Permaculture is a design system aiming for all round sustainability. Its about farming and gardening with few external inputs, using organic growing principles and energy efficiency, having a high level of biodiversity and viewing the whole property as an unique ecosystem. Originally focussing on self-reliance in backyard food production, it has also been translated into more broadscale applications.
Alanna Moore has been researching and testing permacultural poultry systems for a number of years on her permaculture farms in Australia. She is the author of ‘Backyard Poultry- Naturally’. This article was first published in the Permaculture International Journal #67, 1998 and has been slightly revised in 2008.
Why existing models are inadequate
Most eggs in the world today are produced in nasty cage systems that totally deny the birds’ natural behaviour and even induce cannibalism. The breeds used are so inbred that most of their genetic diversity was lost in the 1950s, a team of researchers reported (in 2008). Housing in fixed sheds, for ‘barn eggs’ has it’s own problems. More than 50 birds in a group and it gets stressful! Plus you have to keep adding deep litter for hens to scratch in. Lots of work! Even ‘free range’ can be a pretty awful existence, including a very boring life out on pasture only, or no green pick at all, plus far too many companions. Crowded conditions leads to pecking and fighting, which then necessitates beak trimming even in ‘free range’ systems, a mutilation which can give them pain for life. (When people take on the sad rejects of such a system that too are buying into its cruelty.)
Permaculture has come to the rescue and introduced more exciting lifestyles for the poster-child of small scale livestock. But permaculture poultry systems are best suited to small scale production only. Birds used to ‘tractor’ vegetable yards in moveable pens must be frequently rotated to fresh plots to prevent soil compaction and pollution from occurring. This is very time consuming to do in a big way. In larger forest or orchard foraging areas birds must also be moved to different areas, because they typically only range about 50m from home. Most people would put hens in fixed housing in the orchard, the area around this then becomes sour and compacted with too much manure a pollution.
Usually tall fences are required and, while fences around poultry paddocks are great for predator control, they are expensive and time consuming to erect, and may not be necessary. Fences can create a lot of upkeep, especially when unwelcome weeds establish along them. (Unless you can establish a line of something like comfrey along them, on the outside, from which birds can get a feed.)
So what is the most ethical and sustainable poultry system on a large scale? The Permaculture Egg, of course!
I suggest birds be ideally free-ranged through diversely vegetated areas in mobile housing, in groups of no more than 50 birds. Such integrated production systems no doubt exist. This article was first published 10 years ago (in the Permaculture International Journal)- but I have yet to see any permaculture branded eggs in the marketplace.
The model is based on initial keyline planning – earth shaping and deep ripping along the contours of the land. One then establishes contour strip perennial food forest orchards (or even timber plantations) . In the interrow spaces, poultry preferred pastures and polycultural alley-cropping systems can be established.
Permaculture design
The model is suited to flat and sloping sites, as long as the principles of keyline planning are applied. To put this in simple terms- the contours of the land dictate the patterns of preliminary earthworks, should they be required, as well as planting patterns. Dams are built at the keypoint, high in the valley. If rainfall is unreliable, some type of irrigation system could be installed at this time.
Swales and terraces are created in sloping areas, to reduce rain run off and improve access. In wet regions swales are very useful because the mounded ridges provide well drained planting sites. Wide swale/terraces suit flatter sites, steeper areas require more narrow ones.
As earthworks are completed, one broadcasts seed of ground cover plants. There are many perennial poultry forage plants that can be used. White clover is ideal – high in protein, digestibility, calcium and natural pigments for egg yolks.
Mixing clover with kikuyu in warm areas will help soak up excess nitrogen provided by hens and provide them with a high protein pick. But you may decide kikuyu is too invasive in a polyculture. ‘Kike’ is usually established by runners, although a free seeding cultivar – Whittet- is now available.
In milder climates mixing clover with cocksfoot can create palatable pasture for interrow alleys. New Zealand Grasslands cocksfoot, Kara or Apanui cultivars, are palatable and nutritious, but must be kept short. Slashing or having grazing animals in electrically fenced strips may be necessary in this situation.
