Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Man, that chicken house is bigger than my townhome!

Yeah its pretty cool.

Those are real free range cooks rather than the regular gulag mud yard farming that people somehow manage to call free range with a straight face.

Dear TCL, is heartwarming to see mum and baby looking healthy, many congratulations :]

And Respect for still going strong handling the baby and the systems as well, you continue to amaze and astound.

All the best, drive safe and God bless.

We used to use the movable electric fence for the chickens but it wasn't effective enough against our wildlife threats.
Seeing as we were dealing with a mixed flock of a variety of types of chickens and the muscovy ducks. Unfortunately the ducklings will walk through almost any type of fence and if they do that the momma will follow and the biggest threat to the ducklings was the hawks so a fence doesn't protect against them.
Also, the fence becomes ineffective if you cant scalp the grass and weeds right down before putting it up, our property didn't make it easy to mow the area we were keeping the chickens in so arranging padock fencing didn't work very well and no matter how many times I would tell "helpers" NOT to weed whip right against that fencing, they kept doing it to the point that I couldn't keep up with repairing it.

I think we are going to do a cattle panel arch version of a mobile chicken pen that we can move every day.
My idea is an 8x8 or 8x10 pen that would hold perhaps 6 layers and contain perches, nest boxes, feeder/water. Nest boxes accessible from outside and be able to fill feed/water from outside. Have a rain cover over the top of most of the pen and hardware cloth wire around the bottom couple feet and probably chicken wire over the rest with a door in one end to allow us to get in when we need to add/remove birds or whatever. I would probably have it on 2-4 wheels in a fashion that doesn't require too much strength to move it 10 feet per day. The move has to be easy enough for a little old grandmother type to do it (or me to do while wearing a toddler if I must). Which means can't expect person moving it to bend over too much or lift much when bending down so must be well balanced. I want the operation to only take a few minutes per pen max and NO using a tractor or other motorized anything to do it.

That way the birds will be protected yet still get to improve our soil/grass/control pests etc while allowing our dogs to patrol around the pens to protect them from the animals big enough to go through or under the pen while still protecting the birds from flying threats and the dogs themselves.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to get out there and design/build it myself. Last winter my uncle built something too heavy to move even before figuring in nest boxes or feeders or wire and with a flat roof that the rain would collapse. Right now the cook is out there building his version which he seems to be planning to make 20' long out of mostly metal and I'm afraid it will require a truck to drag it but it's too big to move around/through much of the property so I'm not sure what he is thinking. Yet when I try to draw a design for anyone else they don't want to look at it.
Sigh

But as far as aquaponics goes.

That seems to be going well!!!!!

Even when there are things malfunctioning, it still seems to be working well.

Got lots of BIG catfish.
Winter marketing is going as good as it ever has. The Local Home Grown online market co-op has been selling Just enough to make it worth while to drive the orders down every week (well having mom here for the winter means that she and my aunt usually take the order down and then have some thrift shopping time so that works well for me.)
The near by little local grocery/market has been taking some regular weekly orders, not much but worth the quick trip over each week and there are people who definitely look for our products and ask about them if they run out.


Now if only I could figure out how to deal with the insurance..........
Apparently homeowners insurance companies don't want to cover you here if you have a farm unless you are willing to pay like 3 times the price and still they will restrict you from running any sort of business from the property and if you actually look like you might have livestock, forget it they won't even cover the dwelling for fire. Right now the best I can do is a policy that will ONLY cover the dwelling for actual cash value, not replacement cost, against Fire and Wind. They won't cover any liability or water damage (even wind driven water) or theft, yet I can't have any customers visit the property even though they are not covering liability. At this point I'm about ready to "self insure" or basically put the money in a bank account and hope it is enough to help us out if we do have a disaster. Seeing as the policy is so restricted there is no guarantee they will cover us even if the disaster falls within the supposed parameters of the coverage!!!!!!

Great thread. Over the last two days I have read the lot and learned loads. Thanks. Dan

Get on the phone and start calling agents. I'm in the process of starting a 3 acre market garden. I called the insurance guy who's office is at the Farm Bureau, thinking he would be a great ag insurance man. 2 weeks later, I get a call "Sorry, we couldn't find a policy. Call Lloyds of London".

I got on the phone to the insurance agent the 4-Hers use for their animals, and within 2 hours I had coverage at a decent rate.

Yep. I try and shop all my business coverage at least every few years. Saved almost 4K a year on the trucks the last time I did and got a higher limit and lower deduct. Homeowners, same thing....especially in Fl. I'm in one of the highest rated areas in the nation. People routinely pay 20-40% of their monthly for insurance around here. Ours is still too high, but managed to get it from a high of almost almost $350.00 a month to under $190.00. Shop, shop, shop.

I'm sure the insurance companies have some interesting stories - I remember my insurance company changing the policy so that damage caused by worm farms isn't covered. I guess they had too many people with indoor worm farms where the worms escaped and caused property damage or died and stunk up the place. Haven't seen any changes for Black Fly Larvae yet

LOL

Apparently I can get a farm/ranch (meaning Hobby farm/ranch where all the animal are "pets" and not livestock) provided I'm not actually running any business of any sort and they will NOT cover any of my farm equipment unless I get a separate rider for each piece of equipment (that includes the water tanks.) But that policy cost over $200 a month and they could probably wiggle out of paying any claims since I do have a business.

The Latest is I can get a Fire only policy on the dwelling from Citizens but they won't cover any liability. I got that policy, paid for it and a couple weeks later they cancel it saying I'm not eligible. The got the agent on the phone while he had underwriting on the phone. They will do a different product that will be fire and wind ONLY, they won't cover any water damage, theft, or even wind driven water damage as long as I don't have any livestock, or let any customers ever come to the property. (HUH, they are already excluding liability so what would be the harm in letting some one stop by to pick up a head of lettuce?)

Sigh. I'm about ready to give up on insurance. I am really sick of spending hours on the phone listing out everything about the property only to have to do it again in the paperwork and then make the payment and then have them cancel as soon as the change takes place. I'm waiting on the paperwork for the 4th policy in 3 months.

Keep at it, you'll find some coverage. Try Ag Extension for a lead, might even be a state program.

Maybe call Ryan to see what he had found since you too are in the same county.

Yea, I've got an inquiry out to Ryan on that already.

HI TCLynx,

Finally got to the end of your thread (and all updated ).

Congrats on bub, and the puppies, and the varied and different systems. Are you at a point where you can say which system you prefer to use? I would imagine there are a lot of variables to consider, so perhaps you could tell us what your favourite is, or which is the easiest to look after?

Looking forward to following along and seeing what else you and the cook can achieve (and Tovi too!).

Good luck, and I hope the fresh produce side of things continues to improve.

-francis