A simple laundry-to-landscape graywater system diverts water from a washing machine and directs it to mulch basins around plants. Illustration/Elayne Sears
Originally published in Mother Earth News By Laura Allen and Cleo Woelfle-Erskine
In the United States, the average person uses about 40 gallons of water per day to bathe, wash dishes and clean clothes. Unfortunately, this water almost always goes straight down the drain. But this “greywater” could be put to good use to irrigate fruit trees and other plants. Greywater refers to all used household water except water from toilets, which is called “blackwater.” Historically, state laws have dealt with water from your sink, shower or washing machine in exactly the same way as water from the toilet — it’s all considered sewage that requires treatment. Consequently, home systems that use greywater for irrigation are sometimes illegal.
However, in recent years, greywater activists have been working to change this attitude and the state codes that enforce it. Now, with more than half of U.S. states facing water shortages and the momentum shifting as some states change their codes, we think greywater reuse is coming into the mainstream. Many policymakers are beginning to see greywater as a valuable resource that — with a few simple precautions — can be safely reused in home landscapes.
For decades, greywater has been a boon to gardeners in dry climates, but using greywater has many other benefits in all regions. Greywater use lowers your water bill, and diverting greywater from overloaded or failing septic systems can extend their life. Reusing water saves energy: Greywater irrigation replaces water that would otherwise be treated to drinking water quality, and it also isn’t treated at the sewage treatment plant, saving more energy. And perhaps most importantly, more efficient water use reduces pressure on scarce water resources — especially in the drier parts of the country, where farmers, individual households and wildlife all face the problem of limited water supplies.
A Simple Laundry-to-Landscape System
The simplest type of greywater use is to collect water in a dishpan as you handwash dishes, and then toss it over your flowerbeds or fruit trees. This is a wonderfully simple, inexpensive way to tap into greywater, but with just a little more effort and expense, you can capture much more water.
One of the easiest and most popular greywater systems is a landscape-direct system that diverts greywater from your washing machine and routes it to mulch basins around trees or bushes. This “laundry-to-landscape” system captures greywater from the drain hose of the washing machine and sends it out to your plants through 1-inch tubing, without the need to alter existing plumbing. You can expect to harvest 10 to 25 gallons of water per load for a horizontal-axis machine, or about 40 gallons per load for a vertical axis machine.
According to Art Ludwig, author of Create an Oasis With Greywater, the laundry-to-landscape system is the “simplest, least expensive, lowest effort way to get the most greywater out onto the landscape.” The washing machine’s internal pump pushes the water outside through the tubing, so these systems can work without any additional pumps on flat or downward-sloping sites.
Creating this type of system is as simple as installing a diverter valve on your washing machine, attaching and positioning the hose, and digging simple mulch basins for your plants. The mulch basins provide room for greywater to spread out around the plants, as well as preventing greywater from running off, or creating pools where mosquitoes could breed. The mulch also helps keep grease and soap from clogging the soil. These greywater systems typically cost $75 to $200 if you do the work yourself, or up to $2,000 if you hire a professional. This type of system works best for trees, bushes, and large annuals or perennials.
You can build a landscape-direct greywater system yourself if you’re knowledgeable about plumbing and basic landscaping. A plumber familiar with greywater systems can help install the diverter valve. Or hire a landscaper or plumber who has experience with greywater to install your complete system.
Other Greywater System Options
You can also use a “branched drain” system to send water from your showers and sinks to mulch basins. This system relies on gravity to distribute the water, so it only works if the plants are located below the source of water. Branched drains require little maintenance because there are no moving parts that could break. These systems can be simple or nearly impossible to install — it depends on your existing plumbing. If your garden is above your water source, you can install a pump designed for dirty water (called an effluent pump) to move water uphill in 1-inch tubing.
Greywater can be used with drip irrigation, but needs to be filtered first. Manufactured systems use filters to remove solids, and pumps to send the water into special greywater-compatible drip irrigation tubing. Drip greywater systems can distribute water to more, and smaller, plants, but the filters require regular cleaning and maintenance.
More complicated greywater projects are expensive, complex and require a higher level of maintenance, so they’re best suited for larger applications, such as apartments, schools and commercial buildings. One example of a larger greywater project is Casa Dominguez, an affordable housing development in Los Angeles County, where greywater from the complex’s washing machines is used to water the landscaping plants. Treated greywater can also be used to flush toilets, as in the Mercy Housing Building in Chicago, where 96 apartments flush with greywater.
For home systems, keep in mind that simpler is almost always better. In our experience, the more complicated, high-maintenance systems sometimes fail, while the systems that work best for home use are usually those designed to require minimal care.
Using Greywater Safely
Before using greywater in your yard, there are a few precautions to be aware of. One is that when you use greywater, you’ll want to choose natural soaps that break down in the environment and won’t harm plants. Stay away from any cleaners with bleach or other toxic ingredients. Avoid sodium and boron, which are fine for us, but bad for plants and soil. (See the resources list below for some specific brands of greywater-friendly cleaners.)
It’s a good idea to avoid direct contact with greywater — wash water often contains small amounts of bacteria that come from your clothes or body. Always follow these rules when using greywater at home:
You can use greywater on edible plants, but only fruit trees or crops such as corn or raspberries, where the edible part is off the ground. Don’t use it to water root vegetables.
Never store greywater for longer than 24 hours.
If you reroute your plumbing, install a diverter valve so you can choose when to send water to the greywater system and when it should go into the sewer or septic system.
Don’t allow greywater to pool up or run off — make sure it can soak into the ground.
Finally, bear in mind that even simple systems will require some engagement from you, your family and your guests. Label pipes and valves so others know how to operate the system, and be sure others know what kinds of soaps can be used. Check mulch basins regularly to be sure they’re functioning correctly.
Greywater in the Southwest
Greywater codes are gradually changing, but considerable work needs to be done before everyone in the United States can use greywater legally. So far, greywater advocates have been most active in the Southwest.
In California, efforts at greywater reform have been mixed, but there have been some recent improvements. Changes to greywater codes began in Santa Barbara in 1989, but for many years it remained difficult to get permits for greywater systems in California. Most people using greywater ignored the codes, and unpermitted systems became the norm. At one point California hosted an estimated 1.7 million illegal greywater systems. In 2009, California revamped its greywater codes. The new code allows simple laundry-to-landscape systems without a permit, but requires permits and inspections for most greywater systems.
Arizona may have one of the best models for greywater use. “We conducted a study in southern Arizona and found that 13 percent of people were using greywater, all illegally,” says Val Little, director of the Water Conservation Alliance of Southern Arizona. “Since we couldn’t inform them how to do it properly due to the restrictive state code, we worked to create new ‘performance-based’ regulations. Now, if people follow the guidelines, their system is legal.”
In Arizona, there are no fees, permits or inspections for systems that use less than 400 gallons per day and follow the guidelines (larger systems require permits). In the decade since the code change, state-wide tax credits, water district support, free classes and online pamphlets have promoted widespread greywater use, without any reported problems. Texas, New Mexico and Wyoming have since created similar performance-based codes.
Other State Greywater Codes
If you live in the Midwest, South or Northeast, your state most likely either has no specific greywater code, or else greywater is regulated along with septic systems. Legal reuse can be costly, requiring small leach fields or expensive engineered plans.
Here are a few examples of state greywater regulations. (Keep in mind that greywater codes are complex, and updated frequently, so keep your ears open for what’s happening in your state. Find a good list from the Oasis Design Greywater Policy Center.
Florida bans outdoor greywater use, but allows indoor use for flushing toilets.
In Georgia since the last drought you can legally carry greywater in buckets to plants or build a complex greywater system (with a permit), but you can’t get a permit to build a simple greywater system.
Washington’s new code allows some small systems without a permit, but imposes stringent requirements on other systems.
Oregon’s proposed code mandates an annual permit fee — a move that is already generating opposition.
If you’re not happy with the greywater codes in your state, contact your legislators about changing them! There are many benefits to be gained from moving toward less restrictive greywater codes. With codes in place supporting safe and simple reuse, greywater could reduce U.S. water use by 600 million gallons per day by creating a “new” source for non-potable uses.
Code change also opens up a new job market — every plumber and landscaper could potentially build simple greywater systems for their customers, and there should be plenty of demand for inexpensive, landscape-direct systems.
