A Complete Guide to Using Slugs as a Resource with Indian Runner Ducks
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Insects, Working Animals — by Catherine Griggs February 5, 2013
This article is for all those people out there who are under regular attack from the cursed slug. If you live in Great Britain or North Wales like I do, you know all to well about these little beasts. 2012 was a year of slug plagues for most gardeners in the UK due to the wet and humid weather which provided ideal breeding conditions. And with climate change these wet, humid summers are not likely to go away, so it’s best to get prepared.
Slug plagues are of course a symptom of an unbalanced ecosystem in that their natural predators and parasites are not abundant enough to balance the slug population. A balanced ecosystem takes time to establish so slugs can be a big problem in newly created permaculture gardens, especially when mulch is used. I would like to tell you about the fastest most entertaining and resourceful way of getting rid of your slugs.
Comments (10)Integrating Livestock in the Food Forest
Animal Forage, Bird Life, Breeds, Food Forests, Insects, Livestock, Plant Systems, Working Animals — by Eric Toensmeier January 24, 2013
Cattle grazing under alder in silvopasture system
at Las Canadas, Huatusco, Mexico
Integrating livestock seems to be the best way to have a larger-scale food forest (anything over one hectare or a couple of acres). If done properly, livestock integration can greatly reduce labor and fossil fuel needs. It can create the conditions for happy and healthy livestock. Done poorly, it can ruin soils and destroy crops. Here are a few things that I’ve been learning as I travel around and view this aspect of permaculture in action (plus some important tidbits from reading).
Comments (30)VEG Design Solutions, Part One: the Chicken/Fox Filter
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Building, Fencing, Livestock, Urban Projects, Working Animals — by Dan Palmer June 21, 2012
by Dan Palmer, Very Edible Gardens
When designing edible gardens, a site-specific problem will often crop up. One of the most enjoyable aspects of permaculture design for us is devising site-specific solutions to those problems. In this short series we give four examples, all bona fide VEG originals, with a new one each month for the next four months.
Part One – the Chook/Fox Filter
The Site-Specific Design Problem
In 2005 Dan from VEG lived in a Melbourne sharehouse with abundant veggie gardens, a woodrow-style chook tractor and several chooks, as shown below. Another chook tractor is shown in the next photo to give a better idea of what the thing looked like — a lightweight moveable bottomless chook pen.
Animal Systems at HEPA, Vietnam
Aid Projects, Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Fencing, Fish, Livestock, Working Animals — by Marty Miller-Crispe May 19, 2011
At SPERI’s Human Ecology Project Area we have a number of Farmer Field Schools (HEPA FFS) which are host to students from a variety of indigenous minority groups from Vietnam and Laos. The students are here to learn about eco-farming and permaculture whilst respecting traditional laws and customs.
The main focus of the farms isn’t to be productive, but rather to provide an environment where the students can experiment with various farming methods of growing crops and raising animals. So, although we do obtain a yield from the farms, the greater yield is the knowledge the students gain from trial and error.
HEPA FFS is in lush rainforest near the Laos border south-west of Ha Noi. The weather here varies from very cold winters (no snow but feels like it could!), to hot dry summers toasted with hot winds from Laos, and moving into cold monsoons and flooding at other times of the year. As such it is a challenge for the students to obtain a yield from the crops year round, and even more of a challenge to keep healthy animals.
Comments (7)Ecofilms 2011 – What Are We Working On?
Animal Forage, Animal Housing, Animal Processing, Aquaculture, Bird Life, Breeds, Courses/Workshops, DVDs/Books, Developments, Fish, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Livestock, Plant Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Ecofilms January 2, 2011
We’re planning a number of exciting new titles to be released in 2011.
Urban Permaculture DVD
One of the complaints we often get from people living in the city is that we focus a little heavily on Permaculture titles that require a large scale farm to get the most benefit from practicing Permaculture.
So we are happy to announce that in 2011 we will be working on the Urban Permaculture DVD with Geoff Lawton.
Actually, we really started shooting a lot of footage already that we were going to include in the Permaculture Soils DVD that we completed, but for various logistic reasons we found the segments would work best in a video that focuses in detail on adopting Permaculture techniques in small scale domestic environments instead.
From courtyards to backyards to places where you thought you could never do anything with, we want to make this DVD a Permaculture techniques DVD where people can be inspired by what is really possible.
Here’s an example of the kind of thing we mean. It’s a sneak preview of Geoff Lawton visiting a beautiful Mandala garden in an urban permaculture garden. It shows permaculture can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a richness of patterns as well as a productive food source:
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How to Make a Home Made Chicken Feeder
Bird Life, Breeds, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Jesse Lemieux October 15, 2010
Editor’s Note: There are still some places left on Jesse’s PDC course at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm in NSW, Australia. Book now!
by Jesse Lemieux
Last Thursday afternoon, at approximately 4:00pm Tanya asked me, “What about the chickens?”
“Oops I hadn’t thought about that.”
