Chicken Pictures

Australorps on Pasture

It's a Tough Life, Being a Duck

Compost Pile == Smorgasbord

Jack

New Rooster: Ameraucana?

Check Out Those Spurs!

Tentatively Named Jacques


New Bantam Rooster

An Experiment

I said earlier that I intend to plant corn, beans, and squash in the goats' bedding areas in order to put the extra nitrogen to work. However, I've been doing some reading about gardening, and apparently the uncomposted (well, partially composted) manure will interfere with the growth of plants until it is composted. This is probably true, but I would like to see for myself exactly what happens. So now I will put in an identical patch of corn, beans, and squash in the previous winter's bedding location and in a normal spot in the garden.

Plot 1 is the less composted location. It is sod covered with maybe half an inch of spilled hay and a lot of goat manure and urine. I am working on digging it about a foot deep to mix the hay and manure into the soil and to break up and kill the grass. I will probably plant the corn (the first of the plants) in May in order to give the hay and manure time to begin decomposing.

Plot 2 is the location of the goats' shelter and feeder from two winters ago. Last spring, summer and fall we kept a pig on that location, and she thoroughly mixed the soil, bedding, and manure together, and added more of her own. She was removed last December, and the soil has been untouched since then. It's black, crumbly, and easy to dig. I will prepare that plot the same as the first, and plant the corn at the same time.

Plot 3 will be typical, unimproved garden soil in Paul's garden. All of the garden has received some goat and pig manure and some digging from the pig, but outside of Plot 2 it is scattered and random. This will be the control, to see if planting in a freshly manured spot is more profitable than planting in normal, unimproved soil.

Since planting times for the beans and squash will depend on the size of the corn, it's possible that the different plots will be ready for them at different times. I will keep notes on growth rates, healthiness, and yield for the three plots. I believe that the pre-composted plot will outperform the uncomposted plot, but I am interested to see how big a difference there is, and whether it is even worth it to plant an uncomposted plot.

My science teacher mother would be so proud.

Work Day

We spent the afternoon and evening working at the farm. My main plan was to add some more bars to the goat feeder, since one of the goats has been getting her head caught. This would mean taking all of the bars out and drilling new holes for the new placements. However, the goats thought that a human messing around with their feeder meant that they were going to get a treat, and they were mobbing me so much that I just took the bars out and called it a day. There will be somewhat more waste now that they can really get their heads in there, but fresh pasture is only about a month away so I'm not too worried. Once they're transitioned back to eating forage, I'll reattach the bars on the feeder.

I also attached the mineral feeder to the side of the hay feeder, so now that has a permanent location. When they were in the forest I had been hanging it on a new tree in each paddock, but that was not very stable. Now I can just pull the feeder along with the goats wherever they go on the property.

We'll be closing out last year's compost pile at the end of the month, so Paul and I worked on preparing the next location. We add to a pile for a year, and then let it sit for a year, so this spring we can finally start using compost that we started two years ago. Anyhow, there was a lot of wood on the ground from an old haystack where I wanted to put the next compost pile, so we gathered that all up and made a bonfire. There was a cold wind, so that fire was nice. I also began picking up garbage and debris, and gathering things that had gotten lost under the grass and then the snow.

Finally, I started dismantling what was left of this year's haystack. Much of the hay that is left will be the base of the new compost pile, and the rest will go into the chicken pen. I'm leaving most of it alone for now, though, because the farm cats live under there and I don't want to take their shelter while it's still cold. I also need to come up with a new shelter for them so that they don't leave when I finish taking the hay away.

#40 Become Certified to Compost Dead Livestock

Today I took the course to become certified to compost dead livestock in Ohio. Most of the material in the lecture was familiar to me from my own studies of composting, but it was good to have a refresher. I also got a manual that I plan to study in more depth. My official certificate will be coming by mail, but we also received unofficial ones at the class. With as few animals as we have, there aren't many mortalities, but it will be nice to be able to legally compost them on our farm.

One item down, 100 to go.