After returning from Home Depot this afternoon, I took a walk around the ranch. I already knew what I wanted to do in my head. This afternoon, I wanted to visualize it walking through my ranch. I walked back toward the Guinea Fowl pens. I stood there for awhile taking in the scenery. I imagined what the new layout of the ranch would look like taking in the whole area.
The Guineas would have to move towards the north paddock to make room for the Goat holding pens. The new Boer and Kiko herds that I plan on investing in from Hawaii would stay out in the paddocks, rotating from one paddock to the other. I plan to build a mobile hoop shelter to drag along to each paddock that their in to provide shade and shelter from the rain..
The new horse fencing would be use for perimeter fencing, supplemented with 3 strand electrical polywire on the livestock side. My interior fencing would be 2 or 3 strand electrical fencing between paddocks and 6 strand at main ranch area and house.
The piggery operation will be pastured pigs. I picked up the concept from Polyface Farms in Virginia. That will save on lots of facilities costs. The pigs will be in their natural environment albeit controlled. With the pigs, I'll only have to run single wire electric wire and rotate them every month until slaughter.
The apiary operation will be on the roof of the house. I'll be getting a new 32' extension ladder to use, until the wooden staircase is built, to manage the bee hives. I'll start with one hive and increase it to one hive a month, until I get 10 hives up there on the roof. The bees will help pollinate the crops and vegetables that will be planted this year and in the future. They will also provide honey that I will use and sell. The price of honey is going up on island. I might as well start raising my own honey for personal use and sell the surplus. The reason why I'm putting the bee hives on the roof. It's to keep the toads and frogs from setting up any ambush to the hives entrances, like if they were on the ground. I got the advice from a former beekeeper here. Several toads will wipe out a whole bee colony.
We'll be going back to raising egg layers as well. The new mobile coop based on Polyface design will be built next to the new goat pens. The eggmobile will follow the goats, from paddock to paddock. I'm still debating if I'll raise 50 or 100 hens. I know, I won't be able to eat all those organic farm fresh eggs. But, I'm thinking of selling the surplus to family and friends. The last time we did this. My niece, Arissa, was in elementary. She enjoyed going out collecting the eggs. Because of that, she started baking cakes using the organic fresh eggs from the ranch. She would then share her cakes with her cousins in the compound. Back then we had a dozen egg layers. Each hen averaged 4 eggs a week. With 12 hens in full production, we were getting 48 eggs a week on average. Those eggs were really good.
The duck operation is still in the air. Raising Muscovy ducks is easy. They're great to get rid of snails and slugs on the ranch. That helps cut down on the nematode issue. Also their meat is nice and sweet, especially when you roast it. I just don't want to grow to fast where I won't be able to handle it. We'll see how things go during our start up this year.
It would have been great if I was able to get that chipper. That would have helped me in making my own feeds. Next time...
Things are falling into place.
ESTA.
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