Economic relevance - episode 4

[Turning an economically irrelevant gross farm income of $5,913 into $250,000 on a small farm just outside Melbourne]

Permaculture has several design principles that are aimed at multiple sources of output from the same piece of land.  It talks about polycultures, about stack

ing and layering, and permaculture guilds.  

There is certainly no way we can achieve our income objective without applying such techniques.  

Episode 4 is going to be about a type of livestock that I'm hoping is almost completely complementary to our cattle and sheep.  By complementary I mean that it will add output - without detracting from the capacity to produce other outputs.

My Granny always had chooks - and not the 20 or 30 that my Mum kept.  Granny had hundreds and she was very fond of them.  When I think about it, my Aunty Marg also had chooks - because I can remember collecting eggs and cleaning them for her while she was away on holiday.

However, the model we're going to work to at Moora comes from much further away - in the US.  Joel Salatin, who featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma, pastures poultry in a kind of symbiosis with his cattle.  

The cattle graze grass first - followed several days later by the laying hens - who appreciate the shorter grass and also demolish the cowpats to get at fly larvae that emerge after a few days.  Breaking up cowpats is a function that fussy farmers sometimes perform with a set of paddock harrows.  I've done it with a 4 wheel motorbike towing an old gate.  The result indeed looks tidy - but the grass also seems to 'take off' compared to the untreated paddock.

I've not actually seen maggots in cowpats, but I guess they have to be there.  Certainly we get more than enough flies in summer - and more near the cattle - and they have to come from somewhere.

So I'm thinking of building one (and then 2) mobile hen houses that will follow the cows around.  The chooks will be protected from foxes and dogs by an electric netting fence.  Salatin says that the grass they eat is more than compensated by their 'processing' of the cattle residue - and the addition of their own nitrogen rich manure.

While we were in the US at son David's graduation we stayed at a little B&B near Marietta, Ohio.  They had a Salatin type chicken tractor.  It's not what we'll build, but it's pretty - and reminds me of a good stay with Mike and Jackie.  When I think about it, Jackie was actually the first person to mention Salatin to me.  If you're ever in Little Hocking, Ohio and need a good place to stay .....

In the winter we will need to take them off the paddocks for a few months.  I'm thinking we'll winter them in a poly tunnel that we will use for growing hot house crops in the spring.

Let's say we work up to 2 flocks of 120 hens each.  Let's say they can produce 285 saleable eggs pa.  That is 5,700 dozen eggs.  At $5 / dozen that is $28,500.  

They only lay at that rate for a year - so we'll also have 240 birds a year to sell at next to nothing - or ... Joel Salatin suggests home killing and selling the cooked meat in some ready to eat form.  There is a bit of investigation to be done into this idea, but lets assume we can.  That might add another $1,500 - which is quite close to next to nothing ...

However, it adds up to another 5 squares to the cause.  

It's worth noting that this again assumes selling directly to consumers.  Selling into the industrial system would produce, I suspect, less than a third as much.  5,700 dozen is a somewhat intimidating number to have to move, but clearly necessary if we're to get to our goal.