Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch
- Thread starter Kiroy
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This is a known thing. Put her back in with the donkey/goat/geese or whatever you had her in with and watch more of her feather cover go missing. I've never seen emus do this to themselves or each other though, its always other animals that love eating their feathers.
re Foler: I did what you said many years ago. Florida soil is very poor so your best bet is to just research whatever fruit/nut trees grow well in your area and plant those. I have several types of mulberry, loquat, citrus, papaya, white and black sapote, pomegranate, Brazilian Jaboticaba tree, bael fruit tree, starfruit, Guava, Logan, Mango, Macadamium and ummm I forget what else.
I wish I could remember the book I bought or checked out all those years ago, but it was very Florida focused. (yes back then we all did indeed read books to learn this stuff). I remember calling the Fruit and Spice park in south Dade County and they were kind enough to send me some seeds of a particular tree I was having trouble finding. Actually I think it was Bael Fruit seeds they sent me.
Its small scale but I guess you'd call it Silvi-Culture. The trees provide shade and food for the birds below them. I don't harvest much or any of it for myself but its nice knowing its there. I have ratites but I suppose you could do the same in your "food forest" with chickens or geese or something.
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Sludig
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Ya, I read about those eating feathers after the incident. She's been losing feathers slowly since the incident though when she's on her own. Not sure if they are irritated and she's plucking them or what. Donkey pulled from aggression I'm assuming, she had a ton of the feathers just sitting in the pen and no one ate them after.
Tangentially, I'm also looking at trying to add like a dozen fruit tree's or maybe nut of some kind. Not for sale, maybe not mostly even for eating. Just figured forest out my plot a bit and add forage for my critters to supplement feed some. (Collected and given, not them roaming the orchard.) Oklahoma a bit more forgiving maybe, but hear stone fruit etc struggle w/ pests. I hoped still easier than most garden crops.
The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
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Don’t plant row crops or orchards. Makes it easier for pests to jump around. This is the only time I’ll ever say diversity is your friend - when it comes to food forestry/permaculture. You’ll miss out on a lot of great tropical options in OK unless you have a greenhouse.. Peaches, pears, persimmons, strawberries and apples are all fair game off the top of my head.
Reality is you’ll never get away pest free. Attract the right bugs that eat the pests your concerned about - be proactive. Spray with neem oil for maintenance, etc
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The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
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Uhh don’t? The ones I ordered online I paid for vaccination.. Why specifically don’t?
Kiroy
Marine Biologist
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The_Black_Log Foler
Stock Pals Senior Vice President
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This is my goal with the land I plan on acquiring this year. Build out the "we're going to retire and die here" home, while also planting several fruit trees and other things with a goal of semi-permaculture. Things which could perpetuate effectively in the N. Texas environment. Thanks to a random try two years ago of just throwing peach pits from the store bought peaches I prefer into an unused above ground box garden resulted in some solid little peach saplings (I was kinda stunned). Those are not in large pot/containers for this year, with the hopes of having land to transplant them into permanent homes purchased within the next 6-8 months. Also trying the same experiment again with peach pits and plum pits, since both seem to be region workable for my part of the country. At my house I already have multiple "set and forget" blackberry/raspberry vines/shrubs going. Benefit of our current house is a 15x30 enclosed sunroom/greenhouse attached to the back side of our house.
Once I have land I'm curious as to how to get permaculture crops of potatoes going, and some other staples. Plus a pepper grove. This has affected my land shopping as I am looking specifically for land with at least a wet weather stream flowing through it. Preferably somewhere I could build a minimalist automated watering/irrigation system. (something along the lines of solar powered automation of watering)
Once I have land I'm curious as to how to get permaculture crops of potatoes going, and some other staples. Plus a pepper grove. This has affected my land shopping as I am looking specifically for land with at least a wet weather stream flowing through it. Preferably somewhere I could build a minimalist automated watering/irrigation system. (something along the lines of solar powered automation of watering)
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I'm firmly in zone 8a for Texas, with some of the land I've looked at also being in zone 8b.