Mobile hen houses are moved along these perennial pasture strips, but not before several months of establishment have passed. Hens will consume the green pick at amounts of between 10%-50% of their diet.
In suitable interrow alleys one might cultivate soil and grow annual poultry feed crops, such as lucerne, the various bird millets, wheat, rice, rye, triticale, buckwheat, low tannin sorghums, portulacca or sesame. All of these have seeds ideal for poultry – they can be self-foraged, are palatable and digestible raw as is (unlike many other seed or grain crops, which must be processed first).
Grain amaranth is also suitable if included in mixed forage crops. However untreated seeds will cause growth depression if fed at amounts of over 15% of the diet.
Food forest strips
Along bunds and terraces one establishes long island beds of food forest, consisting of a central row of suitable fruit trees, surrounded by rows of useful legumes, fruiting shrubs and groundcovers. These forests provide food and shelter for fowl, protecting them from weather extremes and predators.
In subtropical food forests paw paws and bananas can make ideal main crops, with fowl happily consuming fallen or rejected fruit. For tropical polycultures cocoa and coconuts could happily grow between banana ‘nurse crops’. In cooler climates many types of small fruit trees could be selected from. Be wary of selecting large or dense trees which might harbour renegade fowls perching in them at night.
Useful legumes surrounding main crops would provide green pick and seeds, plus mulch for trees. These hedges would initially act as ‘nurse plants’ for young fruit trees, as well as acting as wind and firebreaks, while countering soil erosion. They can be frequently pruned during periods of good growth and kept at about one metre high.
In warm areas pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan) and Leucaena species can be used. These shrubs take about six months to establish and bear seed. Leucaena leaves are rich in protein, carotene and vitamin K and other goodies. However many strains have high levels of the toxic amino acid mimosine, which can slow the growth of chicks if more than 10% (dry weight basis) is included in the diet.
Leucaena likes a fertile soil, is deep rooted, handles the humid tropics (if drainage is good) and also moderate salinity, and it will recover from light frost. It must grow in full sun. There are varieties appropriate to different soil pH levels
Pigeon peas also prefer sunny, warm climates, but can handle a bit of light frost once established. They are drought resistant, having a deep root system and won’t tolerate waterlogging. In India and Africa they are a popular legume intercrop, either broadcast amongst crops or grown as one row for every five crop rows, in polycultures with sorghum, millets, maize, sesame and others. The raw, unripe seed (eaten as a vegetable by the people of many countries) provides 7% protein. This increases to 19% when seed is fully ripe and dry (like this it is made into dhal – a popular Indian dish).
In temperate areas tagasaste is an ideal legume forage plant for well drained areas. Fowl can survive entirely from tagasaste greens and seed produced during summer. In spring the blossoms are a great bird tonic. Leaves provide 24% protein (percentage of dry matter) and seeds 25%. Deep rooted, it resists scratching admirably when established, which may take two years. Acacias species are also excellent sources of high protein seed.
Groundcovers
Beneath the food forest permanent ground covers should provide green pick and hold soil together. In warm areas sweet potato could be established in the early stages, until shading from fruit trees causes decline. (But watch they don’t scramble over and choke young trees.) Afterwards, shade tolerant species such as Tradescantia (‘Wandering Jew’), a favoured delicacy, or orchard groundcovers, such as Pinto’s peanut, could be introduced. Grown as an interrow crop, sweet potato tubers could be harvested and fed to fowl boiled up, to provide an energy food which may replace imported grains.
Along the sunny edges of the food forest could be grown perennials such as comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) – fantastic animal food and mulch, chillies for the market (fowl will enjoy the leaves) and cassava (Manihot utilissima), from which root meal can be produced to provide a high carbohydrate poultry feed.
Cassava root must never be fed raw, because of high hydrocyanic and prussic acid levels. (Some varieties, known as ‘sweet cassava’, are less toxic than the other ‘bitter cassava’ types.) Roots must first be chopped into small pieces and sun dried for several days with moisture, then unlimited amounts can be fed as a grain substitute. Cuttings 15-30cm long are laid horizontally or diagonally into the ground, to about 5cm depth.
