As far as nesting was concerned, chickens like to nest inside an enclosure with sides to stop the eggs from rolling around. I shopped around and found some plastic baskets which I screwed to the loft floor to stop them moving around. This is what they looked like;

You will notice that I have cut out the front of the baskets for easy access and used wood chips for nesting material. I have also used the wood chips on the floor of the enclosure.

At this point let me introduce you (in no particular order) to Andrea, Brenda, Charlene and Debbie (A,B,C and D).

They arrived on a Tuesday evening and started laying almost immediately, always favouring the nest on the left for some reason or other. Some stats of their first few days;

Day #1, 2 eggs

Day#2, 1 egg

Day#3, 1 egg

Day#4, 2 eggs

Day#5, 3 eggs

Day#6, 4 eggs

Day#7, 3 eggs

Currently I get 3-4 eggs every day, which is far more than I can eat!!!

They seem to take turns and lay their eggs in succession one after the other in exactly the same place.

In my next post I will discuss their feeding habits and daily free-range. But for now, Cluck-cluck.

Later

Synaptoman

As you can see this lower door flaps upwards to change food and water, clean the floor and let the chickens in and out.

The next big job was the roof. With the roof sheets cut to size back in Knysna, I thought that this would be a walk in the park. How wrong I was. With no-one helping and with a gale-force wind blowing I battled and swore for hours until I got all the roof sheets on to my satisfaction. No beer drinking during this stage.

The top of the roof is finished off with a ridge but the one that I had bought would not bend down as far as I needed as my roof pitch was too steep, so it was off to the hardware store to buy a more flexible roof ridge. I have also bought white roof paint which I will apply later. The lighter the colour, the more light (and thus heat) will be reflected off of the roof. Here in Paarl, South Africa, temperatures rise to over 45 deg C in Summer.

Here is a shot of the roof. Not bad, even though I say so myself. This was the stage at which one is supposed to throw a big party and drink champagne, but being alone, I just settled for a Heineken.

With a few more bits and pieces to finish off, it was almost time to move it into position and await the “ladies”. Here’s a shot of the loft apartment where all the eggs were going to get laid. You can also see the top flap-door which opens downwards.

The excitement was mounting and tomorrow was the big day !!

Later

Synaptoman

Then the slog work started. As this is an outside structure, proper weather-proofing is required. The frame needed at least 3 coats of a weather-proof sealer and I decided on an oak colour. Here’s a shot after the first coat;

As mentioned previously, the chicken tractor would have a loft for egg laying. This I constructed and made it removable for cleaning. I also wanted easy access to the run area as well as the loft area for feeding and watering and egg-collecting respectively. I also decided to complete the chicken mesh at this stage. In this shot you can see the mesh on and the lower (run) door finished and the supports for the loft floor;

At this stage I could almost taste the fresh eggs that would soon be flowing from this little egg factory and with the Child Bride in the UK for a month, I could now rush this project along to have it finished by the time she arrived home. I also started making enquiries about some laying hens and located a local chicken farm that would possibly part with a few hens.

I placed my order for a date 2 weeks off which would at least give me a time target to work towards. At this stage I also went shopping for some really cool brass hinges and fittings (dankie Niggie dat jy saam gekom het).

This was going to be the most blinged-out chicken tractor in the world.

Anyway, enough for now.

Synaptoman

The design was an A-Frame structure made up of 3 triangles with approximately 2m x 2m x 2m sides. The height would thus be about 1.5m (Mathematics 101) The 3 trusses would be placed about 1m apart giving me a nice square 2m x 2m structure. I used 38mm x 76mm wood for the frame as this would give me enough strength without being too heavy. This would be sufficient space for the 4 ladies. I would then also build a “loft” apartment for egg-laying with a handy little ladder for easy access. They would also need perches for sleeping at night and it would all be covered in a nice waterproof zinc roof.

I purchased the bulk of the materials in Knysna, cut them to size and transported them to Paarl for assembly. This included the wooden frame as well as the roof sheets. The zinc roof sheets were cut to size with an angle grinder and I used a good old-fashioned hand saw for the timber.