Texas Interactive 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
2012 USDA Hardiness Zones for Texas Cities and Towns Mapped
www.plantmaps.com
As for the peaches, the ones I grew at random I do not know about. I know they were still growing into December, lost leaves when we had a spot of a few days where we never got above freezing (and dipped into the upper 20's) around xmas. and have been dormant since, but still have a good bit of green in the stem areas which were green before so not showing signs of having been ganked by cold. We will see as temps are starting to round the curve here. (assuming we dont have a freak late freeze, which isn't beyond possibility)
I also have been looking at frost peaches for resilience, but they have a requirement or somewhere around 700 chill hours and around these parts we average 750-950 hours a year so I think N. Texas should be OK for most of this. These which grew from pits didn't have a specific strain name on them, so I have no idea what their chill needs/tolerance will be. That's a mystery to figure out I guess. Hoping they come through as they are some of the sweetest freestone peaches I have ever had.
A week ago a co worker who has heard me wax on a little on calls about my desire to "move to the country and eat a lot of peaches" bought me a peach sapling out of the blue. For in (already in a large container, not bare root) I can see the very beginning of some possible buds already. But I will probably cull a lot of those to encourage more branch growth. All of which just puts me more upon the fact that I am on a time table to find and secure appropriate land. As I don't want to put these in the ground here at my current house knowing we plan on moving within a 1-2 year time frame.
As for the overall goal, maybe true "permaculture" isn't the right term. Once we move I do plan on having a greenhouse/hothouse, but the focus will be on self sufficient plants. As I will adopt as much of the mantra I can from my picking the plants in our current landscaping. "I want things which can survive on the two things I can provide in abundance... heat and neglect"
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No problem sir. Keep up the good janitorial workHaus , I moved your posts here since they were constructive but collateral damage from some janitorial work.
Cross posting the chill hours map for those interested. I'm shopping for land in the 600-700 range, and some possible hits in the 800 range. (Central Texas)
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...
Goonsquad Officer
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(cross posting this from politicks forum for questions at the end)
So i got this new house a few years ago. came with a massive chicken coup. (like 11x21 feet, with a full size roof. chicken run etc). but the wife wanted to concrete in the sleeping part. but when i got to it, concrete was wacky expensive. so i waited. just recently i got the concrete in, and decided to buy chickens! The wife wants specific breeds of chicken that are good for kids, big and strong, make good eggs etc.
all the tractor supply, farm stores, etc in the region are telling us people show up on shipment days 4 hours before open to get in line to buy chicks. they can't find enough. tractor supply can't ship us the chicks we want.
we finally found tractor supplystore's supplier and THEY will ship us the chicks, in may.
anyway, chicks is the new toilet paper.
I had questions for the homesteading folk:
1. Does anyone know a reliable online source to order chicken breeds? mostly looking for Plymoth Barred Rock chickens?
2. does anyone have strong opinions about nest box designs or feeder tube designs?
3. how the shit do chicken water nipple things work? i want those so i never have to change out the water for chicken turds.
So i got this new house a few years ago. came with a massive chicken coup. (like 11x21 feet, with a full size roof. chicken run etc). but the wife wanted to concrete in the sleeping part. but when i got to it, concrete was wacky expensive. so i waited. just recently i got the concrete in, and decided to buy chickens! The wife wants specific breeds of chicken that are good for kids, big and strong, make good eggs etc.
all the tractor supply, farm stores, etc in the region are telling us people show up on shipment days 4 hours before open to get in line to buy chicks. they can't find enough. tractor supply can't ship us the chicks we want.
we finally found tractor supplystore's supplier and THEY will ship us the chicks, in may.
anyway, chicks is the new toilet paper.
I had questions for the homesteading folk:
1. Does anyone know a reliable online source to order chicken breeds? mostly looking for Plymoth Barred Rock chickens?
2. does anyone have strong opinions about nest box designs or feeder tube designs?
3. how the shit do chicken water nipple things work? i want those so i never have to change out the water for chicken turds.
Borzak
Bronze Baron of the Realm
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Here it would be a feed store for chickens. Tractor supply here is just hardware/fencing type stuf. The only feed stuff they sell is dog food the last time I was in there. Guess it depends on location. In "town" here we have a cafe, a bank, and a feed store. That's it the post office even closed. Nearest tractor supply is 45 minutes away.
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Tarrant
<Prior Amod>
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I want some chickens and ducks (6ft privacy fence around a large yard) but my city is the only one around here that won’t allow them. It was voted down because the city’s planning commissioner said it’ll make his dogs bark. 
they then voted 5 to 4 to end all discussion about it moving forward to it. This was in 2020 and they’ve refused to talk about it since.
they then voted 5 to 4 to end all discussion about it moving forward to it. This was in 2020 and they’ve refused to talk about it since.