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Tag: Poultry farming
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How to Put Your Homestead Animals to Work
Are you looking for ways to simplify your homestead processes?
I’m going to share a few ways for how to put your homestead animals to work to help save some precious time.
How many of you are looking for ways to save time on your homestead? I’m raising my hand.
Some days it seems like there are never enough hours. Am I right?
One way that we try to save precious time around our homestead is by striving for a simpler life. But sometimes homesteading doesn’t really feel simple.
There’s always something that needs to be done. We get up early, take care of our family and animals. There seems to be never ending projects, repairs, or routine maintenance.
A sometimes overlooked way to save time is by using your animals as helpers by doing what they were born to do.
And by doing this, not only does it help us, but it also keeps them happy and healthy.
How To Put Your Homestead Animals to Work
Garden Prep
Goats, chickens, and pigs help prep garden areas before planting. Goats help by getting rid of unwanted brush, chickens scratch and help till the ground. Pigs are also great at digging and turning soil.
They Provide Fertilizer
Aka manure. Goats, rabbits, and chickens are great sources of manure for the garden.
Some say that using chicken manure is best because it is very high in nitrogen and also contains a good amount of potassium and phosphorus.
We use a mix of both goat and chicken manure around here. And personally, I prefer using goat manure over most other livestock because it’s almost odorless.
Pest and Insect Control
Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, and pretty much all fowl help keep insects under control.
Guineas are especially helpful if you live in an area with a lot of ticks. We have definitely noticed a decrease in the amount of ticks hanging around here since we added guineas to the homestead.
I just found the first tick of the season on my daughter this morning. And you know one of my first thoughts was… Time to add more guinea fowl!
Compost Help
Using chickens in the compost pile helps to keep it turned, saving that ever so valuable time. Chickens naturally scratch and help break down the grass, leaves, and food scraps into beautiful compost that you can use in your garden!
Zero Waste
Animals love to eat treats from the kitchen! Whenever we have leftovers or scraps of food from the kitchen, I give them to our animals.
Have leftover scrambled eggs from breakfast? Feed them back to the chickens!
Certain foods are better for the ducks, or chickens. And some are better for the goats or the dogs. If you have pigs, they love most leftovers or scraps. Whatever isn’t safe for some of our animals goes to another.
Providing them with kitchen treats, keeps them happy and healthy. And it also helps us cut down on waste.
Lawn Care
Goats, sheep, and donkeys are great at keeping up with the lawn care. While they probably won’t give you a manicured lawn, they definitely save us mowing time over the summer!
Brush and Land Clean-Up
Speaking of yard care, goats are excellent browsers. They love to browse around for their food and in doing so, they clear up unwanted brush, weeds, grass, and even trees.
We put our goats to work to help with our homestead income and allow them to clear up brush at a local ranch.
Predator Control
Many different livestock can help protect each other as well as smaller animals from predators. We have a huge problem with predators in the area where we live.
We can’t free range our chickens and other smaller animals safely unless we have a livestock guardian out there to watch over them. This is what we do instead.
Many people keep a livestock guardian dog. Others use donkeys and llamas. Some work better than others.
Sometimes having a protective rooster or geese with your chickens can help. Our rooster is very protective of his ladies and our ducks are also helpful with keeping the predators away. Having our goats near the chicken coop has helped deter the predators a little for us.
Nothing is full proof though. So it’s always important to make sure we have a variety of options.
Herding
Many breeds of dogs are excellent helpers for rounding up stray cattle, goats, and sheep. We have a very special bred Hanging Tree Cattle dog that is excellent in helping my husband move and round up our goats and cows.
There are tons of different herding dogs that are bred for this job and are easily trained.
Companionship
Aka instant therapy.
Last but definitely not least. And perhaps, one of the most rewarding jobs of all. They provide great companionship and are total mood boosters!
So there you have my top ten ways of putting animals to work on the homestead. It’s all about saving time, working smarter and not harder!
How do you put your animals to work on the homestead?
http://bootsandhooveshomestead.com/animals-to-work/
On – 03 May, 2017 By marywoita
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How to Put Your Homestead Animals to Work
Are you looking for ways to simplify your homestead processes?
I’m going to share a few ways for how to put your homestead animals to work to help save some precious time.
How many of you are looking for ways to save time on your homestead? I’m raising my hand.
Some days it seems like there are never enough hours. Am I right?
One way that we try to save precious time around our homestead is by striving for a simpler life. But sometimes homesteading doesn’t really feel simple.
There’s always something that needs to be done. We get up early, take care of our family and animals. There seems to be never ending projects, repairs, or routine maintenance.
A sometimes overlooked way to save time is by using your animals as helpers by doing what they were born to do.
And by doing this, not only does it help us, but it also keeps them happy and healthy.
How To Put Your Homestead Animals to Work
Garden Prep
Goats, chickens, and pigs help prep garden areas before planting. Goats help by getting rid of unwanted brush, chickens scratch and help till the ground. Pigs are also great at digging and turning soil.
They Provide Fertilizer
Aka manure. Goats, rabbits, and chickens are great sources of manure for the garden.
Some say that using chicken manure is best because it is very high in nitrogen and also contains a good amount of potassium and phosphorus.
We use a mix of both goat and chicken manure around here. And personally, I prefer using goat manure over most other livestock because it’s almost odorless.
Pest and Insect Control
Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, and pretty much all fowl help keep insects under control.
Guineas are especially helpful if you live in an area with a lot of ticks. We have definitely noticed a decrease in the amount of ticks hanging around here since we added guineas to the homestead.
I just found the first tick of the season on my daughter this morning. And you know one of my first thoughts was… Time to add more guinea fowl!
