The chicken coop was battered by falling tree tops from recent heavy winds but the chicken compost system is still churning out compost and eggs.
The 40ish birds are working 4 compost piles every day, breaking them down and consuming as many worms and fly larvae as the can find.
Each day I spend 20 minutes rebuilding the piles and watering them with nutrient rich water from the duck bath. Then I spend 20 minutes collecting as much fresh horse manure as I can, adding it to the system. With each rebuilding of the piles, they march slowly forward from the back of the paddock to the front. By the time the pile reaches the front the compost is finished and ready for use around the homestead.
While I do some work to maintain the energy flow through the system, the chickens are doing good work on the piles, consuming horse fly larvae reducing the pest pressure on the horses, and paying me in eggs for the work. Meanwhile I'm feeding them less and less grain. We are producing yeilds beyond what we can utilize at the homestead so I've been selling the compost and eggs at Bitcoin meetups in my area. Distributing natural capital and strengthening my local Bitcoin culture and community. A great example of a permaculture system here at the homestead!
Our chickens system is inspired by Karl Hammer, Perma Pastures, and Edible Acres
Karl Hammer
https://youtu.be/IWChH9MHkHg
Perma Pastures Chicken Tractor on Steroids
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaAkONMPbRRdpu49GNp-vHfOP7qb2DNDa&
Edible Acres
https://youtu.be/RnvDLZtLOko
What generates most of the input for your compost? I'm guessing it's a lot more than your food waste.
Backyard chickens have been on our list for a long time.
We have 3 horses, their manure is the main input for the compost. I buy hay, convert it into manure with the horses, then it turns into eggs and compost with the chickens. Integrate rather than segregate, the output of one system is the input for another. With each expenditure of my time, I'm getting multiple yields and stacking multiple forms of capital, simultaneously managing multiple systems. It's a thing of beauty.
Truly. Is it hard to grow enough grass for the horses to graze on (hence the hay)?
The opposite actually, the horses are halflinger draft ponies, the are easy keepers, so they are so efficient with the food they eat grass can actually be too sweet for them. If they eat too much fresh grass they can develop a condition called founder which is kinda like horse diabetes. Because of the extra work of intensively managing the horses on pasture and the value of the pasture is much higher to feed to sheep to grow lamb meat, we just buy cheap first cutting hay to feed the horses. I guess I need to make a horse post to better lay out the details with the horses.
That's really interesting.
Is the hay so cheap that it's not worth the effort to try to grow whatever would be healthy for them to graze on or is their metabolism so efficient that it pretty much has to be hay?
Yes, the hay is cheap enough that it's better to spend financial capital on it rather that the natural capital (pasture). If the horses were on pasture it would be much more difficult to collect their manure to use for compost too. Basically by feeding hay we're able to get more value out of it than it costs because it eventually turns into compost and eggs, which then turns into sats, and more food.
On the denim road to Meshtadel
The meshtadel is the distributed citadel and the denim road is the system for moving the capital amongst the nodes in the mesh.
Yes, your recent talk in Chicago reinspired me. This needs to catch on (and will).
For anyone interested here the panel I was on at the V4V Summit at the Chicago Bitcoin Collective
Food and Culture Panel
https://youtu.be/u1tQiJ2AV5Y
By the way, I don't know if you already mentioned it, but how big is your land?
20acres total. 10acres of pasture and 10acres of woods. It's going to take more than my lifetime to get this homestead into a truly permanent state of production.
God...that place is really big...there really is space for at least three or four generations to live together there
yes, if there are just a few Bitcoiners within an hour of each other with that much land each, we could produce enough food for all the Bitcoiners in that locality exclusively. slowly but surely.
What you’re doing is incredible it’s a lot of work. There’s nothing better than being self-sufficient. Have you always lived on a farm, or is this something new for you?
I started with no experience or mentors about 10 years ago. Took about 5 years before things were moving along well enough to take the dive and go full time on the homestead. All the capital I'm building starts right here at home now.
That’s a great success. I imagine it was difficult at the start not everyone manages to run a farm full time. What led you to start this?
I wouldn't call what I'm doing farming as much as homesteading. I don't make much cash flow from natural capital as much as I save myself from having to buy food with the things I'm growing. In hindsight, I was in search of more sovereignty, but I just wanted to be able to take care of myself. Now, I'm participating in a revolution of people looking to make the world a better place.
My grandfather had a type of die to put something like that in the eggs....normally it was for cards or things like that.....but he used them without problems...I'm sure there must be something specific for the eggs
I like the idea of branding and dating individual eggs! That would add more artistic value.
One step closer to a Bitcoin grocery store
The meetup is the farmers market
Meetup = Farmer’s Market
Summit =
Conference =
Convention =
I found this on amazon.....maybe it will help you
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=egg+stamp
🔥🔥🔥
Is this a drill/screwdriver? ~lol
yeah it's a drill driving a pump to transfer nutrient rich water from the trough to the compost piles.
Nice! There's a old saying here: “If you don't have a dog, hunt with a cat!” ahaha
🔗 Privacy-friendly video links:
Interesting system....great job Stackers
GM from Lagos, Nigeria! Day 2 here. Still 0 sats stacked but learning. Power just came back so I'm online small. How much did you guys start with? I want to stack 1000 naira daily from my shop work. Any advice for keeping phone data low while using SN?
The way everything connects together is seriously impressive.
Yeah, that setup is pretty damn cool. 🔥
Love the idea of creating multiple yields from one simple system.