Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Foler · Feb 5, 2023

lurkingdirk said:
15. It's plenty big enough, and for a few months I have 45 eggs a day. The chickens I have lay reliably for about 2 years. After that, they make good soup.

Just ordered some silkies to be delivered in October. I dare not make my ornamental chickens soup. Will have like 4-6 solid egg layers tho.

Locnar · Feb 5, 2023

Foler said:
Not super hard to manage a food forest once it gets off the ground running in 3-6 years. You’d be surprised how many people you can feed with some fruit trees. Add a greenhouse and aquaponics and it increases significantly.

It’s how far should be done. Not monocropping.. Monocropping is for globohomo mega corps and people who don’t know how to produce food.

If you are serious, the trees that I planted years ago that i've been happy with that are least maintence and drop the most fruit are White Sapote, Star Fruit and black Mulberry. Peaches? Take too much maintence for me.

Foler · Feb 5, 2023

Locnar said:
If you are serious, the trees that I planted years ago that i've been happy with that are least maintence and drop the most fruit are White Sapote, Star Fruit and black Mulberry. Peaches? Take too much maintence for me.

I’m at about 35-40 different kinds of fruit trees/shrubs. Some are same fruit different variety.

Actually all 3 of my peach trees are blooming. One has tiny peaches. All are low chill hour Florida varieties 100-200 hours.. No sapote yet.. Have a Kari carambola that will go in the ground in 2 months or so. Have dwarf everbearing mulberries, a Pakistan mulberry and just got a Thai dwarf mulberry that I’m propagating. The Thai is taking off like crazy.

Foler · Feb 5, 2023

Locnar said:
If you are serious, the trees that I planted years ago that i've been happy with that are least maintence and drop the most fruit are White Sapote, Star Fruit and black Mulberry. Peaches? Take too much maintence for me.

What USDA zone are you in and state?

Locnar · Feb 5, 2023

Foler said:
What USDA zone are you in and state?

orange county FL

Foler · Feb 5, 2023

Locnar said:
orange county FL

9B. If you wanna try peaches do Florida prince, tropic beauty or tropic snow. All are low chill hour varieties. 9b central Florida is a good zone/area to be in - you can get away with lots of low chill hour varieties of peaches, persimmons, pears, etc.. Also like a million varieties of cold hardy avocado . Currently have 3 myself.

You can get away with some more sensitive fruits like mangos, papayas etc if you find/create the right microclimates and also find the hardiest varieties. Currently have a pem seng mum, Julie and manachanok.

Bananas are great if you don’t mind them looking like shit after a freeze. They’ll come back no problem. Make a banana circle and pipe all your grey water into it. Throw some sweet potato slips, taro, and pigeon peas in the mix. Max yields

Kharzette · Feb 5, 2023

Locnar said:
I have chicks in the house now because they are little and of course contained in a pen in a spare room, and even with them I can't wait until soon I place them in a outside pen. You are crazy for bringing in that subadult.

In the house!? I'm terrified of mites and chickens often have the worst kind. The kind that can hibernate for years, lay 300 eggs each and 90% of the hatched are female.

Locnar · Feb 5, 2023

Kharzette said:
In the house!? I'm terrified of mites and chickens often have the worst kind. The kind that can hibernate for years, lay 300 eggs each and 90% of the hatched are female.

Emus.. and only a few at a time for their first couple weeks of life, then they go out.

BrutulTM · Feb 5, 2023

Kharzette said:
In the house!? I'm terrified of mites and chickens often have the worst kind. The kind that can hibernate for years, lay 300 eggs each and 90% of the hatched are female.

Our chickens got mites once when I was a kid. Little black specks everywhere crawling on the nests, roosts, etc. Definitely made your skin crawl when you came out of there.

Sludig · Feb 5, 2023

Locnar said:
Oh boy. Just know that way more than Donkeys are attracted to oil/protien rich emu feathers. Goats and even geese will eat them and probably everything else too. I don't mix my birds with other animals in one big pack, animals tend to turn on each other when you least expect it. I had a donkey once too.. until she started killing baby goats. A friend had her emus stomp her lambs to death. List goes on. so Beware.

