Farming Rabbits and Chicken tractors

Rabbits

Ive really appreciated the fact that my Goat and my Rabbits dont need any type of special feed, they will eat what grows naturally and the Rabbits are happy with weeds that would be good only for the compost.

Ive been keeping Rabbits since mid October when my sister and family were over for a week.
Edhan and Eilidh treated me to three, two does and a buck, Morag, Heather and Hamish.

Edhan and Eilidh helping build the roundwood porch

Unfortunatley Hamish, the buck, exploited a leak in my rabbit hutch and Carmela took her chance. I finished him off for Sunday dinner.

Rabbit easier than plucking chickens

I also appreciate how easy and quick it is to prepare Rabbit, much faster than plucking chickens so Ive decided to up my Rabbit production.

In John Seymours excellent book "self sufficiency" he reckons with two does and a buck you can produce up to 90kg of Rabbit per year, fantastic for me and also for the dogs.

On breeding them he says:

"You can leave young Rabbits on the mother for 8 weeks, at which point they are ready to be killed. If you do this you should remove the mother 6 weeks after she has kindled (given birth) and put her to the buck. After she has been served return her to her young. Remove the latter when they are 8 weeks old and the doe will kindle again 17 days after the litter has been removed, gestation being about 30 days."

Buck HQ on right hand side Does and family on left

I have just finished the Buck HQ using recycled materials, an old desk I found rammed down the side of the barn, roundwood cut from my land and bits and bobs of timber. Wood mulch from the river as bedding and a few logs here and there and it looks good.

Recycle, repair and reuse

The buck will have an outside run too but its been too wet to work outside and change the combination of chicken wire that will seperate buck, does and chickens on the outside of the barn.

Outdoor run for all with private access to duplex suites

Tuesday is Viseu market where they sell all the livestock so Mr Rabbit might have to spend the first few days indoors till I get around to rejigging the partitions and giving them all outdoor space.

Carmela demonstrating the new chicken tractor

Chicken Tractor.

I mentioned in my last post that the chickens have been running totally freerange. I saw no point in confining them after the ducks mullered the veg garden and they have been doing a grand job of scratching and cleaning different beds. As spring approaches and im getting ready to plant out, that has to change.

My first chicken tractor, more or less recycled materials

Ive just finished building my first chicken tractor, it can be moved around the land and allow them fresh grazing whilst being secure and water tight at the same time. Im going to use some metal arcs Ive got with a shade netting covering to extend their run, it will also fit to any shape or size of raised bed ive got.

Run can be extended with more metal hoops and shade netting to fit raised bed size

The indoor chicken coop and outside run is still a little up in the air at the moment. I had some meat chickens, naked necks, that Im currently culling and they are around 3 to 4 kg and taste very good so I might go that route again.

6 berth with perch

My friend and chicken aficionado Lynn has put some eggs in her incubator so I could use it for those keeping the best of breed to use in a second chicken tractor and filling the freezer with the rest at 3 months. We will see.

The chicken tractor and egg machine

Related articles

• How to build a chicken tractor: version 2.0 (energybulletin.net)
• Chickens in the Garden: Control Pests and Feed Your Birds at the Same Time (brighthub.com)
• Chicken Manure in the Garden: Mother Earth News excerpts Gene Logsdon's Holy Shit (chelseagreen.com)
• Field Trip: Keeping chickens (life.nationalpost.com)

Senda Verde Planting Diary 2011

Bill Mollison says you shouldnt do anything on your land till youve been on it a full year and as I approach that mark I can understand the reasoning. I feel I understand the land so much better than last year. To participate in the four seasons and to see how the land reacts to each gives a fundamental understanding that no amount of theory can replicate.

Last year was hard core learning, from the extremes of fire and no water to building everything from scratch with just booked based learning. One year does not a Mollison make, but I feel confident in my decisions and excited to be here and doing my thing.

The polytunnel is laid out and I hope to begin the construction over the next couple of weeks. Im waiting for the local metal shop to cut me some short tube that I will concreate in the ground and then big boy meccano starts.

Ive not decided on the final size, the width is fixed but I can space the arches out to a maximum of 3 meters, Ive got 12 arches and enough plastic to do it.


The chickens are running totally freerange at the moment so this shade netting is protecting my bulb onions, chard,and lettuce ive got in 3 raised beds

Jan. 15th
bulb onions, Chard, turnip green and red, salad
Dry terrace. Green pasture, Grellos, Turnip red and green,


My little temporary greenhouse come potting shed has handled the lot, fire, wind, rain and snow and its doing me proud till I get the big one up.