Compost Help
Using chickens in the compost pile helps to keep it turned, saving that ever so valuable time. Chickens naturally scratch and help break down the grass, leaves, and food scraps into beautiful compost that you can use in your garden!
Zero Waste
Animals love to eat treats from the kitchen! Whenever we have leftovers or scraps of food from the kitchen, I give them to our animals.
Have leftover scrambled eggs from breakfast? Feed them back to the chickens!
Certain foods are better for the ducks, or chickens. And some are better for the goats or the dogs. If you have pigs, they love most leftovers or scraps. Whatever isn’t safe for some of our animals goes to another.
Providing them with kitchen treats, keeps them happy and healthy. And it also helps us cut down on waste.
Lawn Care
Goats, sheep, and donkeys are great at keeping up with the lawn care. While they probably won’t give you a manicured lawn, they definitely save us mowing time over the summer!
Brush and Land Clean-Up
Speaking of yard care, goats are excellent browsers. They love to browse around for their food and in doing so, they clear up unwanted brush, weeds, grass, and even trees.
We put our goats to work to help with our homestead income and allow them to clear up brush at a local ranch.
Predator Control
Many different livestock can help protect each other as well as smaller animals from predators. We have a huge problem with predators in the area where we live.
We can’t free range our chickens and other smaller animals safely unless we have a livestock guardian out there to watch over them. This is what we do instead.
Many people keep a livestock guardian dog. Others use donkeys and llamas. Some work better than others.
Sometimes having a protective rooster or geese with your chickens can help. Our rooster is very protective of his ladies and our ducks are also helpful with keeping the predators away. Having our goats near the chicken coop has helped deter the predators a little for us.
Nothing is full proof though. So it’s always important to make sure we have a variety of options.
Herding
Many breeds of dogs are excellent helpers for rounding up stray cattle, goats, and sheep. We have a very special bred Hanging Tree Cattle dog that is excellent in helping my husband move and round up our goats and cows.
There are tons of different herding dogs that are bred for this job and are easily trained.
Companionship
Aka instant therapy.
Last but definitely not least. And perhaps, one of the most rewarding jobs of all. They provide great companionship and are total mood boosters!
So there you have my top ten ways of putting animals to work on the homestead. It’s all about saving time, working smarter and not harder!
How do you put your animals to work on the homestead?
http://bootsandhooveshomestead.com/animals-to-work/
On – 03 May, 2017 By marywoita
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Free Ranging: The Pros & Cons
When I brought my first animals home to the farm there was no question in my mind as to whether they would live the life of free range animals. I wanted my animals to be just as free as I was, free to explore, roam, hunt for food, and live their own life while coexisting with the humans.
The pros of free-ranging outweigh the cons. If you can’t be home to free range the feather and fur babies full-time you can do partial free ranging.
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Rotational Chicken Runs around your Garden to Reduce Feeding Costs
Our number one goal, other than adding a large garden to our new homestead, was to have rotational chicken runs around the garden to reduce feeding costs.
Rotational chicken runs can greatly help to reduce feeding costs because you can let an area rest and grow to have more weeds and bugs. Then when you open up that area to your chickens they have lots of fresh food and you have happier free-ranging chickens! Oh and you get stronger better eggs too ?
When planning rotational chicken runs it’s easier to design the coop close to the garden.
Unless you have a chicken tractor, it’s better to have all your runs close to the chicken coop and have different access ways to reach each run. It also helps to have the runs close to the garden if you want to include that area like we did. You can let them into the garden for any early spring or fall/winter clean up when it’s needed. This is a huge benefit if you accidentally let the weeds in your garden go out of control!
Benefits to permaculture rotational chicken runs around your garden
Permaculture is all about creating working systems that benefit multiple dynamics of your land. Chickens and gardens are a perfect match for permaculture design because chickens can do work for you in exchange for eggs and your garden benefits the fertilizer.
- Reduces feeding costs because they eat lots of bugs & weeds
- Weed control because they scratch up the weeds for you and prevent them from going to seed
- Happier chickens = healthier eggs
- Chicken poop!
- You can get the chickens to compost for you too
How we designed our permaculture rotational chicken runs around the garden
The design below is what we came up with after carefully pondering over where to put our garden and chicken coop. It took us a couple of months to decide! Having moved to this new homestead we still had to observe the sun patterns and winter. We used to live on a mountainside and moving to the open mountain valley has made it WAY hotter with an increased need for shade because there are so few trees. There were a few cherry trees at the back with an old outbuilding to create shade so we decided that would make the perfect main chicken run. The fruit trees also meant they can clean up the fallen fruit & bugs that feed on the old fruit too.
- Chicken run #1 is attached to the chicken coop itself, not only did we want to create shade with a roof, we also wanted the chickens to be able to go outside during our long winters that get lots of snow. This means they’ll have an outdoor area even in the colder months. The pic below is the chicken coop unfinished- we still have cedar shingles to put on plus the other roof on the covered run, I’ll update it when it’s complete.
- Chicken run #2 has a few fruit trees (cherry) that offers a lot of shade and is closest to the coop
- Chicken run #3 is around the side of our garden, sort of like a chicken ‘moat’.
- Chicken run #4 is inside the garden, where they won’t be until we can protect crops or use covered tunnels over the beds in the fall months and they can scratch up the leftover weeds and bugs. Learn more about free-ranging your chickens safely in the garden.
- The goal is to eventually have a permaculture fruit tree guild on the other side of the chicken coop for a potential chicken run #5 too.
Conclusion
Rotational chicken runs around your garden can definitely help to reduce feeding costs and creates a great permaculture chicken garden set up. It’s truly a delight to see our chickens roaming close to the garden.
https://www.familyfoodgarden.com/permaculture-rotational-chicken-runs-around-your-garden/
On – 06 Jul, 2017 By
