Jake and I went to a panel discussion last night featuring some local farmers discussing how to make small farms profitable. Farming and gardening is such an elegant mix of science and art... I think that's why it all appeals to me so much.
My favorite part of the evening was a lively and lengthy discussion on compost. Such wonderful stuff! After describing the necessary ratio of carbon to nitrogen, one of the panelists offered a "recipe" for composting a cow. Layer sawdust, cow, sawdust, straw, manure. Let sit for five months.
We appreciated this validation... after some discussion about what to do with the contents of gutbuckets from butchering our chickens last year, (the dump wasn't open until several days later, we didn't want to freeze them or bury them in the woods for fear of attracting predators that would bother our other animals, etc...) we ended up composting them. feathers, bones, and all. When we mixed our compost with our new soil for the raised beds this year, there was no sign of chicken!
Now we know this is not only an efficient means of disposing of animal remains, but it also preserves the mineral value of that component of your farm from leaving the premises, therefore saving you the future expense and trouble of having to replace it.
I'm currently scheming about a compost bin/rabbit hutch combo similar to this one.
postscript: The raccoon ate the rest of Agnes' duck eggs on Monday night. I could have cried! We have since designed and installed some safer nesting boxes. Lesson learned.
No comments:
Post a Comment