Building your own simple system is even more affordable, and as common-sense code changes make it easier to tap into greywater, recycling your water is looking more and more like a smart idea. Get ready to load up your washing machine and watch your garden thrive!
Greywater Resources
Books, Kits and Parts Oasis Design offers parts and free instructions. Clean Water Components sells complete kits to build your own greywater system. Create an Oasis With Greywater by Art Ludwig Greywater Policy Issues Greywater Action Oasis Design Greywater Policy Center Greywater-Friendly Cleaners
Read the ingredients and look for products that contain no salt or sodium, boron or bleach. For water softeners, avoid sodium-based products. Choose a potassium-based one instead.
Laundry detergent: Oasis or ECOs detergents
Dish and hand soap: Oasis All Purpose Cleaner, Dr. Bronner’s, any natural liquid or bar soap
Body products: Look for low- or no-sodium options. Products from Aubrey Organics are some good choices. Check the ingredients lists of other products at theEnvironmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database.
Better Farm's library floor, foreground, was badly beat up, weathered, dented, and lifeless. Patching knotholes and applying fresh paint, background, gave the floor a new lease on life for less then $75.
Flooring can be an intimidating project to take on. Nice, durable wood may cost you an arm and a leg (as will many eco-friendly alternatives), laminate flooring leaves much to be desired, and a carpet to cover a badly abused, old wood ground is bound to get stained—but more importantly, carpets trap and hold all kinds of bacteria, dirt, allergens, pollens, dust mites, chemicals, and other contaminants.
We've researched all of the above extensively. And while there's certainly a time and place for luxurious and new wood flooring (natural hardwoods are often worth their price tags, as they'll last forever), bamboo flooring, cement floors, recycled laminate flooring, and even carpet, for our needs and budget we found a nice alternative to all of that other stuff.
First, let's go over the issue at hand: Better Farm's library floor. Here are some pictures of the floor back in 2009:
Duct tape used to cover knot holes had all but worn out.
The famous Sadie dog hangs out amidst a floor covered in duct tape, chipped paint, and loose ends.
The ramp's color is totally worn out.
Here's another shot of the ramp, close-up, that I took last week:
The first thing I did was figure out how to patch those knot holes. This wasn't an easy investigation, as most DIY sites were trying to tell me to use a jigsaw to cut circular pieces of wood to fit the holes—a feat I wasn't sure I was going to be able to accomplish in a safe or timely manner.
Instead, I picked up some metal screen lath (the mesh or metal patch people use to fix drywall holes) and a quart of Bondo. When we ran out of the screen lath, I cut circles out of plastic recyclables and used those. Here's how we patched:
First we took the duct tape off the knothole, sanded away the old adhesive, and thoroughly swept and mopped the floor.
Then we mixed the Bondo solution together to form the super-strong hole-filler.
With an unfolded paper clip (string or anything else you can think of would also work) attached at one end to the screen (already cut to cover the bottom of the hole), we pushed the screen through the knothole, then pulled up on the paper clip so the screen became flush against the bottom of the hole.
Holding the clip and screen taut against the bottom of the knothole, we applied the bondo then held the clip in place for several minutes while the adhesive began to take hold:
The Bondo begins to harden. Note the top of the straightened paper clip poking out. That piece came off easily with sandpaper.
Then we sanded the whole thing down, washed the floor again, and painted.
Still rustic farmhouse chic, the floor is one cohesive color without holes. We'll be able to touch the paint up as we need to. And the best part? This whole project cost less than $75—a teeny tiny fraction of what a new floor, or new carpeting, would cost. Here's the price breakdown:
Two gallons of paint: $50
A bag of four rollers: $6
Bondo: $6
Screen sheath: $6 (or cut your own with found materials for free)
Package of sandpaper: $5
Got a great DIY design tip? E-mail it to us at info@betterfarm.org. Many thanks to intern Maylisa Daniels for heading this project!
Hobbit house featured at Maryland Home and Garden Show's "Books in Bloom".
'Tis the season for inspiration: mapping the garden, planting the seeds, redesigning rooms, repainting walls and floors, and brainstorming projects and events for the incoming interns and artists-in-residence to participate in. Maybe it's just the 60-degree day talking (not bad for March! Thanks Global Warming!), but we're champing at the bit to get this spring rolling.
We'll start inside with some inspiring ideas for shelving, furniture, and upcycling:
Our current library at left. At right, built-in and painted shelves give the walls a more cohesive look.
The power of white-on-white in a country-style living room. Love the postcard chandelier!
A suitcase reappropriated as a medicine cabinet.
Cabinet doors get a new lease on life as interior shutters.
And here are some very cool ideas for the garden:
A new take on a mobile chicken coop.
A hoop house would allow us to grow year-round.
A hobbit house for the garden?! Yes please!
Follow the yellow brick road. Love the incorporation of sculpture into the garden. Design featured at Maryland Home and Garden Show's "Books in Bloom".
Before arriving at Better Farm, interns- and artist residents-to-be often call and write to us with one question above all others: What's it like there? Sure, they know they're going to work hard, live communally, get their hands dirty, and meet lots of new people. But they often seem most curious about what it's like on a day-to-day basis around here. What do you guys do for fun? What's the atmosphere like?
Brian Purwin, left, and Bob Laisdell.
So on Better Farm's blog, I'm often trying to paint as accurate a picture as possible about the diverse ecosystem that is Better Farm. It's certainly an unusual place, where perfect strangers collide in a big old farmhouse waaaaaay off the beaten path and become like family. Case in point: intern Maylisa Daniels' send-off gathering Sunday night, an event speckled with former artists-in-residence, lodgers, friends from town, and yours truly. The evening started with one of our famous "family dinners" at the big kitchen table (featuring pasta with homemade sauce utilizing the last of our garden tomatoes that had been blanched and frozen back in October), then turned into a good old-fashioned sing-a-long party. Brian Purwin and I traded off on the piano, Brian played a mean fiddle too, and everyone lent their voices.
Knowing this sort of thing is exactly what future visitors to the farm are curious about, I grabbed my camera so that I could share this experience with anyone who's ever wondered what really goes on around this place. Here are the ladies doing a little "Let it Be":
And our MVP of the evening, Maylisa, doing "Summertime":
Warmest wishes to Maylisa as she goes on to make her mark in the world! To learn more about Better Farm and its programming or to schedule a visit, click here.
The ninth annual meeting of the Jefferson County Agricultural Development Corporation (JCADC) was held Friday, March 2, in Watertown. More than 130 people attended the event and luncheon, which was themed "Let's Be Ready for the Future of Agriculture".
In attendance were New York State Senator Patty Ritchie, New York State Assemblywoman Addie Russell, New York State Assemblyman Ken Blankenbush, and county legislators Caroline Fitzpatrick, Barry Ormsby, Phil Reed, Anthony Doldo, Jennie Adsit, John Peck, Bob Ferris, and County Administrator Bob Hagemann III. The meeting featured a presentation of the group's 2011 annual report, election of board members, a visit with several elected officials, and keynote presentations on the state of farming in Jefferson County. Those speeches were made by David Grusenmeyer of theNew York Farm Viability Institute, J.W. Allen from New York Future Farmers of America, and Matthew Nelligan, manager of public affairs for New York Farm Bureau.
Here I am, repping Better Farm as a guest at the luncheon:
The JCADC's mission is to assist in the retention, growth, and promotion of Jefferson County’s agricultural industry. The group's website is a virtual cornucopia of resources for farmers; with news bites, grant information, calendars of events, and contacts who can answer just about any question.
Two morning seminars were offered for the first time: "Working with the News Media to Promote Your Business", and "Grant Programs for the Future of Your Business".
Here are some thoughts from the presentations and general discussion:
One-twentieth of 1 percent of the population works on farms. In other words, one-20th of 1 percent of the population is responsible for all the food production in the world.
On the status quo (in gardening, in farming, in business, in life): People around you are always doing more and getting better. If you're staying the same, in a relative sense, you're falling behind.
The relationship between people living in "farm country", i.e. upstate in the Jefferson County area, and those living downstate in cities and suburbs, needs to be strengthened. The recent spike in interest consumers have in where their food comes from will help this relationship. The responsibility of the farms upstate is to capitalize on that: with farmers' markets, with CSA's, with supplying food to small businesses and restaurants, etc. I'm particularly interested in this issue because of Better Farm's outreach work with artists and interns, most of whom visit us from more urban settings to acquire skills in organic gardening, rainwater catchment, alternative building, then return to their hometowns to spread the information. Stay tuned for a budding relationship between us and several of the organizations repped at this meeting.