Jan 15th Potting shed greenhouse,
Cauliflower, turnip, green spiral calabrese, purple headed brocoli, lettuce

beetroot, beans, peas, rhubarb, herbs, citrus trees, cork oaks

Jan. 29th. Covered raised bed
Onion valencia, Parsley root Atika, carrots


There is not much topsoil on this little patch of the riverbank, perhaps a foot or so of errosion soil from my main field. I thought I would try an experiment with some carrots as they like well draining sandy soils.

Easy watering with the river just infront but not much topsoil.. we shall see

Jan 29th Riverbank
Carrots, Long de meaux, white green top, early nantes


Feb 5th Greenhouse
Flowers x 4, Herbs x 5, celery, beans x 4, peas x 2, parsnips,

Ive got a sort of half terrace thats on the riverbank, catching the run off errosion from my main flat field. Before the fires it was unworkable, a tangled mass of brambles but with a few hours work I got this little spot into reasonable shape and decided to give a few different vegetables a go. It gets alot of moisture down here so it might not requiere any irrigation but as I spent most of last summers afternoons lazing on the river beach, literally 5 meteres from the spot a waterering can will do the job.

Feb 7th Riverbank
Chard, onion, carrots, sorrel, parsley

My greywater irrigation system with Rye sown

9th Feb greywater terrace
Rye

10th Feb Food forest
Hazel cuttings x 6

14th Feb River bank
Carrots, radish

19th Feb
Garlic 1kg

28th Feb
Planted out brocoli, cauliflour, beetroot, lettuce, sorrel, red cabbage, white cabbage, perrenial cabbage, chard

25kg Mona Lisa Seed potatoes layed out to chit

2nd March

Planted out Milan white turnip, Navet de Nancy,

2nd March Greenhouse. Seeded

Brussel sprouts Sanda, Beetroot, Quiabo Clemson spineless, Minidor dwarf yellow bean, Milan white turnip, Navet de Nancy, Grandpa Admires butterhead lettuce, Autumn giant cauliflower, Purple Autumn Cauliflower, Green headed Brocoli, Sunflowers.

Greywater irrigation system

Recycle and reuse materials

Ive been very grateful for not losing the lot during last years wild fires, you can check out some photos of the fires here.

Drip feeding my greywater to the animal feed terrace

My caravan miraculously survived the blaze and post apocalypse, on analysing the site, I realised that it was my greywater that saved it. The caravan is sited just above a small terrace that the greywater pours onto through a simple black 50 mm irrigation pipe. An apple, a plum and a few vines were all it held, but the fruit trees were high yielding even though I didnt get to taste their delicacies, cremated pre harvest.

Cleaning the prepared bed with chicken tractors

Ive been thinking on how best to process the greywater and maximise this terraces use. Obviously I didnt want to have food crops growing in the greywater but a self irrigating terrace is just too good to waste. Ive decided to use the space to grow animal feed and bedding, thanks go to Josh and Veronica for the donation of a bag of organic Rye seed.

Recycle and reuse are my maxims. With some half burnt 60mm irrigation tube and a 3 meter piece of PVC guttering donated by Tom and Lynn Ive put together a nice drip system that should even out the flow of greywater so the whole terrace gets a better share.

Manuring the bed before seeding Rye

The soil looks in excellent condition and im going to scatter some corn on the turned land over the next few days and let the chickens tractor it through and pick up any weed seeds. Perhaps I can get two grain crops a year from the patch, this first one will Rye, good for animal seed feed and the straw will do for bedding. Ill figure out the next crop when I see the harvest timeline on the Rye.

Related articles

• what are the pros and cons of putting in a greywater recycling system? (greenanswers.com)
• Greywater Collection Systems Conserve Water and Save Money (water-conservation.suite101.com)
• How can I improve my greywater system? (recyclethis.co.uk)
• Greywater Report looks at wastewater's potential (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Running on synchronicity, rice and beans.

Rolling the dust from my last tabacco and savouring the last glass of red from the wine box I felt confident that cold turkey would not be too hard.
Back in November I did 3 weeks of off grid, by that I mean no money, no outside inputs.
Christmas came and I was invited graciously back into the busom of consensus normality which I accepted with appetite. January, so far has been a continuation as Ive slowly drained my funds, glug by glug.



I am a creature of habit and if my 42 years has taught me anything its that changing my environment is much easier than changing my habits. A terrible weakness of spirit I know, but im a product of my environment, a mind controlled drone. Connecting the dots of my life, my personal history, have shown me that if I force myself into strange and alien environments they force me out of strange and alien antilife programming without the whailing of spirit, so in a way I relish the challenge. I wish I was a more balanced person that could do it without the environmental extremes. Balance is what I seek but its atypical to my nature and I know I would not be here today, on the ragged edge, if I had ever achieved balance without the extremis of my life.

