New skid for day-range shelter

[crperdue]

The newest proof my wife has that I'm a total wacko:

We will be using this as a day-range shelter during the growing season with a 165' poultry netting surrounding it.
I might need to put a shade cloth or tarp on it during parts of the summer or risk turning it into a giant solar oven.
It's got scissor joists inside to give it some strength as well as a mounting point for roosts. I have put poultry netting
in those triangle sections on the side (for ventilation) and a wooden door in the rectangle. I still need to cut in a small
door for the birds in the big man sized door. Feed and water will be provided out in the yard.

In the winter we will pile in a foot or so of shavings and overwinter layers or breeding stock. The back panel is
hinged so I call pull this right off the top of the shavings leaving behind a raised bed. Then I will move my pigs
(guinea hogs) onto it to dig out the corn I put under the shavings. When they are done tilling it up I hopefully
will be able to plant my crops in the raised bed.

I went to the Polyface Farm Field Day this summer and developed the idea from this:

This is their commercial pastured egg operation. They only use it in the growing season and overwinter the birds
in hoop houses. If you merge it and one of the hoop houses together into a single structure that can do both....
Well, maybe it looks like mine. I'll find out soon!

Edited to add: It's 10' x 16'

 

[saddina]

Nice. can i ask what the sqft is?

 

[crperdue]

Darn! I knew I forgot something in that post!

It's 10 x 16

 

[saddina]

Quote:
So is that meant to be stationary?

 

[crperdue]

Not during the growing season. I will move it every few days as well as rotate the layout of the netting.

At Polyface they move 1000 layers over 6 acres, but their pasture in high quality. My pasture is about
1 acre of lawn quality and the rest is currently in soybeans which I will convert pasture after harvest.
I have about 12 acres total and I hope to really use this to improve the pasture to where It will eventually
support sheep or cattle.

 

[saddina]

Quote:
Yeah i've got salatin's books, i'm trying to figure out how to move that? tractor? (to be fair, i'm a tiny 5 ft thing, so I can't muscle much of anything... except dinner, I make the best cheesecakes). Did you see this month's Mother Earth article on animial crop rotations?

 

[crperdue]

I will move this with a tractor or a 4WD truck. We have already pulled it around the pasture with my jeep and its fine.

I have not read that article yet. It sounds like some of the stuff I do. I'm just now planting collards in the plot my pigs
just tilled in which was covered in sunn hemp before that. Hopefully with this new skid I can make raised beds for my
vegetable garden and do more of this type of thing.

 

[saddina]

Here love:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/self-sufficient-homestead-zm0z11zkon.aspx

 

[Bossroo]

Quote:
I just read this idealistic manifesto... this author must have just feasted on some Alice B. Toklas brownies to write this article.

One would have to have ideal soils, ideal rainfall, ideal climate, ideal animals, ideal crops, ideal lack of pests and predators , ideal labor help and ideal health to pull off what he proclaims for yields on an acre of land. I have 20 acres on a high arrid valley in central Cal. and I have not been able to come even close to his ECONOMIC ideal in self sufficiency for my wife and myself ( kids are grown) in the past 15 years of trying on this property.

I guess that I was too dumb to realize what the carrying capacity was of this land when we purchased what was once an open rangeland that supported only 2 head of beef cattle for only 4 winter/spring months for over the last century.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
I just read this idealistic manifesto... this author must have just feasted on some Alice B. Toklas brownies to write this article.

One would have to have ideal soils, ideal rainfall, ideal climate, ideal animals, ideal crops, ideal lack of pests and predators , ideal labor help and ideal health to pull off what he proclaims for yields on an acre of land. I have 20 acres on a high arrid valley in central Cal. and I have not been able to come even close to his ECONOMIC ideal in self sufficiency for my wife and myself ( kids are grown) in the past 15 years of trying on this property.

I guess that I was too dumb to realize what the carrying capacity was of this land when we purchased what was once an open rangeland that supported only 2 head of beef cattle for only 4 winter/spring months for over the last century.

Ignorance is a bliss easily shattered by experience. I noted right at the start that the author of the article was only writing of what he would do, not what he has done or is doing. That's not to say that becoming more self-sufficient is not a goal worth striving for, but neither reading nor writing can replace the experience.
ETA: I googled John Seymour, the author, and learned he was indeed an experienced adventurer and dedicated to living the self-sufficient life; also that he earned an income from writing and appearing on radio and TV programs.