Did you buy or build the chicken plucker?
Saw one on Dirty Jobs that rotated horizontally and you held onto the feet and fed the bird in while the machine plucked it. On and off was a foot pedal.

Thanks for showing the whole picture on food production.

Thank you for the complements. I’m not building worm bins any longer because I couldn’t sell them for enough to make it worth the time and materials. My design was based on the OSCR worm bin using two 10 gallon roughneck totes. I’ve also made tabletop versions with the 3 gallon totes. Just google ‘OSCR worm bin’ and you’ll have more plans than you know what to do with. Best of luck & and send pics!!

-Brian

I’ve already bookmarked it so I can come back to it!

Good luck, and I enjoy reading about your bee adventures!

– Steven

-Brian

I really appreciated your talk about farmer’s markets and would like to know more about your value added products. Also you seem to have a handle on marketing (your name is known from Alaska to the Czech republic to China), do you have any tips for people who will be starting out?

Thanks keep up the good work!

http://mowingwithease.com/blog
http://mowingwithease.com/

look forward to your next updates.

Take care
Neil

Wanted to say hello, compliment you on the podcast and website, and the info
you’ve shared which I’ve found very interesting and encouraging.

I’d been interested in podcasts the last few months, searching and searching
as you for a good podcast on homesteads etc… was often thinking to make it
myself, but finally got the encouragement after seeing how you’ve made yours.

So our site is http://www.mowingwithease.com where we sell Austrian scyths,
courses etc.

Sorry I keep mispronouncing your website name… looking forward to hearing
more and following you and your family.

All the best to you and your family

Neil

I really enjoy your show.

Can you do two things for me?
1. Publish the plans for a few different chicken tractors you recommend?
2. Publish the names of the musical artists for your opening and closing songs?

Thanks!
tim

Josh

I was deeply saddened by the news of the death of your horse Manna. Please know my thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family during this difficult time.

Please pass my deepest sympathies along to Laura and your the kids.

Josh

It looks like you said it very well, thank you! Indeed, this is simply the
way the cart functions on our new site and we were not able to create a work
around by the time we’d “let ‘er loose” so to speak. While it was going on,
we were happy to let folks place orders over the phone without card info if
they had a concern.

We certainly hope things are smoother in the future!

Jennifer Bauman
Marketing Director
ARBICO-Organics
http://www.arbico-organics.com
520/825-9785 (ph)
520/825-2038 (fax)

Great show. Laura did a fantastic job and was very informative. You two make a good team.

Regarding the food and farming thing, I know I come sometimes come off sounding like a militant, it’s just that I’m very passionate about that kind of stuff.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I was wondering if you’ve watched the documentary Food Inc. It’s about where our food comes from. A friend of a friend of mine was the guy who made it. It’s a good watch so if you haven’t seen it it’s worth renting.

By the way I’ve been listening to the Geek.Farm.Life podcast lately per your recommendation. It’s awesome. Thanks!

Thanks for posting my video about the stanchion, I’m currently working on another video on how to make a drum composter out of a 55 gallon barrel and some wood. I’ll send it your way when it’s done.

Thanks again.
Josh

I was kind of board this weekend plus we needed a stanchion so I built one and made a how to video of it.

Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8fBjzv5HwA

Josh

I just listened to your latest show. Good stuff.

I’m the Josh that asked about the previous episode availability. I’m also the one that posted the rant about corporations and the government taking over our food supply. Which is kind of a funny story. What happened was that I’ve been pounding through your previous episodes like they’re going out of style. As I mentioned I listened to 18-27 then wasn’t able to access the previous ones. That’s when I sent out the first feedback. The next day I assumed that you had fixed the feed because the previous episodes became available, so I started another marathon of shows starting at episode 1.

I have to hand it to you, I love your content.

So, I was blasting through the shows one after the other non stop. Then I hit episode 11. It was the episode where you explained how you tried to obtain a egg candler permit and talked about HR 875. I listened to half of the show then got really worked up and stopped to send the government/corporation rant feedback.

In this latest episode you make some great points about how the shear numbers of people that have to be fed by the system. You also touch on how the farmers are just scrapping by. Those are both good points and ones I’d like to lend some feedback to if you don’t mind.

There are more people in the system today than ever before. The amount of demand that is put on the farming industry is intense, but it doesn’t mean we have to throw out our values regarding animal treatment, the best food comes form happy animals. Think about Kobe beef? Those cows live a better life then I do. We also have no idea what the adverse long term effects to consuming modified foods are. That kind of scares me.