Many schools have no agricultural education programs, particularly in secondary schools. Is there a way for this to be changed? How would Big Ag feel about such programming? Would the bureaucracy of the United States' educational system allow for ag education to flourish?
There was a lot of talk at the meeting about the beating the dairy industry's taken by animal-rights groups advocating against drinking milk and exposing certain factory-farm horrors. Dairy farmers in the North Country are offended by the ads and consider them patently false. There was a lot of discussion at the luncheon about how there could be counter ads put up on billboards about how milk is actually really good for you. I was thinking about this (full disclosure: I've been vegan for 11 years, vegetarian for 21), and was thinking a more effective way to argue the point would be to play up the great conditions many small farms have for their cows. Because of the big-agriculture, big-factory-farm backlash, rather than split hairs about nutrition of milk (soy milk has just as much calcium, vitamin D can be found in many other plant-based foods, etc. etc.), I think the best thing the North Country dairy farmers can do is to play up the excellent care their cows receive. Just as consumers are erring toward grass-fed, organic beef and free-range chicken eggs, what could promote the dairy industry around here is to play up the fact that most Jefferson County dairy farms are small, family farms, with healthy cows who enjoy plenty of time outside, and higher-quality milk for the consumers who want it.
To learn more about the Jefferson County Agricultural Development Corporation, click here. For information on this summer's 1000 Islands Ag Tour, click here. To tell your senators to support local farms, click here.
On Saturday Gail and Daryl Gleason over at Home Again Farm in Theresa, N.Y., invited our intern Shani and me to stop in for "Herd Health Day", a monthly occurrence when the couple checks the weights of their alpacas, and gives each animal the once-over to check for any evidence of illness, disease, or mite.
Home Again Farm was established in 1831 by Gail's family as a dairy farm. She grew up on the property, and is now the sixth generation of her family to work this land. The couple graciously welcomes visitors to their farm, and have one of the coolest gift shops ever—lots of alpaca products, from fuzzy socks to warm sweaters to spools and spools of alpaca yarn.
The animals are totally sweet and appropriately pampered. Their living conditions are immaculate and cozy, they get plenty of space to run around and play, and they're extremely good-natured. Happy alpacas make happy happy yarn—a mass-produced, factory wool shearing operation this is not. Gail and Daryl love the alpacas—each is named, each is loved, each has its own goofy, lovable, irreverent personality.
Home Again Farm hosts a local 4H club, “Fiber of Life”, and has an annual open house. Gail and Daryl take the alpacas to schools and community events, as well as host such events on-site at the farm. They've also started growing grapes, which will be sold to one of the local wineries in the area.
Shani and I arrived on Saturday, were greeted by Gail and Daryl, and taken into one of the barns to learn all about the health of the herd. Here's Daryl with three male alpacas:
One by one, the alpacas are taken over to a scale so Gail and Daryl can record their weight. Then they're moved into a holding crate so Gail can clip their toenails:
Mover over Cover Girl—here's an up-close shot of Tommy Girl's eyelashes:
...and Shani communing with one of the young boys:
Check out this mop:
In the wintertime, alpacas can grow up to six inches of fiber. The Home Again Farm alpacas are sheared once a year and their fiber is sent to the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool (NEAFP). This is a cooperative where Home Again Farm's alpaca fiber is sent in, and the farm can in turn purchase garments and items crafted from their own American alpacas. The farm's store also offers yarn made exclusively from Gail and Daryl's own alpacas. Every Skein comes with a picture of the alpaca from which the yarn was made. Home Again Farm also sells items handknit by women in Peru. Gail and Daryl are proud of this relationship because it promotes a greater standard of living for them and lovely items to offer at Home Again Farm.
We're proud of our relationship with Home Again Farm, and can't wait for this summer when the interns make regular trips out to visit with and help care for the alpacas, assist on the vineyards, and lend a hand anyway they can.
To learn more about our sustainability internship program, click here.
We got an e-mail the other day from Faye Hess, a professional chef living down in New York City, inviting us to take part in her latest project called Dinnerlist:
Hi, I am a professional cook living in NYC (my main gig is teaching cooking in Tuscany) and I am working to get people to connect through their food. At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to get people in NYC to post what they had for dinner with those who farm upstate so that each of us has a better sense of how we live, how we eat, and how we can help each other. For us down here in the city, I think it could be a first step to feeling personally connected to farms upstate.
When I think of farming, or group living, I think of how we eat and what we eat as being an important part of it. If you created a "dinnerlist (group)" for Better Farm, you could post menus, which I imagine coincide with what's available locally, seasonally. If members of the surrounding community joined the Better Farm dinnerlist, my hope is that it might be one more way for them to feel connected to Better Farm—even be inspired to eat locally, seasonally, and communally, themselves. It could also be a way for members that come and go to stay in touch by posting what they are now eating wherever the world has taken them, and to be reminded of their meals at Redwood.
We dutifully took a look at the Dinnerlist site and joined right away. Care to join us? You can post anything you're eating, get and share great recipes, post video, create photo albums, and even live-blog right on the site. If you join, be sure to let us know so we can take this on together! We'll start posting early next week. Happy eating!
Better Farm's bus: destined for the electric slide?
Better Farm's iconic early-1960s International bus was rebuilt in the 90s with a new engine, souped up with a fresh interior, and used twice a year to transport my Uncle Steve between Tucson, Ariz., and Redwood, N.Y.
We're working to get that bus going again this summer (it was parked in late 2008 after being revamped yet again, and hasn't been turned on since), but there's one major downfall: That engine ain't diesel.
If it was, we could get in touch with our friends (and my fellow Hampshire alumni) over at Greasecar, purchase a conversion kit, and be running off pure vegetable oil. And maybe one day, we'll fundraise enough to get a diesel engine put in. But with this behemoth of a vehicle running off regular old gasoline for now, we were sort of facing a proverbial brick wall (though we've also been examining options for solar sunroofs, solar panels in general, and the like).
Then we were tipped off to Wilderness Electric Vehicles, a company specializing in electric car conversions. Wilderness EV takes gas-powered cars and turns them into clean, efficient, electric vehicles that can be charged with renewable fuels in a hybrid fashion or off-the-grid via solar charging stations at home.
Yes, please!
The company sells four different conversion kits, each offering a different strength and distance:
Kit #1 (48-volt system): Top speeds of 35 to 40 MPH and range of 20 to 35 miles all depending on driving terrain, amps used, the voltage set up of the car, cold weather, how many batteries used and what type, weight of the car, etc. This would be the same for any of the kits.
Kit #2 (most commonly sold kit, 72-volt system): Top speeds of 45 to 55 mph, range of 25 to 50 miles (50 miles if you were driving only 25 mph, 25 miles if driving 50 mph). You will get speeds over 60 mph and farther range once the car wears in. It takes 15 to 18 cycles of charging the new batteries to have them at 100% efficiency. Also the new brushes on the motor need around a hundred miles of wearing to get higher speeds and distance per charge that you want with it. The colder weather effects the batteries, losing up to 25% to 50% efficiency under 32 F. So that can give you somewhat of an idea with the other kits also. Higher voltage is much more efficient.
Kit #3 (120 volt system): top speeds will be 60 to 65 mph+ with the range of somewhere between 20 to 60 miles +. Of course many factors can change the performance as mentioned above such as how many batteries you will have in a conversion, etc.
Kit #4 (144 volt system): top speeds will be 65 to 75 mph + with the range of somewhere between 20 to 60 miles. And again, many factors can change the performance as mentioned above. Higher voltage is much more efficient. So that can give you somewhat of an idea of what you want.
So if you're cruising around town or running errands, any of these kits would work perfectly—you'd just have to come home afterwards and charge 'er up. Kind of impractical if we were to, say, go on a Better Farm Bus Tour—but not if we planned on making lots of stops. Maybe there's some kind of a hybrid setup?
To learn more about turning your diesel car or truck into a lean, mean, vegetable oil-eating machine, visit Greasecar.com. To find out more about electric conversion kits for your other vehicle, click here. And to donate to our bus revival fund, visit our donation page.
