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Re: chicken forage --territory
- To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
- Subject: Re: chicken forage --territory
- From: Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>
- Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 12:00:17 -0600
- In-reply-to: <LYR101940-71330-2000.08.05-07.08.12--pci#permaculture-inst.org@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
- Newsgroups: permaculture
- References: <LYR112925-70820-2000.08.02-10.39.03--MBGREY#mnp.net@franklin.oit.unc.edu><LYR75849-70909-2000.08.02-19.29.25--hanzibra#svn.com.br@franklin.oit.unc.edu><LYR75849-71268-2000.08.04-17.49.36--hanzibra#svn.com.br@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
At 08:10 AM 8/5/00 -0300, you wrote:
Thank you
Arina, for the iinformation.
In fact, I am not thinking of chicken
tractor situations a such, but an agroforest situation integrated with
annual crops , but aiming at more comfort and space than I
understand a chicken tractor to have...Maybe I am still aiming too
low.
The limiting factor here is
fencing, which is very expensive...I have not yet found a way to fence in
chickens in a really effective way, although we have some native
bromelias in view which may be reliable for this.
How about bamboo? We built some round chicken "baskets" in
California using new shoots, so the tractor looks more like a semi-sphere
and is suitable for maybe 5-6 chickens, but easy to move and place
between trees/shrubs etc. Bamboo grows in Brazil, right? A snake still
may get through, I don't know if this is a problem.
I have seen such systems where the
chickens have plenty of habitats because of the agroforest situation, and
where there is an abundance of earthworms ( which is the main
motive here, to eliminate the cost of purchased feed, growing corn
locally) in a rotational system. What I am trying to do now
is increase the scale of such successful small-scale systems , to
make them commercial instead of the horrors of commercial egg
systems we see today. Even the commercial "organic"
systems only offer bits of grass to them here- we are proposing to create
systems rich enough in variety that the chicken can fulfill most of its
needs, with the exception of some grain...
This can be an interesting new discussion - corn versus other grains for
poultry. I am curios to find out more about such native to Americas
grains as Amaranth and Quinoa (both self reseeding, easy to grow,
easy to harvest, probably less of a heavy feeder that corn, and so far -
no GM pollen in the air to pollute them). Does any one know if these
grains has been used as primary or secondary feed? Sunflowers - heavy
feeder, but also self reseeding and pollinator magnet - another option.
What grains you have in Brazil that may be a potential forage crop?
I raise all my chicks now on millet and sunflower with supplement of
comfrey ( must be a really happy plant in Brazil). I read somewhere that
comfrey contains something like 60-70% compete protein.
If you read my post
a bit more carefully, what I am proposing is a total area of 17 ( 8 pens
of 2 meters, and one central pen of 1 meter) square meters per head,
which I consider to be quite generous.
It does sound to be a Cadillac of a chicken pen!
We have to be
practical with what these systems cost, as I am proposing this to farmers
who today have poorly-managed freerange flocks who lay eggs God knows
where, dry up the land by excessive scratching, and are very
subject to predators due to lack of protection, which would be provided
by the fencing, in the case of the main predator
here...
If you give to your chickens a toy egg (plastic or stone),
supposedly they will lay next to it. Dried up soil from scratching is our
problem too, so now we do not let chicken free in the spring, when
everything is germinating or budding up. I use thick branches to keep
root zones of new trees protected, and pile them up over mulch around the
trees. It helps.
Good luck
arina