Recently, we got our hands on three Chantecler pullets. The Chantecler is a true blue Canadian breed developed in Quebec by Brother Wilfred Chantelain. Bred for cold hardiness these birds are a medium to heavy breed. You will notice in the picture of our three beauties almost a complete absence of comb and wattle. The comb and wattle help chickens regulate body temperature, so it stands to reason that a cold hardy bird wouldn’t have them. Their attributes make them a perfect candidate for the chicken tractor here in our cool climate in Canada.
We picked up the Chantecler pullets about three weeks ago and put them to work in a chicken tractor on the post harvest potato bed. They will give it a good scratching and scoop up the weed seeds and any pest larva that thought it a good place to settle down. When they are finished we will give the whole patch a thick mulch of sea weed and seed it up with a legume cover crop, likely winter field peas.
So why were the chickens a concern at 4:00 pm yesterday afternoon?
Comments (4)How to Make an Egg Mobile
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Building, Land, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Geoff Lawton September 3, 2010
So, we wanted to make an egg mobile for egg laying chickens to follow behind our dairy cows and fertilise the pasture while scratching the manure that the cows leave behind. The chickens also leave behind their own manure whilst free ranging across pasture. This technique allows the chickens to supplement their diet and produce some good eggs for us to enjoy.
So, first we started off with a 6 by 4 foot derelict old car trailer. Here is the trailer in our workshop with our current internship students learning how to do some metal recycling work to create a good solid egg mobile. This egg mobile is of minimal size to work on a small farm.
Comments (10)Life at Zaytuna – Part I
Bird Life, Breeds, Community Projects, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor June 14, 2009
Profuse apologies for the lack of posts over the last week. I’ve been organising and actioning travel to PRI’s headquarters – Zaytuna Farm in northern NSW – from where I live in Europe. Now that I’m here, I hope to give you better insights into the life and developments on the farm and with the training centre that makes its home here.
Zaytuna’s straw bale buildings at sun-up
Yesterday I felt like the walking dead, after 45 hours of travel from door to farm. As such, I went out like a light in the very early evening. My otherwise deep sleep was broken intermittently by sounds I’m not accustomed to hearing, like Blue (an Australian stumpy tailed cattle dog) keeping our farm animals and crops safe by chasing off foxes and/or kangaroos; kookaburras – the ‘laughing jackass’ – were seemingly mocking me as I tried to slumber, as were various other frogs, insects and birds that work the night shift in this neck of the woods. I’m sure I’ll soon be attuned to them, and won’t hear them at all after a while.
Comments (6)Each Step is the Way – Part II
Bird Life, Breeds, Dams, Demonstration Sites, Fish, Land, Swales, Water Harvesting — by David Perkins May 10, 2009
[Editor's Note: If you are involved in a project, anywhere, that is rooted in sustainability (i.e. that is aimed at sustainably meeting the needs of people, place and planet), then we always welcome written pieces, with photos, so you can tell the world about it - and inspire people to follow your lead. David's post below is an example of the same. To contribute or to bounce a post idea off me, you can contact me on editor (at) permaculturenews.org]
Recent developments at Kailash-Akhara, Adi Yoga Retreat Center, Phu Rua, Loei, Thailand.
By David Perkins (Dharmadeva) – Farm Manager and resident permaculture designer and educator at Kailash-Akhara.
Ducks
Our duck population has exploded from 4 to 22. We have been keeping Muscovy ducks (1 male and 3 females) since December, and their reputation for prolific breeding has proven to be true! After we noticed some ducklings were dying shortly after hatching, we found that well-timed human intervention was necessary to reduce suffocation or trampling in the nest. This resulted in 18 survivors, who have been a delight to watch this month. The adults keep laying, so we now need to eat more fresh eggs to keep the size of the flock manageable, while looking forward to some home-grown meat in due course.
The One Duck Revolution
Animal Forage, Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Food Plants - Annual, Plant Systems, Working Animals — by Bill Mollison March 7, 2009
PIJ #58, Mar – May 1996
 Aigamo ducks in rice paddy |
Mr. Takao Furuno’s modest business card reveals that he is a farmer in a world where “one duck creates boundless treasure”.
He farms rice very successfully in Japan and is a private aid volunteer, working in Vietnam when I met him. He had a message for all rice farmers, perhaps all wet paddy farmers, and gave me his book (all in Japanese) on the duck-rice paddy design he has perfected. Luckily I also have a condensed translation.
Comments (12)Permaculture Pooch
Bird Life, Breeds, Livestock, Working Animals — by Alanna Moore November 3, 2008
Alanna Moore is the author of ‘Backyard Poultry – Naturally‘ – where you can read more about Vikki and poultry care, including a permaculture approach to keeping them.
You don’t often hear about the positives of dog ownership, in a permaculture sense. My Jack Russell terrier Vikki is a permaculture farm dog, who works for her keep – a real ‘WOOFer’. Not only does she provide a 24 hour fox warning system, but she also uses special skills with the rare poultry I keep.
Vikki can catch a chook on the run. One mention of "catch the birdie" and she flies off in hot pursuit, to finally land on top of the target bird and hold it firmly (but unharmed) underneath her until I arrive on the scene. Other Jack Russel owners can’t believe it’s true. One guy lost 57 chickens to his dog in three minutes! Vikki’s dad happens to be a chook killer too.
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