permaculture

[Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>]

At 08:10 AM 8/5/00 -0300, you wrote:
> Thank you
> Arina, for the iinformation.
>  
> In fact, I am not thinking of chicken
> tractor situations a such, but an agroforest situation integrated with
> annual crops , but  aiming at more comfort and space than I
> understand a chicken tractor to have...Maybe I am still aiming too
> low.
>  
> The  limiting factor here is
> fencing, which is very expensive...I have not yet found a way to fence in
> chickens in a really effective way, although we have some native
> bromelias in view which may be  reliable for this.

How about bamboo? We built some round chicken "baskets" in
California using new shoots, so the tractor looks more like a semi-sphere
and is suitable for maybe 5-6 chickens, but easy to move and place
between trees/shrubs etc. Bamboo grows in Brazil, right? A snake still
may get through, I don't know if this is a problem.

>  
> I have seen such systems where the
> chickens have plenty of habitats because of the agroforest situation, and
> where there  is an abundance of earthworms ( which is the main
> motive here, to eliminate the cost of purchased  feed, growing corn
> locally) in a rotational system.  What I am trying to do now
> is  increase the scale of such successful small-scale systems , to
> make them commercial instead of the horrors  of commercial egg
> systems we see today.  Even the commercial "organic"
> systems only offer bits of grass to them here- we are proposing to create
> systems rich enough in variety that the chicken can fulfill most of its
> needs, with the exception of some grain...
>  

This can be an interesting new discussion - corn versus other grains for
poultry. I am curios to find out more about such native to Americas
grains  as Amaranth and Quinoa (both self reseeding, easy to grow,
easy to harvest, probably less of a heavy feeder that corn, and so far -
no GM pollen in the air to pollute them). Does any one know if these
grains has been used as primary or secondary feed? Sunflowers - heavy
feeder, but also self reseeding and pollinator magnet - another option.
What grains you have in Brazil that may be a potential forage crop?
I raise all my chicks now on millet and sunflower with supplement of
comfrey ( must be a really happy plant in Brazil). I read somewhere that
comfrey contains something like 60-70% compete protein.

> If you read my post
> a bit more carefully, what I am proposing is a total area of 17 ( 8 pens
> of 2 meters, and one central pen of 1 meter) square meters per head,
> which I consider to be quite generous.  
>  

It does sound to be a Cadillac of a chicken pen!

> We have to be
> practical with what these systems cost, as I am proposing this to farmers
> who today have poorly-managed freerange flocks who lay eggs God knows
> where, dry up the land by excessive scratching, and are  very
> subject to predators due to lack of protection, which would be provided
> by the fencing, in the case of the main predator
> here...

If you give to your chickens a toy egg (plastic or stone),
supposedly they will lay next to it. Dried up soil from scratching is our
problem too, so now we do not let chicken free in the spring, when
everything is germinating or budding up. I use thick branches to keep
root zones of new trees protected, and pile them up over mulch around the
trees. It helps. 

Good luck
arina