Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Shoot!!! They don't have to be named!!! Just smart enough to jump out of their pen and follow the grandkid around like a pet dog or in this case pet chicken.

do rats count? I think I have rats eating my chilis :-)

Before refrigeration became common (1960's) the only things for sale regularly were dry goods and all of it delivered by rail usually.

Butter was a luxury and milk was hand delivered fresh from the dairy by overnight trains. The trains had 2 ice box vans that held butter. Yoghurt? Gran showed me how to churn butter from milk anyway, they made their own...

Most 1900 housing UK, US, AU etc had just enough space in the backyard for a veggie garden. These days we can grow 6 times more in the same space. I remember my grandparents veggie garden and loved watering it as a child.

They knew what they were doing and had greens and beans all year round in space that 2 cars could park in.

Good Thread.
some of the posts really remind me of some things in a book I'm currently reading.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
A Year of Food Life
By Barbara Kingsolver
with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingslover

I'm about half way through it and it is a very good read so far. There are some bits about children and "Pets? or Dinner?"

And moving on to other comments

I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble to milk a rat.
I have had some success using a rat zapper ultra to deal with the occasional rats. Far easier than letting the cook snap his fingers in an old fashion rat trap.

As to feeding a family from the produce of the backyard. Yes I'm sure it can be done. Perhaps not 100% but I think it is very reasonable to get a large amount of one's own food from the backyard and then most of the balance from local sources and only splurging on some items from afar (like maybe coffee, olive oil, and flour in my case.)

The more one incorporates permaculture into their methods and perhaps adding food forests or forest gardens to their yards, the more diverse the property becomes and the less dependence on outside foods.

With some Aquaponics, some birds, perhaps some goats of pigs if one is up to handling larger livestock, suddenly the world doesn't need to be so big anymore.

Food.inc is a good watch..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/

Reasonably horrifying..