Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How do you figure on keeping the chickens in the goat pen? A neighbor of mine has chickens he rescued from the broiler houses, so they can't fly. Not very experienced in the winged part of their existence. However, the chickens on my property can fly very well. I've seen them take off and chase a hawk away (but that was a pissed-off mama hen), they can fly up into the trees to roost, and the ones in the 6' pen can fly over the walls to eat grass/weeds/bugs, etc... then fly back in to roost on top of the walls at night.

So what I'm saying is, keep the goats in the pen ( or TRY to ) and just feed the chickens outside the pen. They tend to hang out where they are fed the most. If you give them a roosting spot in the goat pen, they should go back there every night.

What breed of chooks?

So far, the chickens have not shown any interest in leaving, although they could have just walked through the fence when they were smaller. They seem to like hanging out with the goats, and even snuggle up to them sometimes when the goats settle down for naps. I'm secretly hoping it just won't occur to them to leave, so I don't want to do anything that will give them any ideas. Also, there's the rat thing. I want the chicken feed where the goats can stomp any rats that try to get to it.

I have a variety of breeds, since I get bored when everything's too much the same. Right now I've got 3 lavender orpingtons, 2 cuckoo marans, an Americauna, a Jersey giant, and a Rhode Island red. They're all pullets, to replace the flock that I gave to my ex-landlady to pay for the extra rent we owed her when our closing was delayed on this house.

These camp stoves have a port to charge your cell phone. Now I need to find out how to make electricity with my (future) RMH.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

Word.

Those are seriously cool stoves!

Yes, they are. So how do we make one? Bullwinkle, where ARE you???

Oh, I forgot. We have to wait until it's winter in Australia. *sigh*

Tis the plight of these cross hemisphere collaborations... Portland seems to be the epicenter of RMHs. The expertise you seek is much closer to home than you think. They are mostly unheard of outside the Portland metropolitan area and Missoula Montanna.

Hmmm. Maybe when I'm done working two jobs (one more week!) I'll trek across the river and see what I can see. (If I can figure out where to trek to, that is.)

That's a pretty cool idea. A lot to go wrong, but still cool.

It looks like it works as a rocket stove but using a fan to get over its small stature.

The electricity generated would probably just be by bi-metalic strip. Dificult to make lots of electricity. If that what they are using, it's probably a hundred of them or so in the yellow bit.

Or not.

I just looked it up on wikipedia and nothing is mentioned about a bimetalic strip generating electricity. surely my grade 7 teacher wasnt wrong

Every one of my teachers were wrong, I have outlived the lot of them and still have not passed any school certificates.

Did your teachers say anuthing about electricity being generated via bimetalic strip.

Whew...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect

+1 neat stove, reverse Peltier effect like. I have a small electric refrigerator that works the same way but does heating or cooling depending on the direction of the current. Had wondered whether these could be used to generate with a heat gradient. Same thing in some Chryslers I think, the ones with a cooler built in to the glove box.

Not Peltier, Seebeck. Good old Wikipedia has the lowdown.