An expert in solitude develops the ability to hold interesting debates with onself.
Somedays my mind runs riot like Alex Jones on speed, my head propped on a spade handle or saw half way through a tree trunk, the debate arises like the Mondego river in spate.
The Prussian education system oposed the Trivium and Quadrivium; 911, but thats a short one not worth debating. Is the New World Order a physical blood line or an off planet DNA controlled manifestation aka Ickes philosophy?, or both?. Fractional reserve banking, Freeman on the land, propoganda; am I a mind controlled slave?, DNA, quantum physics. Keylontic DNA upgrading.
The white noise reaches a cresendo, then thankfully its outplayed by the waterfall and bird twitter. Breath deep, study nature, draw up some maharic current, protect and appreciate. Start digging.



My conviction to extract my energy from the parisitic status quo system means off grid and no money, with my definition being: permaculture lead self sufficiency. How the future will pan out I dont know, Im not a fortune teller. The system is coming down and with it what most take for granted, thats not conjecture but well documented fact. Visit transition towns or the oil drum web sites and you will get consensual reality and collapse in equal measures. It all seems rather doom and gloom unless you look at the expansion of consciousness which is the road I arrived from.

After a triple heart attack and 10 day coma in 2006, my Near Death Experience (NDE) slowly started to permeate my being at about the same rate as my physical recovery to full health. A full and very powerful kundalini awakening happened in 2008 and repeated connections with the gnostic galactic internet, as I call it, from then till now has opened me up to the limitless possibilities of consciousness and the human condition.

As I fully connect to my dharma; doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way for the right reason, vibrating in positive and loving energy with harmony in nature, in a state of statelessness and moneylessness, Im relying on syncronicity and the gnostic connection, and if thats no good, theres always rice and beans.

If you feel a connection to project Senda Verde and would like to volunteer, contribute, learn or just spend some time on the farm please leave a comment on the blog with your email.

Ducks, Rape and Cabbage.

Day old ducks are cute.
They spent their first 6 weeks in relative obscurity in the chichen run, captured by a sun drying screen propped against the chicken keep wall, keeping them and their special food from the grabbing ckickens. I visited once or twice a day. Water change and food top up.


Week 6, solid birds, big beaks, varacious appetites.

The palacial duck palace finished, they moved.
A home of round wood construction, pine plank flooring, watertight iron roof, an impressive split level ramp good for small gauge wheel chair access. A stream of water from the the laid played melodies on the flow form as it replenished the pond that dominated their environs. No better in duckism was seen.

Week 9.

Big birds, big beaks, varacious appetites, big shitters.
Just 6 of them convinced me with their never ending quacking and the two rivers just a lob away that they should range free, free as a bird, free as a duck. Off they went. For a week it was as shephard and flock, a handfull of grain and they came, with a terminator like destructon through the veg garden. Chickens peck, Ducks muller, no way back for a cabbage.

Week 10
My shepharding abilities seemed demeaned, a handful of grain or two? who you kidding. 3.30 pm I saw them last, happily mullering another raised bed then no more.
Downriver they went never to be seen again.
Its a real hungry gap this year.

Related articles

• How Much Room Do You Need to Raise Free Range Chickens? (brighthub.com)

Property for sale in Ribamondego Quinta Pimpao, close to Gouveia.

1.1 hectares with very good access and electricity near by.

Recently dug 125 meter bore hole providing year round fresh water and great views of the Estrellas and down into the Mondego valley.

Quinta Pimpao, Ribamondego, close to Gouveia.

Various trees including mature pines and cork oaks with good flat areas for cultivating. The quinta would make an ideal on or off grid property with heaps of solar and wind potential.

There is a small 40 sqM ruin with a unique and huge rock making up one of the walls, the granite stonework is sound but the roof needs new timbers.



The land has planning permission to develop a home with a footprint of up to 200 sqM in addition to the ruin.



The property is 1km from the village of Ribamondego, a smal friendly and helpful community and only 5 mins from the train station in Gouveia which links to Coimbra and the rest of Portugal.



The property is also for sale with Belaserra, a local trustworthy estate agent in Seia, go to belaserra.com for more pictures. However if you would like to contact the owners directly you can email them at notbob33@hotmail.co.uk
This is a great opportunity to deal direct with the owners, no hassle or complications. The owners, an English couple, live nearby and will make sure the sale is smooth and hassle free.

Related articles

• Portuguese wines (winebookclub.org)

Crystal at 7 weeks, Itsy at 4 months

Crystal is about 7 weeks old now, how time flies.

She is a beautiful puppy and going to make a fantastic farm dog.

She and Itsy the kitten have bonded and play for hours daily.