"The yield of any system is only limited by the creativity of the designer." Bill Mollison, founder of the Permaculture Movement
I love that idea so much, Ill write it again!
"The yield of any system is only limited by the creativity of the designer."
There is the idea in permaculture of Stacking Functions. How many functions can one thing be employed to do. Chickens give eggs. Sure. But protein is only one function. What other functions or yields can they provide. Well, they can scratch and turn or prepare the ground. They can provide insect and weed control. They can also produce chicks, if a rooster is present. Considering how to utilise tertiary functions of something we work with enables our systems to be more flexible and resilient.
I also think of my deep bedding chicken house. Sure, the main function is a comfortable, safe, clean, and healthy place for the hens to live, where they can produce eggs for us. But the design of the system enables us to capture the manure and have the hens themselves turn it into rich compost right below their feet. The secret to this design is to have at least 2 ft or 60 cm of balanced organic matter (enough dry brown carbon to absorb the rich nitrogen of chicken poo, garden waste, and kitchen scraps) to heat up and create compost. This is the topic of another post (one of my favourites), but for now i just mention it to make another point.
The deep bedding chicken house produces eggs and ready made compost. But it doesnt stop there. We use it seasonaly to house goats that are being weaned from their mamas. And we also house baby pigs in there until they get big enough to start eating the hens!!! So it provides another yield of temporary goat and pig housing.
How much more creative can we get with the yield. One time, we buried 100ft of black water line in the deep bedding chicken house and hooked up a shower head down hill from the chicken house. This provided three months of hot water for volunteers on our farm.
We grow passion fruit and squash vines up the chicken wire walls of the house.
We have a worm bin protected from the chickens, that is fed by their manure while they sleep.
We capture rain water from the roof for the chickens to drink and for irrigation.
We use it as a teaching tool for our permaculture courses.
And now its fodder for a SteemIt post and hopefully inspirational to someone on here who runs with the idea and makes it even better.
This is yet another yield of our crazy composting chicken house.
So now we are talking about loads of functions from one chicken house. And we could keep going. ITS ONLY LIMITED BY OUR IMAGINATION.
This is one of the most inspirational and exciting principles because it invites us to get crazy and creative. Make sure you obtain a yield in any system you design. And you have to us that yield. A yield doesn't exist until you make use of it. And make sure you stack functions.
How do you stack functions creatively?? I would love to hear more...
And as always, this list of 12 Permaculture Principles was given to us by the great David Holmgren, co-founder of Permaculture. https://permacultureprinciples.com/
NOTE: This post is proudly filled, COMPLETELY, with original writing and photos. ENJOY!
so if i use my new selfie stick as a back scratcher... if i use the end to grip my beer. and strap a machette to the end to cut down fruit from the neighbors tree... and also take photos with me using it while shoeing away hen eating pigs... is that use stacking with imagination. i'd really love to lend you my selfie stick but it just has to many use cases now thanks to this post.
Literally LOL. Can you plug your selfie stick post here in a comment. O think everyone should see it!
i love this. have you all done a video of this? i have watched one that i'm wondering if it was yours? watched it about a year ago and it totally inspired me.
Yeah, do you mean of the composting deep bedding chicken house. We did do a video of this. Its on our youtube. Its one of our best. I am building a bit of rep on steemit before i share it here :-) Glad you remember!!! I am happy to answer any questions you have about the system. And when i share the video (probably in a week or two), I will give loads more details than what is online now. Cheers!
That's awesome! Funny to come full circle :) I'll look forward to that post- smart to wait to gather a rep first!
Thanks :-)-
Amazing. I love the ingenuity! We do deep litter bedding, turning our abundance of saw dust and leaves into black gold while keeping the chickens a little warmer during winter. When I read you buried the hose for hot waterthat blew my mind though! Yeild has been an issue for me in my journey so far, my chickens hardly produce eggs, my gardens haven't been great, I'm putting way more in than I get out. But I'm trying so hard and learning as I go... I know it'll even out eventually, then hopefully switch to more yeilds than work/ money! That's my eventual goal :)
How do you do the worm bin on the coop? Would like to learn more about that as well :)
WIre mesh for the top of the worm box, right below where the hens sleep on their roost. Poop falls into the worm box. we add woodchips and some scraps from the kitchen. A front door of wood to open and harvest worms. No photos right now but soon!
That's really cool. I didn't know the worms eat poop! I'll have to try it out this summer.
Out of curiosity, what are you feeding your hens. and how old are they? and what breed are they? Sorry for being nosey but it may help figure out why they arent laying like they should...
They eat soaked layer feed and soaked scratch, and free range. My leghorn and red comet lay almost every day, but my barred rocks and easter eggers only lay in the summer. They are 1.5yrs.
This is a good story, Stellar pics too.
i'm 95 % sure these are original photos from shad's farm. he is a close.. real life friend of mine and not the plagiarizing kinda guy
Yes, I just read his other post and saw he has a website. I was trying to be helpful, not accusing him. You need to come back to chat, too.
it didnt feel accusatory... you are a good guy... yeah... ill keep poping in... my life just eased up a bit...so more time for fucking about.
are you an admin on 404... i actually tried to link @squdsi1 in and seems he needs an admin invite.
He is added
Thanks! Yes, this stuff is all original. Glad you're enjoying! Looking forward to connecting more! And thanks for the add! Hope to be more and more active in the new year. Loving this whole platform😃
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Awesome stuff here! Following!
Thanks, right back at you!!!
Agree we are limited to our imaginations. I too use the chickens to clear areas and make them ripe for planting a garden. Thanks 🐓🐓
Yeah, they are like little egg laying tractors!!!
Congratulations @squdsi1!
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Awesome to hear!! Thanks for the heads up.
I was thinking about a chicken coop design this morning. I knew that I wanted to capture the chicken manure and make the coop easier to keep clean. I was thinking of deep bedding as the solution to both problems. To see that you have already done this gives me confidence in this design. Thanks for posting this because without some of these posts out there I just end up wondering if my design ideas are crazy.