General

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Practical permaculture in Penetanguishene

Come and join Tim and Jennifer at Karma Marketplace to learn about practical permaculture with a focus on perennial food forests.
Permaculture is a design system that looks to nature for guidance and information. It is a dialogue between you and the space you are in.

This day-long workshop will focus all aspects of permaculture with a focus on perennial food forests. Topics covered in the workshop include:
•    the ethics and principles of permaculture
•    how these are applied in daily life
•    nature awareness and observation
•    site analysis and assessment
•    forest structures and dynamics
•    plant functions and usage
•    inter-planting, guilds, and plant selection
•    local top 10 list of PC plants
•    the role animals (of all sizes) play in ecosystems
•    the $100 Food Forest
•    question and answer period

An illustrated hand out will be given out to take home including planting plans and plant lists to take home.

Facilitators:
Jennifer Osborn is an artist, farmer, and Permaculture Designer. Her background includes working extensively with animals and observing nature.She currently runs All Sorts Acre, a permaculture micro-farm with chickens, sheep, and forest gardens in various stages.

Tim Fisher is a composting specialist and co-farmer at All Sorts Acre. The list of things he has composted is impressive when he worked in large scale composting facilities. He now focuses on small scale composting and how to facilitate soil health using both permaculture and biodynamic methods.

Location: Penetanguishene, Ontario 40km north of Barrie
Time: Sunday September 11, 10am -5pm
For more information please contact: The Karma Marketplace

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From chickens to chicken

This was the year we decided to try our hand at raising meat chickens. Last year we brought in some roosters to be processed with our friends Michelle and Andrew from Featherstone Farm. But roosters aren't meat birds and the two are very different animals.

We ordered our meat chicks from Sharpe's Feed Mill up the road from us. The 25 we started off with didn't seem too daunting. So on May 17th I went to pick up 25 fuzzy little balls of yellow fluff from Sharpe's.

They made it home safely and were promptly put in their new home, complete with heat lamp, food and water. The novelty of having more chicks wore off quickly. The 25 meat chicks were in addition to the 35 or so homegrown layers we had hatched out.

It didn't take long for the meat chicks to show their true colours. Within 1 day of bringing them home they started developing their flight feathers. And EAT! Boy did they eat. It seemed that their heads were always in the feeder, a stark contrast to the layers.

Watching these birds was amazing. It seemed that they would grow every day. Soon they were out on pasture in the pasture pens. So far we have built 4 pasture pens.

Chickens poop a lot in general, but meat birds poop prodigiously! The food seemed to go right through them. So for many weeks we fed, watered and moved our birds. It was quite a site to see the Chicken Schooner slowly sailing around the front yard. More than once we caught people slowing down to look at the oddity in the yard. Neighbourhood children came over to ask questions, and our egg share people were very interested in what we were doing.

Feed deliveries went from 5 bags to 15 bags at a time. Did I mention that the birds ate A LOT! Feed also kept going up with every delivery. Still we wouldn't go back to conventional feed. Only the non-GMO for our birds. I don't want to ingest GM food if I can help it.

After 84 days of care it was time to take our first batch in. It was an early morning and a sombre experience. There was also a sense of excitement as well. Yes, the birds were going to be processed, but they were our birds. We had raised them and done the best we could for them. We were now going to have our own chicken in the freezer. We also had people that wanted to buy them. the sense of accomplishment was exciting.

We stayed until our birds had gone through the killing process. It felt only right to be there. Then we came home, cleaned our borrowed truck and ourselves. turned around and left again to go pick up our birds.

We made a couple of deliveries of the birds to customers and then came home. It was a very long day, but well worth it! Thanks chooks!

 

Oh yes, and the next batch will be ready on September 2.

Meat Bird Information
There are different types of meat birds:

• broiler: 4-4.5 lbs: between 5-8 weeks old
• roaster: 6-8lbs: between 8-13 weeks old
• capon: castrated male rooster under 8 months (barbaric practice!)
• stewing hen: 10 months or older hen
• rooster: sexually mature male chicken

Meat birds here come in two different varieties: the white rock, and the hybrid. The White Rock is the standard commercial meat bird. It grows fast and furious. We have heard many stories of white rocks dying suddenly from "flip-over disease". This when a bird just gives out, it appears similar to a heart attack. The white rocks also tends to look somewhat bloated due to the extreme proportions of the breast, often has trouble feathering out (from what we have seen), and doesn't walk well. Often they are brought in at 6 weeks or so to the processor.

The hybrid is a slower growing, less consistent bird. Often they are red in colour and go by different names from different hatcheries. The death rate in theses birds is much lower because they don't grow as fast. They are quite able to walk at 10 weeks and are nice looking birds.

When deciding which birds to go with we went with the hybrids or Bonnie's Heavy reds.

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Profiting from the Web and Thirsty Chickens

This was sent to us by a friend. It is an inspiring story of ingenuity, determination, and perspiration!

By Willie Davis from the Daily Yonder

With ingenuity and smart application of Internet-marketing, a couple in rural Virginia has managed to stay on the farm, and get away from it occasionally too.

A hen sips from the Avian Aqua Miser in Scott County, Virginia. The Miser has been a generous boost to a farming couple who dreamed it up, designed it and are marketing it from home.

The chickens on Mark Hamilton and Anna Hess’s farm in Scott County, Virginia, don’t fear humans.  “We’ve spoiled them,” Hess says, with an almost maternal headshake.  Not long after Hamilton and Hess first bought their 58-acre farm, a friend gave them chickens hoping for a share of fresh eggs.  What followed—thanks to innovative thinking and high-speed Internet access—are an invention that has sold all over the world, a model for rural economic development, and a self-sustaining farm where the chickens feel spoiled.

Scott County was once a hub for big tobacco farms, and its location—nestled between two coal-rich areas—provided an opportunity for residents to work in the mines.  Once income from the tobacco industry and the coal companies dried up, however, the county suffered.  The population has been shrinking since 1990, and over twenty percent of the residents live below the poverty line.  Filling the void these tobacco farms left are small self-sustaining farms.  With small farms come small-farm problems.

For instance,  Hamilton and Hess needed to provide water for their chickens.  Leave too much water and it becomes dirty and unsanitary. Leave too little and you can never get away from the farm; the chickens would go thirsty.

Mark Hamilton artfully solved this problem with an invention he calls The Avian Aqua Miser: a nipple on a plastic container that allows chickens to drink the water only as they need it, a drop at a time.

“At first, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Hamilton says, referring to an aborted prototype of his invention.  He then noticed that larger commercial farms had been doing something similar.  But “big industrial farms overlooked the small guys, the people who only had one, two, three chickens,” he says.  “It didn’t seem right that people had dirty chicken water.  We wanted to help them out.”

Hess and Hamilton knew they had a winning idea. But how could thy sell it?  “People told Mark, ‘Go down to the Farmer’s Market, sell it that way,’” Hess said.  “That means you have to haul it down there, set up a booth, and stay there constantly,” almost are stifling as never being able to leave the farm.

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