Important note: Building departments in most towns still don't recognize rocket mass heaters—which presents a bit of a blockade for a lot of applications where you'd need a building permit or, for insurance purposes, would want everything built in your home or office to be up to code and compliant. Still, this heating model is gaining ground in a big way throughout the United States and world... maybe it's only a matter of time? We like to think efficiency would be rewarded. Let's just hope the heating fuel companies don't buy up some rocket mass heater patent, a la Big Oil and the electric car.
The not-so-Cowardly Lion and his friend take a flying leap into the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence on Saturday.
Each February for the last 22 years, people from the North Country get together to raise funds for River Hospital in Alexandria Bay, N.Y., by jumping into freezing water amidst near-zero temperatures at the annual Polar Bear Dip.
Though this winter's been frighteningly mild, Saturday was real windy, real cold, and not exactly the sort of day that would make you say You know what? I am dying to get in the river right now.
But despite the 30-degree water, this crowd couldn't be stopped.
Jumper after jumper strolled along the red carpet donning costumes of every style and cheering on their fundraising efforts for River Hospital (Spider Man alone netted more than $10,000 for the cause):
It was hard to get the Wicked Witch in the water, but the crowd and the on-site safety expert/supervisor saw to it that she got wet too:
Big thanks to everyone who jumped, everyone who donated, and everyone who came out to support such a worthy cause. Saturday’s record turnout boasted 49 more jumpers thank last year, and was expected to beat last year’s fundraising total of $55,000. All funds raised this year will go directly toward the upgrade of the radiology department's ultrasound and mammography equipment.
Before moving to Better Farm, I'd barely dabbled in the world of carpentry. I kind of knew how to spackle, I'd hammered a few nails, and I'd built plenty of tree forts. But I lacked any sense of finesse or common sense when it came to figuring out how to build something properly on my own.
The last few years have provided me with quite the education: constructing a greenhouse out of donated windows, laying the foundation for a human-scale birdhouse, and making small renovations throughout the main house. Here's a quick guide to some of the top resources the people at Better Farm refer to again and again for inspiration and guidance:
Mother Earth News—The long-running homesteading magazine is chock-full of DIY design plans. At their website you can find dozens of fun projects ranging in skill level.
DIY Network—As far as a one-stop site goes, the DIY Network covers everything from plumbing to plumming.
This article was adapted from its original, posted at Permies.com by Paul Wheaton.
After years of scraping/shoveling/scrubbing chicken poop, selling meat/eggs for just a hair more than he paid for feed, and not being able to take a few days away from the chickens, Paul Wheaton has discovered a system where he never scrapes or shovels chicken poop, turns a profit, and can go more than a week away from the birds. Here's what he has to say about it:
At any given time when raising chickens I thought what I was doing at that time was "the best" only later to learn of something I like better. Now, when somebody asks about my opinion on the way they are raising chickens, I find myself tongue-tied. I see their chickens standing in shit all day, eating feed made from grains (and other things) considered too awful for human consumption. The feed is often medicated and loaded with vitamins and minerals that somebody thinks is good for the average chicken—it has to be, because what the chicken really wants to eat is not available to the chicken.
I want to paint a picture of something healthier that would be easy to do. To build a foundation, I need to first explore the other ways that I'm aware of raising chickens. There are a lot of techniques out there. I've tried nearly all of them. I've visited a lot of farms and a lot of city coops. I've had a lot of people ask me what I think of their approach. And usually my answer is not the answer they were hoping for.
Logic, Reason, Passion, and Raising Chickens
I'm going to start off examining the base approaches of raising chickens, then cover a lot of the other details. At the risk of finding mobs with torches and pitchforks beating on my front door, I'm also going to mention what I don't like about these systems.
Concerns About the Way Most People Raise Chickens
The moment you put an animal in a cage or behind a fence, you are taking responsibility for the welfare of that animal. If you are a person of conscience, then you want to treat the animal well— possibly giving it a life better than if the animal were on its own in the wild. Does this imply that every person of conscience who has caged any animal has the arrogance to believe that they can improve upon nature's designs?
We can attempt to protect the animals from predators—this is easy to wrap our heads around. We can attempt to provide food that is better than what they would find in the wild. But wait! We can't seem to agree on what is best for humans to eat, let alone another species that does not speak our language. Some simple trial and error reveals what foods are preferred or result in "progress," but a lot of this information is being contested regularly.
The first domesticated chickens were plucked from the jungle. For thousands of years, chickens have been bred to survive non-jungle situations. But when they get loose they rarely survive anywhere on their own but in the jungle—"Dammit! The chickens got out and wiped out the strawberries!"
Since chickens are driven to choose what to eat based on instinct, it would seem that the strawberries may have supplied something that was not in their "chicken feed". Consider for a moment being put into a cage where your only food is moldy "human chow" (everything your human needs for growth and reproduction, now with ground up minerals!) and your only drink is dirty water. And just out of reach of your cage are fresh strawberries. This image would not be complete without a farmer saying, "I must be doing a good job of raising these humans, because most of them haven't died!"
The jungle comes complete with polyculture foods all year long. Greens, bugs, fruits, grains and more. Mostly fresh. Something we cannot do all year because we have winter. Most chicken feeds eliminate three out of four of these - leaving only grain. And that grain is dried grain, not fresh. Since we have learned that grain alone makes for a sickly chicken, "chicken feed" also contains dried legumes and a vitamin/mineral mix that contains the vitamins and minerals that we are aware of that we think chickens need.
I see people build massive, elaborate stuff for raising chickens that deprive them of fresh foods or bugs even in the summer. Or natural sunlight. Or have them standing in their own poop all day. Or, worse, the chickens are killed by predators.
And this is the norm. Therefore, I am concerned about the way most people are raising chickens.
Six Approaches to Raising Chickens
These are all of the methods I'm aware of for raising chickens. All of these can be done in the city or on a farm. And lots of folks come up with combinations of these, like using a coop and run, but letting your chickens free range once in a while.
factory
coop and run
chicken tractor
truly free range
pastured poultry pens
pastured poultry paddocks
I'm a strong advocate of the last one: paddocks. Later I'll go into a lot of detail of why I like paddocks so much more than the others. But, first, I want to make up some metrics to better help me describe why I like the paddocks approach so much.
Raising Chickens: Metrics
I've tried to come up with a way to represent these ideas numerically, for comparison. I've tried to use a scale such that the value 10 is best. These numbers are entirely made up by me and are a numerical representation of my opinion.
Vegetation Factor: How much quality vegetation is available to the chicken. 0 = none, 10 = so much that the chicken doesn't eat any of the provided chicken feed. Negative values represent feeding toxic plants to chickens. This is the strongest driving force to me. If I can get my feed bill near zero, then I have increased my profit margin by a factor of 8 or so. Plus, I am powerfully driven by the idea of my animals eating from a polyculture.
Bug Factor: Nearly half of a chicken's natural diet is bugs. The more bugs a chicken can eat, the less feed I have to buy. 0 = no bugs are available, 10 = the chickens get their fill with plenty of bugs to spare. This might be a good time to point out that when I see "100% vegetarian diet!" on a carton of eggs, I think "we are raising chickens to suffer to satisfy the passions of ignorant twits!" I have yet to see a package of eggs with the words "diet includes bugs and other meat". What's funny about the egg carton pictured is right next to "vegetarian diet" is "certified humane".
Poop-Cleaning Factor: How much effort is exerted in cleaning up chicken poop. 0 = fixed coop, 10 = no effort.
Poop Hygiene Factor: 0 = every moment of every day the chicken is standing on poopy bits and breathing in ammonia, 10 = the chicken is never standing on poop and the air is as fresh as it can get.
Work Factor:0 = about 4 hours per week for 25 birds, 10 = about 2 minutes per week for 25 birds.
Natural Habitat Factor:0 = factory farms, 10 = completely loose in a jungle
Food Cost Factor: 0 = factory farms, 10 = the chickens do not eat purchased food
Raising Chickens in a Factory FarmLayers packed into small cages, meat birds in huge warehouses. Poop and stink everywhere. No natural sun. The so called "free range" birds are given a patch of grass, but it seems so alien to them, they choose to not take advantage of it - they would rather hang out by the feeder.
