View Single Post
Old October 4, 2012   #27
Redbaron
Tomatovillian™
 
Redbaron's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 4,488
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by habitat_gardener View Post

One problem with using Polyface as a model is that Salatin tends to overstate the extent to which it's a closed loop. In fact, I've read he imports a lot of animal feed, so it's not in fact a closed loop at all.
Correct. Salatin isn't a closed loop at all except the beef. But of course that's because he doesn't raise any crops except a large garden. This would raise feed grains as a succession crop in rotation following years. Closing the loop.

The travel time down a row is 35 days beginning to end. Broilers take 8 weeks to market on pasture, 3 weeks in the brooder and 5 weeks on pasture. 10 foot a day x 35 days =350 feet Then a wide grass staging area till the next 350 foot row. I don't know of a single tomato variety that matures that fast. So I am sure one pass will be fine In some cases potentially 2 but I need to look into saturation levels to be sure. Working on that one. One day on a paddock doesn't actually produce much and they are moved daily. But for a second pass you could use that for a hay or grass clipping run instead if regulations prohibit or have a time limit.

As for laws or regulations. I have been attempting to investigate that. There are regulations against foliar or top spray of fresh manure on a food crop, but as of yet I have found no regulation or cause for harm of having an animal in a paddock beside the crop. This may vary between species too. I have been all day for weeks investigating. (between posting here) Most the regs are about disposal and use of stored manure in lagoons. Not finding much that applies to an animal in a field. I'll have to think about how much time between the last pass on the paddock till the harvest of a crop and other sanitation issues but I sincerely doubt it is a problem. Disease and pathogens are a problem for confined animals. Those confinement houses are seriously bad. I have been in them. I even collected eggs in a commercial battery cage operation when I was 17. The stories I could tell you. There couldn't be a better devised way to TRY and cause disease than the way they are raised now commercially. It is seriously ridiculous. However it is incredibly rare in pastured or free range animals properly taken care of to have any food born illness issues.

Space is not a problem. You can space the rows to whatever works for you.


Having said all that I agree that timing when the animals are in the paddocks and when workers are harvesting crops is one of the bugs that will need hammered out.
__________________
Scott

AKA The Redbaron

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labour; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system."
Bill Mollison
co-founder of permaculture

Last edited by Redbaron; October 4, 2012 at 05:15 PM.
Redbaron is offline   Reply With Quote