I have chicks in the house now because they are little and of course contained in a pen in a spare room, and even with them I can't wait until soon I place them in a outside pen. You are crazy for bringing in that subadult.

Ya, lasted as short as a time as I could manage, quickly was apparent the issues. If it was all nice solid softball poo's maybe...

We were almost thinking for aminute the donkey didn't do it, as maybe it's a molt but she seems to pull out a decent amount of her own feathers, at least with parrots they can go a bit crazy and pluck awayl. While she's been grooming, she's picked up at her one scab a little bit. Got a fair number of feathers coming up already, had her out in the pen today rather than cooped up and she was running around like crazy for a while. Got her first time with a giant kiddy pool. So hoping we can finally get past the cold and she can stay out in spring temps.

Not sure how cold she can handle with the bare rump, while she somewhat tolerated my old coat, the lightweight horse blanket she was running from pretty much immediately.

Burns · Feb 6, 2023

Sludig said:
Ya, lasted as short as a time as I could manage, quickly was apparent the issues. If it was all nice solid softball poo's maybe...

We were almost thinking for aminute the donkey didn't do it, as maybe it's a molt but she seems to pull out a decent amount of her own feathers, at least with parrots they can go a bit crazy and pluck awayl. While she's been grooming, she's picked up at her one scab a little bit. Got a fair number of feathers coming up already, had her out in the pen today rather than cooped up and she was running around like crazy for a while. Got her first time with a giant kiddy pool. So hoping we can finally get past the cold and she can stay out in spring temps.

Not sure how cold she can handle with the bare rump, while she somewhat tolerated my old coat, the lightweight horse blanket she was running from pretty much immediately.

You may have already mentioned this, but do you have an enclosed pen/barn for them? I vaguely remember, from when I was a kid, some of the farms (horses mostly) I visited would have heat lamps running in each pin if it got too cold for the (young/smaller?) animals. I think they had them up high, with a metal shroud/flange over them, to keep the animal from bumping them, and any flammable material away from the bulb. I was in grade school at the time though, so I could be misremembering.

Foler · Feb 6, 2023

Wow. Don’t they make mite treatment for chickens? Like flea treatment for dogs? Surely there’s a chicken vet?!

Sludig · Feb 6, 2023

Burns said:
You may have already mentioned this, but do you have an enclosed pen/barn for them? I vaguely remember, from when I was a kid, some of the farms (horses mostly) I visited would have heat lamps running in each pin if it got too cold for the (young/smaller?) animals. I think they had them up high, with a metal shroud/flange over them, to keep the animal from bumping them, and any flammable material away from the bulb. I was in grade school at the time though, so I could be misremembering.

A lot of the ones I've seen I believe are intended for them to huddle near, but not enough to keep a room of any size warmer hardly, maybe would do trick of keeping it near 32f. She's got a 4x6 room and I built a mini fence around the slave heaters. On 20f nights the 2 heaters where only managing to keep that tin shack at 45f after I sealed up all the major draft points.

40s was fine at least with the coat, wish I knew if she'd handle closer to 32 ok or not. Weather's much nicer now which I hope it holds but have a before freezing day predicted a week out.

Kharzette · Feb 6, 2023

Foler said:
Wow. Don’t they make mite treatment for chickens? Like flea treatment for dogs? Surely there’s a chicken vet?!

It depends alot on the species. All birds have mites (just like all humans have mites) but some are worse than others.

The ones that got bad among chickens have been sprayed so much over the years that they are immune to most stuff. Those are like evolution sped up 1000x because they mutate like crazy. Females don't even need fertilization. If there are no males around the eggs are just a clone of the mom, but with more dna copying errors.

Back when I was dealing with them there were 4 chems that would kill them. Bifenthrin (which was banned), Conquer, beta cy, and and and... something else I can't remember.

There's probably some newer stuff that works though.

