Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

Tax for toxins: What was that?

 

[RoyalChick]

Addendum to the last: compare PFAS-eating bacteria to "Traditional remediation involves excavating the contaminated soil and disposing of it in another location" (https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/soil-contamination-widespread-in-europe) - which doesn't fix anything, just shifts the problem to someone else's back yard! NIMBYism at state scale.

Sorry. I should have read ahead before my last post on PFAS. I have been following the PFAS eating bacteria with interest. Hopefully one day we can have at scale fermentation of PFAS (nad plastics).
PFAS beer anyone?

 

[Perris]

It might help the worriers to remember that everything, absolutely everything, is made up of the elements in the periodic table. We are all stardust, we are all chemicals.

 

[BDutch]

Thank you all for the support and responses. My husband and I will keep eating the eggs anyway. Having healthy old chickens should say something too.

If the values are high, we probably eat fewer eggs and take our Tefal pans to the waste station. We wont give eggs to neighbours and family anymore unless they know the risks and still want them. Some of the eggs might end up on the plate of the neighbours pig.

 

[Shadrach]

I agree and think if we return to a more natural way of living, through practices like regenerative farming, the damage to environment can heal. Nature is amazing.

Totally inspired by @Perris, again, and the article on food forests, I am going to fence off our property with a modified hedgerow method that will work here (and not take decades to be functional.) and turn the entire property into a food forest, with the chickens having full access to do chickening.

When we get started, I will probably start my own thread, to document the process, that way if there is anyone that is interested can follow along and learn from our trials and errors. My goal is that by the time I am able to retire, we will have an almost totally self-sufficient homestead with chickens and turkeys running around wild and feral. All I really want to do in my final years is enjoy watching the chickens and turkeys having fun in the best environment that I can create for them and not have to spend too much time in the outside world. (it is too peopley out there. ;-) )

Do make a thread. I'm not going the full food forest route, I probably don't have enough battery life to see the results but I am planning on planting stuff in the extended run that will head in that direction, that's after I've picked Perris's brains a bit on what grows fast and doesn't cost a fortune.
I don't know much about the topic.
I've bought some organic clovers. I've got fruit bushes to transplant and there are already fruit trees growing. Canopy cover is very long term and the field isn't the place for trees on the growing areas.
One specialist topic at a time is best for my two remaining brain cells and of course, that's chickens.

 

[Shadrach]

Thank you all for the support and responses. My husband and I will keep eating the eggs anyway. Having healthy old chickens should say something too.

If the values are high, we probably eat fewer eggs and take our Tefal pans to the waste station. We wont give eggs to neighbours and family anymore unless they know the risks and still want them. Some of the eggs might end up on the plate of the neighbours pig.

View attachment 4102509


View attachment 4102514

That dog needs a vet visit!

 

[Perris]

Do make a thread. I'm not going the full food forest route, I probably don't have enough battery life to see the results but I am planning on planting stuff in the extended run that will head in that direction, that's after I've picked Perris's brains a bit on what grows fast and doesn't cost a fortune.
I don't know much about the topic.
I've bought some organic clovers. I've got fruit bushes to transplant and there are already fruit trees growing. Canopy cover is very long term and the field isn't the place for trees on the growing areas.
One specialist topic at a time is best for my two remaining brain cells and of course, that's chickens.

this is widely regarded as one of the best books on the topic
https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/product/creating-a-forest-garden-2/
and is based on decades of experience. He also has some very useful appendices on propagation, hedging and fencing, attracting pollinators and other beneficial insects, and edible crops by month of use. He even considers chickens (recommends not to exceed about 20 per acre).

 

[Shadrach]

True. But I think @BDutch is talking about PFAS which are not micro-plastics.

Yeah I know. From what I've read these are going to be very tough to sort out. I've read so many articles and studies now on the various poisons we've dumped in the environment that I just can't be arsed to give them all their proper titles. I used to be a scientist of sorts. Just don't have the patience for it all these days.

 

[Shadrach]

@Perris
I'm looking for a fast growing bush that grows strong limbs at right angles to the stems. Blackthorn does the trick but the spikes are a problem. Hawthorn
(spikeless) might work and I've got a couple to plant. These are for cover and shade, not necessarily edible. The edible stuff will gather around the roots.
Any ideas?

 

[Perris]

@Perris
I'm looking for a fast growing bush that grows strong limbs at right angles to the stems. Blackthorn does the trick but the spikes are a problem. Hawthorn
(spikeless) might work and I've got a couple to plant. These are for cover and shade, not necessarily edible. The edible stuff will gather around the roots.
Any ideas?

choisya is one of my flock's favourites. And it's evergreen. And it attracts lots of insects (often see chickens jumping to catch things on the surface). Not sure how fast it grows. Much more robust than it looks.