The following pics are so gross, they are intentionally left small. After all, this isn't really what this article is about, but it is presented as a reference. You can click on any of the pictures to get a full size pic. I would like to thank farmsanctuary.org for freely sharing these images.
factory farm layers
more factory farm layers
factory farm layers poop
factory meat chickens
more factory meat chickens
vegetation factor: 0 bug factor: 0 poop cleaning factor: 0 poop hygiene factor: 0 work factor: 2 - I imagine that systems are optimized to keep the level of work low natural habitat factor: 0 confinement factor: 0 food cost factor: 0
Raising Chickens with Coop and Run
Exactly one non-portable chicken coop and exactly one non-portable chicken run. Probably the most common way to be raising chickens. This is, no doubt, a huge step above and beyond what the factories do. An excellent first step. And while I embrace this technique as something that can be pretty good, I hope to impress upon you by the end of the article something I think is better.
I wish to express that we all have to start somewhere. It is better to have something like everybody else the first time and learn by it, than to shoot for perfection the first time and never be raising chickens at all! Coop and run is how I was raising chickens as a kid. It was how I did it when I was first raising chickens as an adult. I think that whenever somebody first has the thought of raising chickens, this is what they imagine.
This is my rendition of a typical coop and run. The point of this image is the part that is brown. That designates an area where stuff doesn't grow anymore. For most coop/runs I have seen, the entire run is without vegetation. Vegetation Factor: 0 to 7 - I have seen coops and runs that were too small, so every spec of vegetation was utterly gone. So the vegetation factor would be the same for a factory farm: zero. Although I have never seen it, I can imagine a chicken run loaded with plenty of variety of plants edible to chickens. But without the element of paddock shift (more on paddock shift later), the vegetation cannot do nearly as well. Bug Factor: 1 to 3 - With a really small run, the chickens will wipe out all of the bugs and then they only get those bugs that happen to come through the fence. With a really big run, the same thing happens, but a bigger fence means more bugs will find their way in. Poop Cleaning Factor: 0 to 1 - You can make it a little easier on yourself if you can pile lots and lots of straw or sawdust in the coop. Maybe the lower layers will eventually compost and you'll have less muck to muck out (some folks do this compost trick with the idea that it will warm the coop in the winter. It works, but I have concerns about it too). Still ... some day you have to get all of that poop out of there. What an awful job. I would think that a lot of people would switch to the paddock system for this one reason alone! If the run is too small, you might have to shovel poop out of the run too. Poop Hygiene Factor: 0 to 4 - Most non-portable coops STINK! To me, this seems just plain wrong. The only shelter that the chicken has is a disgusting health hazard. Often, the ground is covered in poop and there are even little poop mounds under the roosts. Smaller runs are sometimes one big layer of chicken poop. Better coops and runs are often better by being much bigger and/or getting cleaned frequently. Sometimes daily. Some coop designs have a mesh bottom where most of the poop falls through to a compost pile underneath. But there is still poop on the wire mesh and there is still that awful ammonia smell coming from the pile. Work Factor: 1 to 6 - Generally you pack in feed and water twice a day. Some folks scoop poop every day, some folks scoop poop more like once a month. It is possible to have a watering system and bigger feeder set up to cut back on the feeding chores. And if your coop has a mesh bottom, you might be able to just throw straw or sawdust onto the poop pile once a week - but eventually that pile has to be dealt with. And you are still going to need to clean that mesh once in a while. Natural Habitat factor: 2 to 6 - Even the worst coop/run combo is a big step up from factory farms. I can imagine a massive chicken run loaded with 20 trees and loads of bushes and all sorts of polyculture edible growies. Unfortunately, the chickens will eventually have an over impact on a lot of those growies and the quality will slowly degrade. Confinement Factor: 1 to 6 - Granted, the worst coop/run is far, far better than a factory farm. But ... wouldn't a loose chicken be ten times better off than being in the worst coop/run? Hence the value of "1". I've never seen a run that I would give a value of higher than 3, but it is theoretically possible to have a really huge run - so I'm allowing a value of "6" on the high side. Food Cost Factor: 0 to 3 - Nearly all coop/run situations provide zero to near zero vegetation food for the chickens. But .... a freaky huge run loaded with excellent plants is possible. Any grains or annuals will probably be wiped out before they can get very big. But some good trees could provide a fair amount of food.
A paddock system would have a micro coop that you can drag around from paddock to paddock. Easier and cheaper to build than any of the non-portable coops I've seen. And since the micro coop is portable, there is no more mucking out the coop and the vegetation under and around the coop doesn't get wiped out.
Raising chickens in the exact same area day after day harbors diseases. Since there is a lot of chicken poop in the area and a lack of plant growth to take in the manure, the poop is headed for the groundwater supply.
The following picture is provided with permission from happyeggs.org. I think this is an excellent example of a typical chicken run that has been in use for more than a few months.
Note the pits. That's where the chickens have scratched and scratched in the same spot for months. The upside is that they make themselves some lovely dust baths - something that chickens need. Note also - no edible vegetation in the run although there is vegetation outside of the run. The fencing appears to be some pos/neg temporary electric fencing - excellent for a paddock shift system! If you go to their site and look, you will see that they have about 20 chickens and they have room to spare. These folks could take their existing fencing and make a paddock about half the size of this one on fresh vegetation; then make a new paddock like that once a week and move the chickens to the new paddock. They could probably easily have five paddocks like this. The chickens would then constantly be on edible vegetation and get far more bugs. Plus they would have less chance of getting sick being in the same place all the time and ... and ... and ... well ... I have lots more to say about this, but I'll say it all later.
This picture is of my first chicken run (as an adult) from a long time ago. You can see that there is a LOT more vegetation outside of the run. Proof that the chickens do eat this stuff. Consider - the more of this stuff they eat, the less your feed bill is.
Note how the chickens are down to the dirt under the bush. Also note how the vegetation inside of the run is less diverse than the vegetation outside the run: chickens have preferences - there were lots of "weeds" outside of the run, but only grass and the serviceberry bush inside the run. The chickens like "weeds" better than grass. The fencing in this case is 6 feet tall field fence. It keeps in about 95% of the flightiest layers.
Raising Chickens with a Chicken Tractor
Basic chicken tractor design
This is generally a small, portable pen about three feet wide and six feet long with no bottom. You keep three to six chickens in it. The reason it is called a tractor is because it is used a bit like a rototiller (I think "chicken tiller" or "chicken plow" would probably have been more accurate). The idea is that you leave this pen in one spot and the chickens will eat all of the vegetation and will scratch for bugs and stuff. In the end, it is lightly tilled and covered in chicken poop - all ready for you to plant your crops!
There are people who do not use a chicken tractor structure this way. They use their chicken tractor structure as tiny salatin-style pen, which I discuss later. This technique is sometimes referred to as a "chicken ark". For this section I am going to refer strictly to the chicken tractor used to eliminate all vegetation. For the "chicken ark" style of use, please refer to the salatin-style pen section.
Another common chicken tractor design
The pictures below are from the Washington State University test fields: the person giving the tour bounced back and forth between calling these chicken tractors or salatin-style "pastured poultry" pens. Although these are definitely bigger than anything I would call a chicken tractor, they are also smaller than anything I would call a salatin-style "pastured poultry" pen. The important thing is the clear demonstration of my concern with a chicken tractor. The first pic shows where the tractor will be put tommorrow
The second pic shows where the tractor was yesterday.
The important part of this pic is to note how much greenery was consumed yesterday. These are about five feet wide and ten feet long. With 35 chickens in each. That, in my opinion, is way too many chickens for such small pens. I think that such small pens should have no more than 15 to 20 birds and should be moved at least twice a day. Salatin recommends that the birds consume about 30% of the vegetation. This looks more like 90% to me.
While the WSU pictures show some of my concerns about raising chickens in chicken tractors, I do have to say that in this picture, WSU has mitigated my primary concern even though you might not be able to tell in the picture. First, the chicken tractor concept is to eliminate ALL vegetation - which clearly is not done in this picture. Second, I happen to know that this is not a normal pasture. This is a test plot. A pasture would contain 10 to 100 plant species - a few of which would be toxic. This test plot contains only clover and rye. Neither of which is toxic to chickens.
While I have seen many cases of chicken tractors eliminating all vegetation from a polyculture, I did not think to take a picture of it. Please don't ever use a "chicken tractor" to remove all vegetation. This may (debatably) be good for your garden, but I think it is a terrible way for raising chickens - as I will explain below. Vegetation Factor: -2 (negative two) - that's right, this can be worse than a factory farm. Consider that in general, 40% of what grows on the ground is probably good for chickens to eat. 30% is slightly toxic and the rest is moderately toxic to very toxic. Since chickens will instinctively eat what is good for them, they start off really great! But once all of the good stuff is gone, then they eat the slightly toxic stuff. And then they are walking the edge between craving greens and the only greens being poison - so they slowly eat the poisonous greens - slowly enough so that they don't die. They might not even show any signs of being ill. But you probably do notice that the last few bits of green seem to last 20 times longer than the first bits of green. Bug factor: 1 to 2 Poop Cleaning Factor: 8 to 10 - there is no bottom, so rather than cleaning poop, you just move the tractor. Poop Hygiene Factor: 1 to 2 - For a while, the chickens are on fresh vegetation. Before moving, nearly all the ground has poop. Sometimes the pen is not moved until there is a solid mat of poop. Work Factor: 1 to 3 Natural Habitat Factor: 1 to 2 Confinement Factor: 1 to 2 Food Cost Factor: 1 to 2
About half the feedback I get on this article is bashing me for bashing chicken tractors.
Raising Chickens Truly Free Range
I have to put the word "truly" in there because factory farms use the phrase "free range" to mean something really stupid. The idea here is that your chickens have 24x7 access to your whole place. On the farm, you probably have no fence and the chickens just don't go too far from the food. In the city, you might have a fenced yard and the chickens just stay in there.
Usually, there's a coop where the chickens go to lay eggs and to roost every night. If so, then you have all of the hassles that come with the coop. If not, then you have all of the hassles that come with finding eggs or finding the chickens when it is time to harvest.
Vegetation Factor: 2 to 10 - How to get a 2 is pretty obvious. To get a 10, you have a rich polyculture that has far more food than the chickens could eat. Bug Factor: 6 to 10 Poop-Cleaning Factor: 0 to 10 - Even if you don't have a coop, there will be poop all over everything where you don't want poop! At first this was "3 to 4" and then I had some people write to me to say that they had terrible problems with poop all over all sorts of things where they didn't want poop and it was far worse than the worst coop! They implored me to discourage folks from raising chickens with a free range approach due to the endless poop everywhere. And then I had people write to me to insist that I should give a value of 10 since they have personally never seen any chicken poop with their free range chickens. I suppose if you had some nearly feral chickens this could happen. So after a bunch of conversations I'm opening it to the full range, but I think the average is gonna be 3. Poop Hygiene Factor: 3 to 10 - Even if you don't have a coop, you will find that the chickens will want to hang out in the same place day after day and make a hygiene issue. Usually right on your porch. They like you. Again, a couple of feral-ish chickens on lots of acres will be what scores a 10 - but this isn't very common. Work Factor: 3 to 10 - Even if you don't have to feed or water them, you still have to clean that poop! Again, I put the number "10" here because of the nearly ferral element. But I really think "3" is the most likely. Natural Habitat Factor: 6 to 10 Confinement Factor: 10 Food Cost Factor: 4 to 10
The chickens are everywhere. Here they are unmulching some fruit trees:
I set a piece of plywood on the porch while I came inside to have lunch. In no time at all, the chickens turned it into a roost and pooped on it:
Reshaping a pear tree. Note that the mulch is now all gone.
Several white rock roosters turned out to think they could take anybody down. Even me. They would attack and attack and attack. Until they took that special trip to the soup pot.
This was a lovely place to sit until it was perpetually covered in chicken poop:
These turkeys found some perfectly good hay and straw to poop on:
The weird thing about this picture is that the turkeys really wanted to spend all of their lives about 20 feet due south from this point, sitting on the porch. A snow shovel and a scoop shovel were kept on the porch and turkey poop was shoveled off twice a day. So gross:
Here is a wonderful upside to raising chickens truly free range - every once in a while, a chicken can hide a clutch of eggs from us and then pops out with some chicks:
Free-range chickens try to eat all of the dog food and cat food. Watch out! Free-range chickens can wipe out your garden. Soils and pastures will do better when given a chance to rest between visits from the chickens. With free range, there is no way to have that rest.
Because of trying this, I now have chicken scratches all over my car: They attempted to roost on the bottom edges of windows, only the window made it hard to do that. So they would desperately try to keep from falling off by using their claws.
If you find an egg in an odd spot, don't eat it - you have no idea how old it is. I would find eggs on my workbench. And chicken poop on my porch, in my shop, on my workbench... it's just everywhere. They even started nesting in the baler.
And when chickens are spread out in the day, it's harder to protect them from predators.
Raising Chickens in Pastured Poultry Pens
A standard salatin-style pastured poultry pen.
Joel Salatin is a brilliant man! His book Pastured Poultry is excellent. In the book, he describes making a pen that is about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. He puts a bunch of chickens inside and then moves the pen one pen length every twelve hours or so. The chickens eat a fair amount of the pasture and bugs and leave behind a bunch of chicken poop. This cuts his feed bill about 20% which adds up to profit!
Vegetation Factor: 1 to 3 - lots of pasture stuff but no trees, shrubs or stuff that doesn't do well in pasture. Because it is such a great system, I want to give a higher number. But I think the very best pastured poultry system might cut the feed bill by 30% - so the highest number I can give is a 3. Bug Factor: 2 to 3 - when the pen is freshly moved, 90% of the bugs in the pen are probably consumed in the first 20 minutes. Then the chickens wait for bugs to happen to pop into the pen. Poop Cleaning Factor: 10 - a perfect score. How could there possibly ever be any poop to clean? Poop Hygiene Factor: 6 to 8 - After six hours, there's a fair amount of fresh poop right where the chickens are standing. Work Factor: 0 to 3 - All the feeding and watering, plus, move that pen twice a day every day. Some folks might do just once a day. And the pens are generally not too terribly close by. Natural Habitat Factor: 2 - lots of excellent sunshine, but a chicken is a forest animal. Confinement Factor: 3 to 4 Food Cost Factor: 2 to 3
I used pastured poultry pens for several years with moderate success. I once heard a fella suggest that rather than move the pens, park an empty pen next to a full pen and then open the doors between the two: the chickens will run into the new pen to get the new grass! It works great! And eliminates the problem of when you drag the pens, the chickens all wanna run away from you so they end up and the opposite end that is dragging - I constantly worry that they will get trapped under the edge that is dragging.
Here is my first design using the "door technique". I used PVC pipe which made it plenty lightweight.
I came up with about five design improvement ideas, but at the end of the first season, it started to break a lot. It turns out that most PVC is not UV resistant. The following season it just crumbled - it turns out the most PVC also hates temperatures of -20.
Having it be very lightweight is important to me. The lighter it is, the easier everything is. I came up with an idea using cattle panels, but they are kinda heavy. And then I got the idea of making them modular. One pen could be made of three "modules" with two ends. When I set up a new pen, I could just lift one "end" between the two pens, the chickens run through and then the front end of the old pen becomes the back end on the new pen.
This worked very well! Except that as the season went on we started to figure out that the time to move the pens was kinda huge. Rather than about 10 to 15 minutes per pen (move the pen, new water and feed) it was about 25 minute per pen (moving the modules and bungee-ing them together). I needed something faster.
One idea was to buy one of those Costco temporary garages and toss out the legs that make it high. I put it on 2x4 skids and dragged it around.
Still too heavy.
Poly pipe is really light. And fairly stiff.
Well, not stiff enough.
1/4 inch steel rod is stiffer. And I won't need much. I welded some together and held the shape with clothesline.
It rusted freaky fast. I ran through a massive collection of ideas about paint (it will come off) and oil and ....
I put the steel rods through the poly pipe. The poly pipe protects the steel rods and the steel rods add rigidity to the poly pipes.
About at this point is when I got the idea for the chicken paddocks. I didn't even finish building this prototype - but I am convinced that if building a portable pen, this design is the best. Exceptionally lightweight. Cheap and easy to build. Should have an excellent lifespan.
