5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[chickengirl1193]

[COLOR=4B0082]We are going to be building an earthbag house for our chickens from the feed sacks. We currently have 10,000 feed bags. Going to also be working on building an earthbag house for ourselves. [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]Eathbag Construction before stucco[/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]Earthbag Home with Stucco[/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]Interior of homes[/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]Here are the chicks that I hatched on NYD.[/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082] [/COLOR]

That's amazing! Are the bags filled with something? Good luck!

 

[Wunjo]

That's amazing! Are the bags filled with something? Good luck!

They are filled with a clay soil mixture. The soil here where I live has just the right mix so we just got a dozer to come down and pile up some loose dirt for us to fill the bags. Once finished it will last for hundreds of years. In the summer the house will stay cool and the winter it will stay warm. They have a 12hr heat differential. The hottest part of the day it will be cool. The coldest part of the day it will be warm. They are earthquake proof, fire proof, tornado proof, bullet proof, and the list goes on. Research it. It's really awesome, and the best part it's very cheap to build.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/earthbag-home1.htm

 

[chickengirl1193]

[COLOR=4B0082]They are filled with a clay soil mixture. The soil here where I live has just the right mix so we just got a dozer to come down and pile up some loose dirt for us to fill the bags. Once finished it will last for hundreds of years.[/COLOR]

Wow! Good luck! Thats a great way to recycle. I recently saw a picture of a similar house made out of plastic bottles. I hope the chickens appreciate their new coop!

 

[acemario]

We are going to be building an earthbag house for our chickens from the feed sacks. We currently have 10,000 feed bags. Going to also be working on building an earthbag house for ourselves.

Eathbag Construction before stucco


Earthbag Home with Stucco

So awesome! What a great idea! When are you going to start?

 

[Wunjo]

We won't be starting on the house and coop until our land purchase has been finalized. We had put a down payment on land in April and had cleared about 3 acres of the 8 acres and was starting on it and the land owner decided that after we had cleared it and spent $3000 on improving it plus the $2500 downpayment that he wanted triple the price we agreed on and we kinda learned our lesson not to start anything until everything is finalized. Here is a pic of what we had started then he screwed us over. We went to every lawyer in this county and surrounding counties and he had previously been represented by all of them that we gave up. We come to find out that he does that kind of thing to a lot of people. We had filled 1,000 bags....

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Yes and if you give the one group chlorinated water you will kill their natural probiotics and not be replenishing them with anything. If you give them unchlorinated water then they will have their natural probiotic content undisturbed.

Yeah. I'm planning on only doing the experiment on the control group up to about 4 or 5 weeks so I have some hard numbers. The control group is being raised the way I did chicks for years before I considered the benefits of probiotics in chickens. This will be the last batch I raise without probiotics. The whole purpose of the experiment was to transcend anecdotal evidence by having real data. 3 groups of the same breed, 1 raised the way I used to, 1 with the same dry feed but with probiotics in the water and the other group without probiotic water but with fermented feed. I'm anxious for the third weighing on Thursday.
I think I have enough of the conventional 22% starter feed to last until they're 5 weeks old. That should be the end of the experiment when I'll probably switch them all to a 16% organic grower feed fermented with some fishmeal added to up the protein a bit.

I've long wanted to put a de-chlorination system in my house for watering the garden. I'm convinced that I'm killing the life in the soil when we have a dry spell by using city water.

We are going to be building an earthbag house for our chickens from the feed sacks. We currently have 10,000 feed bags. Going to also be working on building an earthbag house for ourselves.

Eathbag Construction before stucco


Earthbag Home with Stucco

That is so cool.
I imagine it works much better in a more arid climate.
Is there any adhesion method between the bags or are they just stacked?

 

[Wunjo]

That is so cool.
I imagine it works much better in a more arid climate.
Is there any adhesion method between the bags or are they just stacked?

Two strands of barbed wire lay in between each layer.

 

[rochelle1021]

[COLOR=4B0082]Two strands of barbed wire lay in between each layer.[/COLOR]

looks really interesting. how long has the technology been around?

 

[Wunjo]

Well earth houses have been around since like 800BC. It's pretty much the same concept except we now have bags to put the earth in. They have been making them in CA for years. They make them all over Africa. It's also called adobe. The bags have to be covered by plaster, stucco or other same concept material because the bags are not UV resistant. There is building permits for them in most states. Here about an hour away they do training workshops so you can learn to do it.

 

[ronott1]

Well earth houses have been around since like 800BC. It's pretty much the same concept except we now have bags to put the earth in. They have been making them in CA for years. They make them all over Africa. It's also called adobe. The bags have to be covered by plaster, stucco or other same concept material because the bags are not UV resistant. There is building permits for them in most states. Here about an hour away they do training workshops so you can learn to do it.

I have seen river rock houses here in CA too. They used the rocks from the local creek or river.