With the timber cut to size the frame was assembled in double quick time. I used “gang-nails” to join the timber which is very similar to how roof trusses are constructed.

As you can see, I used bamboo poles to hold the frames in position as I had no-one to help me in this process.

I have been begging the Child Bride for years to let me keep chickens and the objection has always been that they are noisy and dirty and neighbours would complain. Since starting this project I have learned first-hand some fascinating facts about chickens and I’ll share some with you today before signing off;

• Laying hens are almost totally silent save for a very subdued cackle when an egg is laid.
• Without a rooster, hens still continually lay (unfertilised) eggs.
• A laying hen in good health and age will lay an egg every 26 hours. You can thus get an egg a hen most days.
• Chickens are FAR more intelligent than you imagine and will happily follow commands and learn from normal fear/greed impulses.
• A chicken can destroy a garden bed in approximately 15 minutes scratching for insects.
• They love ranging and get pretty bored sitting around all day doing nothing.
• Chickens are omnivorous (the same as humans and pigs) and will happily eat meat.
• They need constant access to fresh, cool water, the more so in hot weather.

Anyway, I’d better be off.

Later

Synaptoman

My circumstances having changed somewhat, I now find myself behind a computer terminal programming and my more agricultural pursuits have had to take place after work or over weekends. I also live alone in a small cottage on a wine farm and commute home to the Child Bride and Brat Deluxe in Knysna every 2^nd weekend. This did not stop me immediately establishing a very productive little vegetable garden and recently my thoughts wandered back to chickens.

I am currently able to feed myself at least 3 days a week from my garden and the logic behind keeping chickens was to make myself even more self-sufficient. I have been a forum member of backyardchickens.com for a few years and I turned to this site for inspirations for a small chicken tractor (moveable coop) that could provide me with 3-4 eggs a day.

In my research I discovered that a laying hen produces an egg every 26 hours. I would thus need 4 hens and set about designing a coop to fit this bill. Ever on the lookout for integrated systems I also figured that 4 hens would also provide me with plenty of manure for my blossoming garden.

The coop would also have to be neat and well-constructed as I rent the cottage that I live in here in Paarl and try my best to keep my landlords happy. I wanted to design and build a piece of garden furniture and not some cobbled together creation of wood and wire.

This then is what I was aiming for, which I found at backyardchickens.com

The next couple of posts will document the build and my own interpretation of this design.

Enough for now

Synaptoman

My enthusiasm for, and confidence in Tilapia farming as a sustainable means of producing protein in the 21st Century never wanes. Despite the challenges facing potential investors in this sector, I remain bullish that this is THE species that will provide a large percentage of our protein intake in the future.

I have however, watched in dismay as the industry struggles to find its feet here at the southern tip of Africa.  All that has probably been lacking is a coordinated marketing plan and the resolution of some minor technical issues, the temperature requirement being one.

My promotion, over the years for Aquaponic (AP) farming of Tilapia, is well-documented and not a week goes by without a number of my readers emailing me with questions or advice in this regard from all corners of the world.  While AP is my passion, I also keep my eyes and ears open for any traditional aquaculture systems that seem worthwhile.

Recently I came across a turnkey system locally that really got my attention.  The technical aspects were impressive enough, but when I realised that it was being marketed by David Fincham, who is now at Dicla Farm and Seeds, I really got excited.  David has a wealth of experience in the tilapia industry locally and has served on numerous industry-specific committees.  Dicla on the other hand are a well-respected agricultural supply company with years of experience in the farming sector.