Insect mites can get even crazier. Like some species are born pregnant. Very lovecraftian.

Foler · Feb 6, 2023

So my first order that I could get soonest from Meyers comes in March. It’s a golden laced polish, blue Cochin, and dark Brahma. Any other chicken-bros rocking these breeds?

Saw a golden laced Polish a few weeks ago and knew I had to have one…

lurkingdirk what are your go-to egg laying breeds? I need to snag a couple. Wish I could do what you’re doing with multiple coop/run and harvesting broilers.. One step at a time I guess.

Foler · Feb 6, 2023

Locnar said:
Emus.. and only a few at a time for their first couple weeks of life, then they go out.

Why emus out of curiousity?

Foler · Feb 6, 2023

Is no one else in here growing fruit trees or doing any sort of permaculture/food forestry/regenerative farming?

Blazin you monocrop don’t you? Who else is a monocropper?

BrutulTM · Feb 6, 2023

Foler said:
Wow. Don’t they make mite treatment for chickens? Like flea treatment for dogs? Surely there’s a chicken vet?!

I was about 6 years old at the time. Don't remember any particulars, just how I felt looking at all those bugs.

Foler said:
any sort of permaculture/food forestry/regenerative farming?

I have replaced most of my alfalfa hay ground with a 3 grass/3 legume mixture and I will get it all done eventually. I'm also working on implementing regenerative grazing but we need a lot of infrastructure to put it in place. I have done a fair amount of cross fencing of pastures but I'm scheduled to put in 4 new wells and about 13 miles of water pipeline and another 13 miles of permanent fence which can be connected to temporary electric fence to further chop up the property. I'm also burying 4 train car oil tanks on high ridges to have 30,000 gallons of water in reserve in case a well breaks down. We also chose to do all the work ourselves which might be a bad idea but we have gotten pretty fast at putting in barbed wire fence and we're getting better at the pipeline. I'm going to build a trailer this winter to unroll 2000 foot rolls of 2" black poly pipe which should make things go quite a bit faster.

Sludig · Feb 6, 2023

Almost wondering if Emu plucked herself though it would have been rather rapid. She's just grooming the area excessively, picked up her 1-2 scabs a bit and looks like may be leaving mini bruises on the skin from trying to strain the feathers that arn't there. And seeing a few fly off here and there. Does have a good dozen of new ones sprouted and coming in, so not sure if itchy from new growth or just her worrying it, or possibly mites or something driving her crazy though I don't think I've seen any real sign. Need to look at some kind of poultry drench perhaps.

Foler · Feb 6, 2023

BrutulTM said:
I was about 6 years old at the time. Don't remember any particulars, just how I felt looking at all those bugs.

I have replaced most of my alfalfa hay ground with a 3 grass/3 legume mixture and I will get it all done eventually. I'm also working on implementing regenerative grazing but we need a lot of infrastructure to put it in place. I have done a fair amount of cross fencing of pastures but I'm scheduled to put in 4 new wells and about 13 miles of water pipeline and another 13 miles of permanent fence which can be connected to temporary electric fence to further chop up the property. I'm also burying 4 train car oil tanks on high ridges to have 30,000 gallons of water in reserve in case a well breaks down. We also chose to do all the work ourselves which might be a bad idea but we have gotten pretty fast at putting in barbed wire fence and we're getting better at the pipeline. I'm going to build a trailer this winter to unroll 2000 foot rolls of 2" black poly pipe which should make things go quite a bit faster.

Nice. Legume mixture is way to go. Nitrogen fixing. Will really help enhance that soil

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Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

The_Black_Log Foler

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Locnar

The_Black_Log Foler

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The_Black_Log Foler

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Locnar

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Kharzette

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Locnar

BrutulTM

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Sludig

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Burns

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The_Black_Log Foler

PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals

Sludig

Potato del Grande

Kharzette

Watcher of Overs

The_Black_Log Foler

PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals

The_Black_Log Foler

PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals

The_Black_Log Foler

PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.

Sludig

Potato del Grande

The_Black_Log Foler

PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals