Poultry plan

I have to start here. I am too excited about these plans, for a number of reasons. I love birds, and their eggs and meat. Poultry are much less expensive than larger livestock and represent more decentralized value. One way of putting this is that failure with a flock of chickens would seem less dramatic than with cows or goats. Poultry are capable of doing large amounts of farm work which would be tedious or difficult otherwise, namely weeding, picking bugs, composting, fertilizing and more. It is also far easier to have many kinds of poultry than many kinds of sheep. Finally, their products are generally delivered in a saleable form: eggs only need to be collected before they can be sold, and dressing a chicken is relatively quick and straighforward. So let's start with them:

Chickens

I foresee chickens being the centerpiece enterprise on the farm for the immediate future, certainly the first year. It may be hard to gauge the volume of produce from the garden, fruit won't bear for a few years, and herbivore meat and milk is difficult to produce, harder to produce well and far harder to market, as it is fraught with regulations. I want to follow Joel Salatin's model, put forward in his book Pastured Poultry Profit$. Yes, that dollar sign really is in the title of the book. Very briefly, this model puts a number of chickens, more than you think, in a 10'x12' covered, bottomless pen where we provide them with water and feed, not to mention shelter and protection from predators. It looks something like this: This picture is from Amazing Graze Farm. Once they are more than chicks they are kept outside in these pens 24/7. The pens are moved one pen-length per day, to give the birds access to fresh pasture (they need grass and bugs, not just vegetarian feed!) and gives the land a chance to rest after the animal impact, and incorporate the turds into the soil and plants. This is suited well to broiler chicken production, where males are dressed at 8 weeks old. Attached laying boxes may suffice for layers, but as these birds will be older and their breed more suited to foraging I want to figure out a way to let them range a bit more. A dozen or a few hens would fertilize and improve the soil on which they graze while producing enough eggs to have a reliable surplus. I see this as the first thing the farm can plan on selling, as opposed to unplanned vegetable surplus. Eggs also have the marketing advantage of being more standardized and less perishable than produce; worms will not get into them, nor will their skins be scarred or split. Finally the quality of these eggs will be among the most dramatic demonstrations of the superiority of pasture diet and husbandry.

Turkeys



Can be raised in the same pens as the chickens (maybe not at the same time) but take about twice as long to mature. The appeal here is obvious and a dozen or two turkeys would make some sensational gifts for family holiday dinners and a nice holiday bonus income at $2.50 - $6 per pound. They pitch in on pest control as well, leaping "five feet straight in the air to pluck a [tobacco horn]worm off the top of a tobacco plant" They are excellent foragers and can get a far larger percentage of their diet from forage than chickens can.

Geese



Geese are vegetarians and so fit into the equation differently than the rest of these fowl. They are renowned mowers; that may be a good start. It would be fun to be able to not fire up the lawnmower. We'll see. Cotton Patch Geese got their name from their job on the farm: weeding the cotton field. They would studiously avoid the cotton plant and do the same for tobacco. I wonder if they, and the turkeys above, would do the same for tomatoes and other solanaceous or general garden plants. It turns out that these strong, loud, territorial birds are great guard animals for a mixed flock. They are also apparently effective for snake control. An account I read in How to Raise Poultry told of a fellow who had a copperhead problem on his land, but following introduction of geese he didn't see them and his dogs stopped getting bitten. One goose was bitten on the head and it swelled up, but the bird didn't die. The prospect of goose down is also appealing to me. Finally, I think it is high time that the tradition of the Christmas goose enjoy a revival, at least in my house.

Ducks


Khaki Campbell Ducks

Ducks are exciting for a host of other reasons. I anticipate that they will be the real pest control livestock, even if other fowl get plugged into this role. They are often small and agile (not prone to knocking plants over) love bugs and especially snails, and do not scratch the ground as chickens do. When I think of adding ducks to the system, all sorts of neat "accessories" become all but necessary. I want to build a duck house between the house and the Horse Field (Field 1 on the map) which has the vegetable garden now and will continue in this capacity. Next to the duck house site is a sinkhole which is apparently the drainage area for runoff from the house. I see this as the farm's first pond. Lined with tamped clay or an EPMD membrane, with some mosquito fish, duckweed, and water hyacinth (in Oakland. I don't know about in MD), it can become a thriving, clean pond right there for the ducks to clean their nostrils. When we go to work in the garden, we can open up the garden-facing door of the duck house and it will take no time for the ducks to know that this means they get slugs and bugs now. I foresee a relatively pest-free garden. Of course we will still need predatory insects and the rest. Ducks can't do it all.

Hold on now because this is where it gets exciting. Despite frequent rains the sinkhole drains pretty well and would do well to have supplemental runoff. The obvious candidate here is a greywater system. All the plumbing above the foundation is relatively new, and all of it period is on the north-facing wall. only the kitchen sink is on the first floor, meaning that two bathroom sinks, the shower, and clothes washer all come from the second floor. "Squander no fall" is a mantra with greywater systems, and here we have fall to spare, with vertical drainpipes clustered together in an emimently manageable way. Not to mention the fact that there is a site perfect for an outdoor sink (for dirty and big jobs, and extra prep space) as well as an outdoor shower. It's a big house for the one pretty small shower. All of these sources could be directed to this pond and other ponds that we could dig. Some sources would require the filtration of a constructed wetland, which would flow along the grade to the pond basin. Hell, if it was wide enough we could grow rice there.