The Dicla Tilapia system can be summarised as follows;

• Tilapia are stocked in net cages and held for a period of 21days in each net.
• Every 21 days the Tilapia are carefully transferred to the next cage until after 189 days they are ready for harvest at a weight of 260-350g a healthy plate size fish.
• All the water is recycled and put through various filtering and cleaning processes to return to the system.
• Water temperature is maintained by Solar energy from the greenhouse and is retained by the efficient system design so that heat losses between day and night time temperatures are only 1-2 Degrees Celsius.
• The Dicla Eco Tilapia are fead a well formulated and processed commercial Tilapia Pellet feed.   The Tilapia are hand fed according to a feed table 7-8 times a day.  This hand feeding allows one to monitor the feeding response of the Tilapia, their health and the health of the system.
• Water quality is constantly monitored and tested on a regular basis to ensure Tilapia health and growth.

I am sure that a couple of vegetable growbeds could easily be bolted onto this system to provide a supplementary crop and assist in the bio-filtration, but I am sure David could answer this question.

If you are looking for a well-designed, turnkey Tilapia system, this could be it.  I was most impressed by the design of the system and the realistic and verifiable production figures given in their promotional material.

Who knows?  This could just be, the one.

You can find Dicla’s website here.

Davids email address is david(at)dicla.com or phone him on + 27116622846.

Be sure to tell them that;

“Synaptoman sent me“, and you will be looked after.

Cheers

Synaptoman

While I hope that this day will never come, I set about collecting as much information as possible (typical Synaptoman, I hear you say). There were basically three choices, brew beer, make wine or, to me, more interestingly, make mead.

What is mead? If you’d like a very detailed explanation, pop over to the best resource on the web for mead production Got Mead. here. For a short and sharp introduction, let me enlighten you.

Mead (or honey wine) is the oldest man-made fermented beverage in the world and pre-dates wine and beer by thousands of years. In its very simplest form, it is made by dissolving honey in water, adding a yeast and allowing the mixture to ferment. Doing it as above will either blind you or make you extremely sick so rather do some decent research or join the above-mentioned forum to learn how to do it properly. Of course, on the other hand, you could just wait for the eBook, Making Mead- The Synaptoman way.

The word “honeymoon” comes from the gift of a months worth of mead given to newlyweds in medieval times, presumably to ensure early conception of offspring during this post-wedding period. 

I started making my first mead over a year ago and a few weekends ago the Child Bride and I set about bottling the resulting product. It has fermented and then matured during this time in a 20L carboy and this particular mead, containing fruit and known as a Melomel, consisted of water, fynbos honey, mango and prickly pear. I used a Sauvignon Blanc yeast and the resulting mead has an alcohol content of 13.4%, is off-dry and tastes like a noble late harvest white dessert wine, but not as sweet.

Here are some action shots of the racking and bottling process.

This is what a carboy looks like.

Here a shot of the Child Bride filling the first bottle.

A case of bottled  mead

And this what the final product, Blombos 2010, looks like

In closing, my “pretty picture” for the day is a shot I took of the Child Bride on a recent weekend away at Langebaan on the West Coast.

Enough for now

Cheers

Synaptoman

Because of my new challenges in a distant town and the Child Bride moaning about the daily upkeep of our home Aquaponic (AP) system, I recently decided to scale down the home system to a more manageable scale that the Child Bride and Brat Deluxe could manage with ease.

First (unfortunately), the Tilapia brood stock that had served me so well over the years (and put a serious amount of food on the table) had to go.  I sent out 5 emails to  clients in the immediate area and within 2 hours they had been snapped up by a lucky sod just 10 km down the road.  The immediate effect of this is that I will no longer have Tilapia fingerlings for sale from this Spring, but I will merely change the contact details on this blog to route fingerling enquiries to the new hatchery.

After delivering the fish one Saturday morning, the work began.

You may remember my original home system.  It consisted of two 1.7m diameter tanks inside a greenhouse and 10 growbeds outside.  These were fed by gravity.  Later I added more growbeds at a higher level fed by a submersible pump.  These I would be using in my new layout.

Step one was to scale the system down to one tank, so out came the front tank leaving some very useful space in the greenhouse for seedling production.

Then I decided to shorten the back tank so that the Child Bride could easily work with the fish here without climbing up a ladder, so out came the trusty grinder.