Pumpkins, beans and nasturtinums can trail here are there (although most bean seeds are inedible raw due to toxic factors). In rich soils stinging nettles will often establish voluntarily and fowls will steer clear. I encourage their growth however, because, when cut, dried and crumbled into feed, they are a fantastic dietary supplement, somewhat equivalent to seaweed.
On the lower side of the terraces rows of lemongrass or vetiver grass could be planted, to prevent soil erosion and mulch from being scratched away by birds.
Mobile housing
Mobile housing can be constructed to house a flock of optimum size – about 50 hens maximum. It should provide for all the hens’ needs. The width of interrow alleys will dictate the size of the house, which should be manageable byeither one person, or perhaps a cow, pony, donkey or horse. It only has to be moved a short distance at a time, so it might as well be made light enough for one person to manoeuvre.
If you aren’t flush with funds, making a moveable hen house from recycled materials is a good idea. I like to convert old car trailers, which often can be found rotting away in farmyards and obtained for next to nothing. Just add an enclosed, roofed area for perches and nest boxes (1 for every 5 hens), and receptacles for water, feed and grit, plus some sort of facility for manure collection. 60% of the birds’ droppings will be excreted at night under perches. Manure collected from houses can be used for compost making and worm farms.
At first birds must be trained to return nightly to their new home. Fortunately they have the natural behaviour of bonding to their night perch environment. A temporary 6 foot/1.8m mesh fence is erected around the hen trailer. Birds are confined to this for up to two weeks in order to bond to their home. At first a ramp leading up to a high-up entrance is provided. Eventually the ramp is removed and birds will fly up each night to roost. Finally the fence is removed so that birds can free range amongst food forests, crops and pasture. The high fly -up entrance should deter most predators (although Mr Fox may be waiting to pounce when they emerge sleepy eyed in the morning…).
Hen trailers can be moved along alleys at, say, 20m a time, once or twice weekly. Going too far at a time will upset their nightly homing ability. At moving time one might also lop surrounding legumes, to provide green pick and mulching material.
With automatic feeders providing a free choice of grains or pellets and water on demand, hens can self-balance their diet and one would only need visit once daily to check on things and collect eggs. (Don’t make the mistake of expecting them to find ‘bush tucker’ to satisfy total dietary needs, they need about 20% protein in the diet, for instance, to produce lots of eggs.)
Why not give it a go?
A system as described could be up and running in six months, some fruit being produced another 6 to 12 months afterwards. Establishment and production costs should be relatively inexpensive. Associated products could be diverse and provide short to long term returns.
Consumers would be happy in the fact that hens had lead a great life of foraging adventures, that produce would be organically grown with few external inputs and that soils were being enhanced rather than mined.
So why not give it a trial and help get the Permaculture Egg rolling into the marketplace, a much more sustainable product than is generally available commercially?
References-
• Moore, Alanna, ‘Backyard Poultry-Naturally’, 1998, Python Press, Australia (available from Permaculture UK)
• Yeomans, PA, ‘Water for Every Farm’, 1993, Keyline Designs, Australia.
• McDonald, Dr M., ‘Pastures for Poultry in Northern Australia’, Oct 1993, Australasian Poultry.
• Mollison, B., Permaculture Designer’s Manual, 1988, Tagari, Australia.
• Evans, M., Nutrient Composition of Feedstuffs for Pigs and Poultry’, Department of Primary Industries, Queensland, Australia.
• ‘Leucaena- Forage Production and Use’, 1985, Nitrogen Fixing Tree Association, Hawaii, USA
• Murphy, J., ‘Irrigated Perennial Pasture for Free Range’ 1992, in April/May Australasian Poultry
• Healy, P., ‘The Value of Tagasaste for Poultry’, 1993, April/May Australasian Poultry.
• Purseglove, J.W., ‘Tropical Crops-dicotyledons’ 1968, Longman, UK.
• Parkinson, M., 1997, ‘Environmental Sustainability in a Free Range System’ in Aug/Sept. ‘97 Australasian Poultry.
• Ward, P., & Denham, K. ‘Cassava’ in Permaculture International Journal no 63, June 1997.