Neil Micke

I remember reading that the land had been mined by the previous owners as a truck farm.  Every carrot, head of lettuce and other produce removed a certain amount of phosphorus, potash and other minerals.   Simply putting sheep on the land will not replace the lost nutrients, especially if wool and meat are also sold off the land.  The plants on the land will change, but the best plants for sheep will not prosper if they do not have the proper minerals to grow those plants.  Land that is low in pH will require added lime to neutralize the acids that keep the grasses and legumes from growing.

I rented some land that grew nothing but sour dock, golden rod with very little grass or legumes including white clover.  The land was originally broken from a white pine forest.  The owner had farmed it for 30 years and only put on dairy cow manure in rotation.   The first soil test showed pH of 5, potassium in below the extreme low level and the phosphorus also in the below extreme low level.  This nice loamy soil had the nutritive value of beach sand.

My first crop of corn( back in the early 1970's)  got to shoulder high with yields of 65 at the best and below 30 at the poorest.  Can you imagine running a corn picker in well below freezing weather for several hours to fill a 120 bushel gravity box?  It is really discouraging.

After many tons of limestone, lots of added commercial fertilizer, plenty of dairy cow manure,  the corn yields exceeded the county average by 30-50 bushels and recently the hay that came off the land was judged the best in the US by the World Dairy Expo.   Cost to get to profitable land, tremendous, profits double or triple the costs.   Fortunately we had some productive land that could subsidize the improvement of the rented land which is now part of the farm.

All said and done, the land will need inputs to bring it back to its native productivity.   The sheep will just change the ecosystem, but will only make marginal changes with out some serious changes to the soil nutrients that were mined by the truck farm.

If you have put 5 sheep on a piece of land, they will consume the nutrients that are present and will return them, less some of the carbon dioxide they breath out.  So you have really no net gain to the soil and a loss if you take away any wool or meat produced by those 5 sheep.  

Now if you put 10 sheep onto the land, you will need to feed those sheep extra feed, so now you have added back to the land the nutrients you have feed, less any wool or meat removed.  Because the land size is the same, at the end of a length of time the land will have more nutrients.

If you have the 5 sheep and put on the land organic matter equal to the amount the extra 5 sheep would consume, you will have even greater improvement, because you did not remove  any wool or meat the extra 5 sheep would have produced.

Depending on the organic matter you put the land will depend on the speed of improvement of the land.

Depending on the type of animal you are housing, one of the biggest problems is not warmth, but ventilation.  Large animals, equine and bovines producing milk,  give off a lot of moisture that must be eliminated.

 Fowls like chickens and duck, give off lots of ammonia, which also needs to be removed.   Aluminum sulfate can be used in the litter to reduce the ammonia.  

In hog barns ammonia (NH3), hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases often have a negative impact on air quality, animal health and quality of life within these facilities.

Livestock can survive lots of cold, but the products they give off can cause illness and ultimately lowered production.  

Think high ceilings and for newborn calves coats in cold weather.  For over 30 years we raised calves in outdoor hutches in temperatures down to -35F.

The warm buildings were for our comfort, not the animals.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Thanks! I have seen many of those, and I agree with the advice. I was hoping you had a link to the original AMA study. Everybody refers to it but it doesn't seem to exist online anywhere.

You need to search under JAMA
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/392751

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Neil Micke wrote:The Journal of the American Medical Association did a study on the effects of burning pressure-treated lumber.

That is of great interest! A link would be helpful.

You ask for a link, here are several, including references to various state laws on burning treated lumber.   All say landfill.

https://woodworkingclarity.com/can-you-burn-pressure-treated-wood-lumber/
https://montanabsa.org/major-health-risk-burning-treated-lumber/
https://woodcritique.com/blog/can-you-burn-pressure-treated-wood/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5412102/
https://www.elcosh.org/document/1195/d000366/Hazards+of+Pressure+-+Treated+Lumber.html

Painted and/or treated wood waste must be disposed at a licensed, approved solid waste facility. Open burning of these materials is not allowed by state regulations.
https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/sites/default/files/topic/ForestFire/WoodWasteDisposal.pdf

State statute prohibits open burning of treated lumber. Homeowners engaged in small projects should take treated wood to their local landfill or transfer station and place it in the designated location (i.e., the non-clean wood pile). Contractors, utilities, and manufacturers should contract directly with a DEEP permitted bulky waste landfill, or send it to an out-of state wood burner facility appropriately equipped and permitted to burn treated wood.
https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Reduce-Reuse-Recycle/Proper-Use-and-Disposal-of-Treated-Lumber

Do not burn treated wood in wood stoves, fireplaces, or recreational or cooking fires. Open burning of treated wood is prohibited by state law (Minn. Stat. § 88.171).
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/living-green/treated-wood-residential-use

The Journal of the American Medical Association did a study on the effects of burning pressure-treated lumber. They found that a family burned treated lumber to heat their house during the winter. The following months the family reported their hair fell out, they suffered severe nosebleeds and crippling headaches.

The parents recalled several cases of blacking out for hours and disorientation. Both children suffered multiple seizures. It even killed the houseplants and the fish. Eventually, these symptoms were traced back to small amounts of ash dust around the house.

Those poisonous  chemicals that are released and found in the ash dust  are arsenic and chromium .

I can see in a J tube that where the fire is burning at the bottom, the ash from the wood would be carried along with the heated air ( the rocket noise) as the wood settles, while the in the batch the heated air and gases are carried into the riser with gravity holding much of the ash in the burn chamber, not unlike a normal wood burner or burn pile. The batch will of course send up the small particulates that should be burned in the riser.  

A big difference in the J tube and the batch.  In my plans I was NOT considering the J Tube and the replies here confused me.  Now I see that the J Tube goes into a burn tunnel before entering the riser and the batch goes directly into the riser.  

So with the batch is not giving you ash problems?

Thomas
Did you change from a J tube to a batch feed?  Or is this a J tube that you were having problems with? I thought there was a post that someone had a wood supply that was 2 inches too long and then changed the batch burn area to accommodate the longer material.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Joe;
I can speak from personal experience that a longer burn tunnel is a bad idea!
Here's what happened to me... Mid January suddenly I start having draft issues.

If I remember correctly Peter van den Berg approved your extending the burn tunnel.  I do not remember where he said that but that was before you did your rebuild.
So you are saying that doesn't work.

What did you do to change the burn tunnel?  Or is there a post showing or explaining your changes?