In my opinion it’s big business that has transformed the farms and farmer into what they are today. Corporations are about efficiency, productivity, and delivering profits to their board. “Do more for less” is a common strategy.”

In the case of farms it unfortunately means to produce more livestock, fruit, or vegetable crops in less room with lower quality feed and poisonous additives.

It no longer is a decision that farmers make. Corporations have the farmer under their hand thanks to regulatory stipulations that have been lobbied under the false pretense of making our food safer. Not to mention companies like Monsanto that reap the benefit of patenting living organisms. What’s next? Worker drone humans that are owned by Microsoft?

In order to fix the problem people are going to have to change their habits dramatically. Maybe get their asses off the sofa and do something productive for a change.

I keep 7 chickens and 2 goats on my 1/3 acre lot in suburban UT.

I unfortunately I have my doubts about people changing their habits. I personally know several people who think eggs from backyard chickens is disgusting. Which completely baffles me. Where do they think eggs come from???

Anyway, I get kind of fired up about stuff like this because I think that too many people have given up on what seems to be a regular way to obtain food.

Great show!

Keep them coming.

Josh

It’s wrong to genetically engineer corn and soybean seeds to be resistant to poisonous chemicals like “RoundUp®”

It’s wrong to make cattle stand in their own facies then pour ammonia on the processed beef to sanitize it of bacteria.

It’s wrong to make chickens live their lives in less than 1 sq/ft. of space and bioengineer them to grow so fast that they can’t even walk.

Theses are all things that are common practice in the food production industry. The government accepts these atrocities and continually ignores what’s best for us and the plants and animals that feed us.

My point… When it comes to food the government is on the side of the corporations.

It’s about who has the “power”. We need to take back control of what we’re eating!

I know you published podcast 10 in July but my wife and I only recently listened to it. I’m also interested in rainwater catchments and the like. I live in middle TN and this area is hilly. I had a bit of a drainage problem on one corner of my house. Rainwater would run down the hill and saturate the ground under the foundation on that corner resulting in high humidity and moisture in that room. I ended up putting a “curtain drain” in and also routing the gutter drain 50′ away from the house. The curtain drain (TN term, I grew up in FL) is akin to a “french” drain …. plastic on the downhill side and bottom of the trench with gravel and perf drain in the bottom with some type of fabric over the pipe/gravel. What surprised me though was how much water traveled under the surface of the ground …. much more than came off the roof and gutter. Only 10′ of curtain drain provides significantly more water than the gutter there. There is a rock base about 3′ below that surface that allows for the below-the-ground water flow I guess. Interesting and definitely new for this FL boy. I’m going to put in a catchment system but work to capture both above and below ground water. Your info and links are really helpful, thanks.

Charlie

Thanks for listening and thanks for putting up with the audio on the mobile podcasts. The next one will be from the house so hopefully I won’t sound so distracted. You picked a great fruit for your area since blueberries grow native in North Carolina. I’ll definitely spend some time talking about them on the next show. They are easy to grow and low maintenance provided that you accommodate a few conditions.

-Brian

Anyway I heard you mention you have some blueberries. I want to try blueberries next spring, I am looking at one of the highbush varieties. I will probably start with 3 or 4 bushes. Can you lend any insight on transforming former lawn into a good blueberry bed?

Oh yeah, I am in Central North Carolina.

Thanks – keep up the nice podcast

Greg

Also… Thanks for your honesty in your latest podcast! If more people dealing with mental illnesses would speak up it would help educate people!
Thanks again!

Thanks for what you do mate.

Thanks for the explanation. I think it’s important to hear these things in context from time to time.

*My name is Nethy (Nee-Tay). Net is shorthand.
**Chook is Australian for chicken (roast chook, Chook house, etc.). I suggest you try it for a couple of weeks. You’ll never say chicken again.
***Dianna is right. It is a lot of fun being talked to by name in a podcast.

Assuming you get honey, how much & what do you do with it all?

Darren Orr

I was actually planning to talk about the chickens on the next one. I’m trying not to focus too much on the bees, but that’s what my time is being spent on these days, so it’s exceedingly convenient.

Thank you again!

My friends in OK raise chickens so if you are so inclined to talk about them one day, maybe I can learn enough to know what they are talking about.

Perhaps some vested interests threatened by this trend is proposing this and other legislations to make that move impossible and destroy the samll family farms.

That way a homeless person can live only on the streets of Manhattan or jump into the Atlantic ocean perhaps.