I now have a nice short tank with about 50 goldfish (comets) that I bred last Spring.  I will rig up a submersible pump to pump water to the higher level of growbeds, but for Winter I have moved all my plants into my soil (permaculture) garden.

I had a few Tilapia fry (all males) that I have moved into a fish tank in the study to keep the Child Bride amused while I’m out of town.  One can spend hours watching these little critters and it’s fascinating to see them at close hand after all these years just seeing glimpses of them in the big tanks.

And just in closing, a photograph of Jess the greenhouse helper, starting to get cold as Winter approaches.

Enough for now.

Cheers

Synaptoman

I look forward to interesting debate by like-minded, loyal followers of this blog.  As mentioned previously, I am also looking for moderators, so if you think you have what it takes, please step right up.

Cheers

Synaptoman

Firstly, what is PC?

The aim of PC is to design ecologically sound, economically prosperous human communities.  It is guided by a set of ethics; caring for the Earth, caring for people and reinvesting the surplus that this care will create.  (Gaia’s Garden, A Guide to Home Scale Permacuture, Toby Hemenway. ISBN 978-1-60358-029-8)

One of the first tasks in building an ecologically sound (and productive) garden is to build the soil.  I was immediately attracted to the concept of sheet mulching because it was irrelevant what the current condition of your garden is, whether it be sandy, clay soil or even a water-sucking lawn, sheet mulching was guaranteed to work because the soil was built upwards from scratch.

Briefly sheet-mulching entails building a raised bed of compostable material into which one can immediately start planting.  Planned and implemented correctly, it will immediately start breaking down and composting, retain water on an impressive scale and last for many years.  Even when it starts becoming less productive, one just adds compostable material on top to start all over again.

Anyway, here is Sheet Mulching – The Synaptoman way.

The best advice I can give here is to start small.  My first attempt at sheet mulching (SM) was an area of about 4m x 3m and it took a hard day’s slog and plenty of material to complete the job.   You will need the following;

• Enough cardboard or newspaper to cover the area.
• Manure (cow manure works the best)
• Organic material (straw, grass cuttings, bark, almost anything)
• Weed free compost
• Mulch

I bought 12 large bags of pine bark chips which would act as my organic material and my mulch, 10 bags of mushroom compost and a pickup load of cow manure and got cracking.

 We had to fetch the manure ourselves, here’s a very rare shot of Brat Deluxe doing some work for a change.

After the manure episode he deserted me and I built the SM bed single-handedly, although I shouldn’t be too harsh on him as he looks after my garden while I’m out “hunting and gathering”, including watering the rapidly expanding fruit orchard, which in his own words is, “no joke”.

First Step is to spread a fine layer of manure over the area.

Water thoroughly and then pack cardboard or newspaper over the area.  This will kill all grass or weeds by depriving them of sunlight.  At every step from now on, water thoroughly.

After this goes the manure.  Aim for about an inch (25mm)

Then we start packing layers of organic material (in my case, the wood chips).  The deeper the better but I managed about 6 inches (150mm).

After that comes the compost. About 1 inch (25mm)

Followed by a final layer of mulch (more wood chips)

It is very important that you water at every stage.  It is absolutely amazing how much water this solid pile of material holds.  It acts as a sponge and I estimate that I added between 500-700L of water to this pile without a drop seeping out of the sides.

Now we wait a few weeks (or the whole of our Winter here in South Africa) and then start planting.

Wish me luck.

*Breaking News*

I have started testing a Forum for Synaptoman where subscribers and regular readers can discuss subjects dealt with in this blog.  I have a rough site working and am busy conducting tests after which I will open it up to subscribers to this blog first and thereafter the general public.  I hope to have this ready by next week and would appreciate any suggestions for Categories.  So far I have Categories with the following headings;

• Aquaponics (obviously)
• Permaculture
• Sustainable Living
• Alternative Energy

I am also looking for some volunteers to moderate individual categories.  I think it is going to be immensely popular and a lot of fun to have a small focused community where folk with similar interests can throw ideas around outside of the madness that the Internet has become.

Enough for now

Synaptoman