Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Simo: have had a bit of a look at backyard farming. Looks really good. We normally read about things after we've started them, so normally know a lot about stuff the second time around after our initial failures.

I often try to avoid too many sources of ideas as time and money are a bit scarce. I'm studying engineering full time which is a pretty heavy load, and with 2 young kids and Hannah not being well enough to work we're a bit time/cash poor. Saved up dollars for 2nd system and now semester has finished so have a bit more time over the next few months.

Ivan: we're in the city if canning. The rules about chooks are pretty harsh; have to be over 1000m2 and chook yard needs to be certain distance from house/boundary/neighbors etc.
We asked council anonymously, they said no, so we checked with neighbors and went ahead anyway. Our neighbours were fine with the idea as long as we didn't get roosters, which was fine by me as early morning crowing was the last thing that I wanted. (I have a 3 year old to wake me up early already.) We promised eggs to sweeten the deal and all was fine. Some of the neighbours really don't care, some of them love the Chooks being there for the eggs and the dumping ground for kitchen scraps.

We get between 4 and 6 eggs most days plus the occasional duck egg and bantam egg.

(side note: my phone keeps buggering up the spelling of 'neighbour'. Mr Steve Jobs disagrees with my ocker accent!)

We're currently goat sitting. (but really, why wouldn't we have goats in our yard!?!)

Are you sure you are living in 400m2 surburban block??

Last time I checked.

(I think it's actually 440... Sorry for leading you astray)

The goats belong to friends who live up the road on a (not really) bigger block (about 500m) who are about to move to Bridgetown. They're stocking up for the petting zoo that they want to set up. We're goat sitting for a day or 2 while they're out of town.

Nice animals. They walk them like dogs. It's a strange sight to see coming up the road.

I often see people out walking their kids! hehehe