Raising Chickens in Paddocks
Ahhhh .... now this is the ultimate solution for raising chickens. At least, it is the best that I'm currently aware of. There are two basic approaches:
Four or more fenced areas. Put the chickens in an area and after 7 to 10 days move to the next area. Each area gets at least 28 days of rest until the chickens return. The more areas you have, they can be smaller and the time spent in an area can be less. If the chickens consume more than 30% of the vegetation, you have too many chickens or too small of a paddock.
Get the same effect with portable fencing.
Paddock shift systems often improve the paddock. Some folks report five times more vegetation when using paddock shift like the one suggested here. This is something that vegans do not consider when designing gardens with no animals. So, imagine your garden without chickens produces less than your garden with chickens where the chickens eat 30%. Joel Salatin calls this system the "egg-mobile" and often has the chickens following cattle in a paddock shift system. The paddock shift system in the following image has some things that concern me—but! It is a paddock shift system.
Vegetation Factor: 2 to 10 Bug Factor: 5 to 10 Poop Cleaning Factor: 9 to 10 - Get a 10 if the micro coop has no bottom. Poop Hygiene Factor: 9 to 10 Work Factor: 4 to 10 - imagine moving the chickens once a week or so. Just open a gate and drag the micro coop to the new paddock. The chickens are anxious to get to the new space. Total time is about a minute. Oh sure, you probably should look in on them every day. But you don't have to. The lower value is for temporary paddocks - they take more times to set up and take down each week. Natural Habitat factor: 6 to 10 Confinement Factor: 9 to 10 Food Cost Factor: 4 to 10
Note that it is possible to have a 10 for every metric.
Each paddock can contain trees, brush and annual plants that provide a plethora of people food as well as chicken food. When the raspberries are on, go into the paddock and pick all the raspberries. Then move the chickens in and they'll find whatever you missed and will eat the lower fruit that comes on during their time there.
A teeny tiny dribble of a creek running through each paddock would be nice - it would save you from having to bring water in.
To help paint a picture .... I've ... well ... painted a crappy picture.
My rendition of a city lot complete with a pretty nice coop and run.
Here is the same lot without the coop and run. Instead there are four temporary paddocks and a portable micro-coop. The chickens spend 7 to 10 days in a paddock. Each area rests from the chickens at least 28 days. Each paddock is loaded with people food and chicken food. When the time comes to move the chickens, set up the new paddock and then create an opening between the two paddocks. Drag the micro-coop to the new paddock and the chickens will run to the fresh forage. Close the new paddock and take down the old paddock.
Here is a picture of using temporary paddocks in a city lot. In this case, this person is using some short fence that is designed to contain dogs. She moves it every few days.
She gave me permission to pass on these words about her system:
What you can see in the pic is the dry/eaten area right in front of the coop. That's where the coop has stayed in one position while the pen is moved several times in different orientations to the pen, so the area right in front of the coop gets a little "worn" which they can use as a shady dust bath area right under their ramp, but *not* cuz they are out of good forage anywhere else. You see the green grass to the left side of the pic where the pen goes now, you can not see the whole pen obviously its bigger. Last time, the pen came straight out front of the coop, you can kind of tell the grass right around the little bowl (for kitchen tidbits) is more eaten than the grass on the left side. That slightly worn grass is as bad as it gets before I move the pen as you seen in the fresh grass on the left. The pen is easy to move, I do it before I let them out in the morning. I *usually* (not always) do the work of locking and letting out due to aggressive urban raccoons. On the rare day when I am forced to leave them in for some weird reason, they eat nearly twice as much food when I refill it as when they are out, so I believe they are getting about 40% of their food from forage.
Raising Chickens: The Grand Summary
style
vegetation
factor
bug
factor
poop cleaning
factor
poop hygiene
factor
work
factor
natural habitat
factor
confinement
factor
food cost
factor
factory farm
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
coop and run done poorly
0
1
0
0
3
2
1
0
coop and run done well
7
3
1
4
6
6
6
3
chicken tractor done poorly
-2
1
8
1
3
1
1
1
chicken tractor done well
-2
2
10
2
1
2
2
2
truly free range done poorly
2
6
0
3
5
6
10
4
truly free range done well
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
pp pens done poorly
1
2
10
6
0
2
3
2
pp pens done well
3
3
10
8
3
2
4
3
pp paddocks done poorly
2
5
9
9
4
6
9
4
pp paddocks done well
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
Further discussion about coops, runs, tractors, pens or paddocks or raising chickens in general in this thread at permies.com.
Predator Control
When I moved onto my first farm, I was told that nobody in the neighborhood was able to be raising chickens because there was such a serious coyote problem. Sure enough, you can hear them howling and yipping every night. But I was dead set on raising chickens. I told the neighbors that I'll just build some super fence to keep the coyotes out. They told me stories of people with all sorts of amazing fences and the coyotes still killed all of the chickens.
Research! I could find lots of people that had some wimpy fence and never had any predator trouble: "Do it like me! You won't have any problems! I promise!" I was tempted, but my gut said that these folks did not have the coyote challenge I faced and if I tried to do what they did, all of my chickens would be killed.
And then I met a woman advocating dogs to protect the chickens. Which struck me as not quite right because not only were coyotes rather dog-like, I've heard of people losing chickens to dogs. This woman had the patience to carefully explain to me that there are certain breeds of dogs that have been bred for thousands of years to protect livestock, including chickens. These dogs would take on a mountain lion to save a chicken. And then the woman told me about how she had built what she was sure was a coyote proof fence only to lose every last chicken to coyotes. And then she got a great Pyrenees dog and never lost a chicken to predators after that.
After hearing from two more people with similar experiences with livestock guardian dogs, I bought a great Pyrenees pup. Liza. Well, she wasn't a pure bred great pyr. She had a little Anatolian shepherd (another livestock guardian dog breed) and a pinch of Saint Bernard.
On patrol with Henry, a mutt. Henry always followed Liza's lead so they made an excellent team.
Liza and Henry were both very people-friendly.
You could hear Liza battle the coyotes nearly every night. First you hear the howling and then about 3/4 of a second later you hear Liza running at full speed. About 12 seconds later you hear the howling replaced by "hyipe! yipe! yipe!" - she's run them off.
She patrolled all night for all predators. And if the chickens make a certain noise during the day, she's right there looking to see if there might be any threat. I have a lot more to say about livestock guardian dogs. But for now, let me just leave it at: if you have acreage, a livestock guardian breed of dog is the way to go. Everything becomes much easier and cheaper.
Predator Control without a Livestock Guardian Dog
If you are not going to use an LGD, then this topic can fill a book. I'm going to only skim the surface of a few of the basics. I'll be happy to explore more details in the forum as people have questions. Maybe some day I'll expand on this topic a bit, but I kinda doubt it since I travel the LGD path.
Before leaving biological control behind, I want to mention the use of llamas, donkeys and attack geese: I've heard lots of stories of success and and equal number of stories of failure. The failure stories make sense to me. The success stories make me wonder if the predator pressure may have been low.
I think it is possible that there are ways to have llamas, donkeys or geese work to protect your chickens and I just don't fully understand it yet. Or maybe these folks have come across animals that just so happen to have a powerful passion to protect chickens, which leaves one to wonder how to duplicate the process. I have heard that for llamas to be effective, you need to have only one llama. Otherwise, the llamas will protect only the llamas and nothing else. If there is only one llama, the llama thinks the chickens are its family and will protect the chickens. There is an excellent book (Livestock Guardians: Using Dogs, Donkeys, and Llamas to Protect Your Herd) that goes into a lot of detail about the finer points of getting llamas and donkeys to work for you. It also covers LGDs quite thoroughly, including all the bits and bobs about breeds. There has also been a fair amount of discussion here.
Let's start simple. Raccoons. Raccoons climb and dig and I have heard that they can break "chicken wire". So they can climb over a fence - or they will even climb a tree to get in and climb a different tree to get out. So a physical barrier alone will be quite the challenge. I suspect that raccoons are the number one reason why folks stop raising chickens.
The most common approach is to close up the coop at night and open the coop again in the morning. Raccoons are mostly nocturnal, and you focus your security effort on the coop. But now you have also added two chores a day that require you to be home on time. And sleeping in in the morning isn't particularly good for the chickens. And forgetting to lock them in at night ... well ... that depends on how often the raccoons test the lock.
