permaculture

[Margaret L Wilson <booldawgs@cavenet.com>]

You do have a point about the different animals taking more time.  I 
brought them with me when I moved. I didn't move here and start adding 
animals. I  look at them as balancing my grazing program, at least my 
planned program.  I just got a predator fencing setup with a solar powered 
charger so I will be able to control graze without to much of a threat from 
predators soon.  I am a serious lurker on the grazer's list. They are all 
heritage breeds that fit in with my restoration plan.
They do a pretty good job of eating all of the hay.  The sheep eat the 
smallest leaves, the cows get the next and the leftovers are cleaned up by 
the equines.  The chickens dig through the manure and scatter it.  The 
sheep are working hard on the blackberries. The primitive breeds are good 
at browsing.
The pigs are going in the freezer soon but they have already dug up some 
pretty compacted ground in the old orchard.  We just got a couple of apples 
and pears off of each tree.  I have been pasturing and feeding there a lot 
to improve the soil.  The trees have been here since the 1930s.  They 
haven't been pruned in years and are really a mess.

My main point to all of this is to feed my family, extended also, healthful 
food.  My garden produced very well on such short notice.  We had green 
beans, peppers, tomatoes, squash, sunflower seeds, cabbage, cauliflower and 
a few potatoes. My winter garden is small but hanging in with lettuce and 
cole crops.  I have 9 butcher lambs and 4 pigs almost ready to harvest, a 
cow that I sometimes milk and fresh eggs.
Margaret

> One thing I noted with your operation were several small animal 
> enterprises.  You might try to drop the number of species down and expand 
> one of the enterprises, especially if the grazing would help knock down 
> invasive brush.  Often the larger enterprise takes about the same amount 
> of time as the little one did, and may even take less time if it lets you 
> can justify getting better equipment.
> Mark