The arrival of chickens at Dancing Rabbit gives me cause to think about the roles of animals in agricultural systems. Many agricultural systems focus on food or fiber production as benefits of keeping livestock, but nutrient cycling, tilling, and pest and weed control are also valuable. Tamar, Ted and I (the proud owners of the new chickens) are taking a holistic approach to managing our chickens to achieve these benefits.
According to the DR ecological covenants, agriculture on DR land must be managed in accordance with international organic standards. Whereas many non-organic farmers and gardeners use chemical fertilizers to improve soil fertility, we rely partially on composted animal manure. It takes a lot of resources (fuel, human labor and time) to get manure from off the farm or even to shovel it out of your own barn. To minimize resource use, we are constructing a chicken tractor, a mobile chicken yard that allows the chickens to scratch, poop, and clear the area of grasses and other plants. We plan to rotate the 4-foot wide tractor through the garden, allowing the chickens to weed and fertilize the beds. When it comes time to expand our gardens, we will use the chicken tractor to clear the land and build the beds. In the future, we will add goats and sheep to the fertilization and weeding rotation.
One of the first chickens at Dancing Rabbit
Chickens and other poultry are great for controlling insect pests as well as weeds. Chickens scratch around in the top inch or so of soil, feeding on seeds and insects found there. They grab flying insects right out of the air. When we get goats and sheep, they will be followed in the grazing rotation by the chickens. Just as chickens will scratch in soil, they will also scratch in manure, nibbling on any insects or nematodes, and mixing the manure into the soil.
Raising animals for their meat alone results in a significant loss in sun and earth energy as it is converted to food energy. Eating a cow that ate grain provides one tenth of the caloric energy as eating the grain itself. Much the same as planting a nut tree from which you can harvest nuts for years to come, raising an animal that you can harvest a product from at some regular interval is more sustainable, in that you only have to plant that seed or raise that chicken once.
By raising animals that provide a sustainable product and managing them to perform a variety of farm tasks, we create a balanced system that brings us closer to realizing a sustainable way of life.
Sara Peters (who doesn't even eat chicken) first came to DR as a garden intern in 2001. This year she's come back as a member! Look for her bio in an upcoming issue of the Hare.
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