I've heard of folks setting up the coop door with a weight or a spring so that if you just pull a small pin, the door will open. And then setting up a wind-up alarm clock that will pull the pin in the morning. All of this so folks can sleep in a bit in the morning. Not a bad idea!
Live traps don't work so good: first, you end up catching animals you don't want to catch. Second, if you catch the raccoon and take it far, far away, you'll find that that raccoon was keeping other raccoons away. So new raccoons come along a little later and you're back to square one.
An electric fence can work very well. You have to make sure that your zapper has a powerful punch. After all, an electric fence is a psychological barrier. When the raccoon encounters it and you don't have a lot of pop, then the raccoon tries to decide if the pain will be worth it - or if it can find a way in without getting shocked. With a big pop, a raccoon thinks DAMMIT! .... RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
Using electric fence on large portable paddocks works really well. You should never use electric fence for a small paddock. It's too stressful for the animals inside the paddock.
Anything that works on a raccoon will also generally work on coyotes, dogs, foxes (canines), cats (all sizes), skunks and opossums. Although the canines are more apt to dig than raccoons.
This cat (walter cronkite) generally eats a bird a day, but has never taken a chicken:
Weasels (which includes minks) will dig a little and climb a little, but what they are really great at is squeezing themselves through a tiny space and then eating the heads off of all of the chickens. One day all will be great, and the next morning you find all of your chickens have no heads. Weasels can also chew through wood a bit.
Rats are a different sort of problem. They will take eggs and chicks, but I have yet to hear of a rat taking down a grown chicken. More on rats and mice here and here. Snakes can pose a similar problem.
Raptors (hawks, eagles, owls, etc.) will take chickens and chicks. Some ravens will take chicks. Lots of shrubs and trees seems to solve nearly all of this during the day. A good coop solves the owl problem at night.
A couple of odd contraptions I have heard about but have never tried, nor have I even heard of anybody trying them.
Motion-detecting water squirt. Apparently, when something crosses its sensor, it will aim water at it and squirt it. I guess this won't work during the winter.
Red-eye thing: I guess you put a bunch of these solar powered contraptions around your property. At night, they have some sort of intermittant red light. This will, supposedly, freak out the predators. They gurantee that it will work. If anybody has any experience with this sort of contraption, please tell us about it in the critter care forum.
Chickens Harvesting Their Own FeedThis is where permaculture really shines.
Imagine an area for the chickens which has en enormous mulberry tree dropping fruit throughout June, July and August. There is a plethora of clover, alfalfa, grains, sunflowers, buckwheat, peas and lentils in the more open areas. Fruit and nut trees are surrounded by Siberian pea shrubs, chickweed, comfrey, dandelion, amaranth, nettles and sunchokes. Maybe some raspberries and blueberries are in the mix too. Assuming it is summer, why would a chicken eat dried up "chicken feed" with this bounty at hand?
When raising chickens on a large scale, you generally raise your meat birds only in the summer. And you harvest your non productive layers in the fall. So most of your chicken feeding efforts are focused in the warmer months when your chicken feed crops can be producing prolifically.
What, specifically, to grow depends on a lot of factors. How much room do you have; how cold does it get; what is your soil like; how much does it rain ....
Some plants produce more food per acre per year than other plants. And some produce food for a just a week and others produce food for six months. The best producers appear to be mulberry trees (lots of fruit dropped constantly over three months) and wheat (when grown with the bonfils method). Sepp Holzer pushes a perennial rye and sunchokes as the core chicken/pig feeds.
I advocate using the chicken paddock method. And along with that, I think that the lion's share of the people food should be grown in those same paddocks. A lot of the stuff we eat is great chicken food! And the chickens clean up anything we drop and anything we leave behind. Less waste.
This is a good time to mention polyculture. All plant eating animals are designed to eat plants from a polyculture. They eat plants, not from rows and rows of the same thing, but from a mix of a dozen or more species. Every plant has special nutrient needs and every plant exudes an excess of nutrients that it mysteriously has superpowers to find/build/whatever. The mycelium in the soil has no leaves and depends on developing a bartering relationship with plants to get sugar. The mycelium offers nutrients. The sugar water from a carrot is loaded with nutrients that the carrot has in excess. The sugar water from an oak tree is loaded with something completely different. The carrot gets a bit of the oak excess and the oak gets a bit of the carrot excess. Because the oak's roots cover a bigger territory, it gets far more diversity than the carrot. And the oak ends up inadvertantly sharing some of that with the carrot.
We have barely scratched the surface of what we know for human nutrition. And we have studied human nutrition ten thousand times more than chicken nutrition. Human nutrition is based on humans eating from a polyculture and eating the meat of animals that consumed from a polyculture. Rather than prending that we know all there is to know and growing things in a harshly organized fashion, I suggest that, instead, we grow things in a diverse polyculture of 50 or more species. I suspect that by doing this, the vegetation will become far richer in nutrients (both known and currently unknown) than if we attempt to infuse the soil with known nutrients. Diversity would include things that make for good chicken feed and things that make for good people feed. Rather than have an area for the chickens and an area for the people food, have one area for both (and many other purposes too).
Since paddock shift systems tend to encourage five times more growth of vegetation, the result should be MORE people food than if chickens were not rotated through the area.
For the winter, a lot of remaining grains and seeds will still be on their stalks. The taller stalks will eventually fall to the level chickens can get it. Winter apples will often stay on the trees deep into the winter. When they fall, they will keep for a long time on the ground. Kale can provide some winter greens. If chickens follow pigs in a rotation, pigs will often pull up sunchokes (and other tubers) and leave scraps for the chickens. Sepp Holzer has observed chickens eating the manures of other animals in winter. His son reports that they will provide feed to chickens only on the dozen coldest days of the year.
We'll be joined in March by Matt Smith, a clean air advocate and leading member of 350.org's New Jersey coalition. He's been making headlines for his work building opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking legislation, and pushing for sustainability and cleaner energy policies. When he moves to Better Farm next month, he'll be launching a vermicompost project that will incorporate community involvement, sustainability initiatives, and lots and lots of worms. Our interns will be playing a big part in getting this operation up and running; and their involvement will educate them so they can initiate similar projects back home after leaving Better Farm. Here are some excerpts from Matt's project outline.
Vermicompost Project Proposal for Better Farm
Mission: Design, construct and operate a scalable vermicomposting system to be located at Better Farm for the following purposes.
Goals:
Develop a low-cost vermicomposting system that is scalable for municipal and commercial use.
Test which combinations of organic materials demonstrate the quickest decomposition times.
Test which combination of organic materials offers the highest composted nutrient yields.
Test which environment(s) including temperature, aeration frequency, moisture content etc. provide the quickest decomposition times.
Develop a low cost, scalable system for converting worm casings (poop) from composting into liquefied organic fertilizer.
Project Scope: Conduct research and field Studies of existing vermicomposting operations in New York State and surrounding areas to identify a system design that meets the project goals. Construct the vermicomposting system (will need project support to complete this step). Acquire Red (Earth) Worms for vermicomposting. Partner with local households, farms, food stores etc. to haul away their organic waste for vermicomposting on Better Farm. Partnerships will be designed to benefit all parties involved, with a dual goal of promoting Better Farm's existing outreach and community engagement efforts. Operate and maintain vermicomposting system on Farm for duration of project.
Additional Information: If the amount of organic soil and or liquefied fertilizer exceeds practical use on the farm, soil and/or fertilizer will be sold. All activities related to the construction of a vermicomposting system, including partnering with individuals and other organizations in the community, will adhere to the mission of Better Farm and principles of the Better Theory.
Neighbor Joey repping late-spring flair from a distance. #northcountryposh
Dragon sunsets.
Happy birthday to these giant babies. 👯♂️
Perfect day.
Earth Day. ✌🏽🌍
Our friend @martasphotoshop has been working on a project snapping photos of people during these wild times, mapping routes out by car and pulling over to capture some stillness against a backdrop of a lot of change. She sent us a bunch of great compositions and happy poses, and this perfect shot of us doing what we’re all doing: hanging on as best we can. ❤️❤️❤️
Roly poly❤️
New favorite Friday night activity: organizing my piano sheet music. Huge ❤️ to Rochelle Mazze and Betsy Maxwell for all those lessons and for pushing me to keep playing. There’s a lot of peace in these pages. Hope everyone is finding time to play and challenge themselves amidst all this chaos.
