nice to walk around on barefoot but I am not sure if its particularly good for grazing.

I wanted to ask about grasses that are a reasonable balance between "turf" and grazing. I am in Zone 7B at the moment and am hoping (though its not a dealbreaker) to have something that will stay relatively green year round as well as be fairly durable for foot, hoof, and paw traffic

Hi,
I was looking around trying to find any mention of RSS or see if any of the forum URLs worked in my feed reader but so fa nada.

Are RSS feeds available for the permies forums? I find it much easier/faster to find the content i am looking for so it would reeeeeeaaaaaaly be appreciated! (not that the site isnt already really appreciated!).
Thanks!

Hi Thanks All, the feedback is really appreciated.
I found this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:356580/comments which seems to be the closest to what i was looking for, I am really paranoid about over feeding my biodigester so might get back to you all about that.
I might try ordering the 3d setup with metal gears (instead of the plastic ones in the origonal design) and a hopper with a flywheel crank and see how that does.
About doing it directly into the digestor, the homebiogas folks say about 1.5 kg/3lbs per day is the max, my family actually doesnt produce much compost on a daily basis but we have some fruit trees and i was thinking about weeds as well, so slightly separate question, as we have more fruit than we can ever use (eat/can/juice) does it make sense to say just fill a barrel up with rotten fruit/weeds that we get in one part of the year and slowly feed those into the digestor along with the food scraps? or is partially rotten stuff going to be not worth it?

Wow!! First I want to thank everyone for the really positive response and already alot of useful ideas/comments, sooooooo much better than reddit,I think I am in love (with the Permies forum)

I guess i will try to answer/respond to some of the comments questions here.

I have a fair amount of experience with ruminants but none with ducks per se, I have played with them at my mates and I just love them from what I have seen. They are indeed dirty little buggers but that is in part ok because dirty water = good fertilizer and also I am planning on a fairly large pond (all relative i guess but something like 2ft deep by 20ft long and maybe 15ft wide... ish) so 2-4 ducks wont much it up at least on a daily basis (famous last words?)

I am planning on collecting quite a bit of water, not only for the pond, and it seems that a buried modular milkcrate and liner setup would be cheap and flexible enough to provide for the pond and my other needs, I liked the idea of overflow for the tank directly into the pond, thanks!

For fish, Koi are pretty but as someone said they are carp and I am not a huge fan of carp for eating, trout would be awesome but i dont think they like still water, catfish maybe? Tilapia would be great but i think where i am gets too cold in the winter (close to freezing occasionally, but not often) and I dont know how id keep the water (passively) warm enough.

For the layout of my yard, I am a horrible artist, and doing it with a mouse didnt help but this is approximately what i am working with https://sketch.io/render/sk-994d085502250286e4633a14ab9ff556.jpeg

I am hoping to minimize the "effort" to keep it up so asides from a pump to suck the water out i am hoping to avoid too much in the way of gizmos, and I am not sure I would have many plants in there, any thoughts on plants that fish and ducks actually *wouldnt* like?

My yard is on a bit of a hill but from one side to the other i doubt its more than say 5-6tf so not much, but the roof would certainly be higher than the pond, and the pond higher than about half of the yard.

I cant wait to start this, though it will likely be a few months, i posted here to brain storm and try to learn a bit in advance. Thanks again to all and I look forward to more interesting posts and responses!

I just got a homebiogas setup and I heard that the more surface area that the stuff you are putting in has the easier it is on the bacteria? (and the more gas they produce)
I was looking for something that was hand cranked and had an opening big enough that I could just dump stuff in there and crank it directly into the tank?
A meat grinder was the first thing that came to mind but the opening is a bit small and I spent half my time trying to stuff the scraps into it so that wasn't working.
I am hoping there is *something* out there that can be hand powered, coarsely (or fine but course is ok) grind up table scraps, grass clippings, weeds etc, wont rust too badly, etc etc etc
ideas? please!

Well this is my first post so please be gentle but i just got a place and want to get started on one of those things I've always wanted, ducks n eggs.

I am not sure how to post this so I am posting to poultry and aquaculture oriented places as I am trying to do "two in one"? (hopefully will be forgiven for x posting?)

I am hoping for suggestions on types of fish and ducks as well as pond designs.

The setup:
I have about an acre in my yard and would like to have ducks and ergo a pond seems logical and a pond without fish, well fish seem like the next logical step. I am not really looking for koi (dont have that kind of money, plus eating them wouldn't be bad?). I am in the southeast US so while it gets down to freezing sometime it doesn't happen often.
I am also hoping to having something that is "lower maintenance" (ahem cleaning) and was thinking about a pump and cone shaped pond (so stuff settles towards to lowest point?) and then have a pump/sprinkler to just fertilize the yard and clean out the pond every once in a while, though considering some lower maintenance aquaponics? (is there such a thing?)
For filling the pond, I am planning on looking into modular rainwater storage (anyone heard of something like the "rainharvest systems" modular tanks?)

I dont know what fish would work best in this setup, if there is a way to prevent the ducks from eating them before i do, ways to protect the ducks (house in the middle of the pond? + feeder on a timer for dusk?).

I have a large goofy - poultry friendly - dog, with a doggie door, a fenced in yard but am not sure thats enough?

I am really not sure where to start, i dont have a massive (like less than $3k) budget but have the land, the will, rocks etc so other experiences would really really be welcome!!!