Subject: Bread & Chickens

From: [email-masked] (Julie Chamay)
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 14:07:40 EST

I'm with Bonni on the issue of bread machines. We received one as a gift, 
and used it for about a year, until the motor died. For a fraction of the 
cost of repairing it, we bought a bread bucket through Lehman's. It's 
basically a big bucket with a manually turned dough hook. The first time I 
used it I was blown away at the difference in the texture of the crust vs. 
the machined bread crust. As Bonni said, you also have a lot more control 
over the bread, and you can make more than one loaf at a time. We found that 
the machine also was not well suited to breads made with only whole-grain 
flours. 'Nuff said. 

About chickens: we recently saw a talk on "chicken tractors", in which you 
house chickens in portable cages which sit on the ground with an open 
bottom. You move them once a week or so, allowing the chickens to scratch 
and till the ground for you. The slides we saw were quite interesting. They 
showed the row that the chickens were being moved down. Has anyone tried 
this, or other "pastured" poultry techniques? We've just had a few chickens, 
who have the run of the place, but we're thinking of putting them on an 
upper pasture when we get new chicks.

Julie Chamay
Librarian/Farmer/Herbalist
Julie Z. Chamay
Reference Librarian
Sawyer Library, Williams College
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 08:28:28 -0500

Don't know about  the chicken tractors, but if you dust off you old copies of
Mother Earth News, they had something identical using pigs (one per tractor),
seems that even though a lot smaller than cows, pigs really tear up the
ground due to the "loading" on their little feet -PSI (Pigs/Square Inch?)
 They also did a number rooting up the soil looking for?  If I remember
rightly, the big advantage was not only "no till", but automatic deposit of
organic fertilizer. One problem that I saw that wasn't addressed was how to
keep a supply of water out on a movable cage that the pig wouldn't tip over.
 (Pictures showed them "plowing" to  keep weeds down between rows in an
orchard. - didn't pay it much mind, as Masanobu Fukoka in ONE STRAW
REVOLUTION proposed the pigs just run free (after the orchard is well
established)

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From: [email-masked] (Julie Chamay)
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 95 13:42:34 EST

>ground due to the "loading" on their little feet -PSI (Pigs/Square Inch?)

We had two pigs, Bob and Ray, on this duty last year. They were on weedy 
ground in the garden, and cleared it all with snout power.  

>They also did a number rooting up the soil looking for? 

Grubs, roots, whatever.
>One problem that I saw that wasn't addressed was how to

We used really long hoses.

>REVOLUTION proposed the pigs just run free (after the orchard is well

I believe that in the U.S. colonial period, the pigs did in fact run free, 
and were periodically herded up and butchered. We only moved Bob and Ray a 
few times and it was always an adventure. We're thinking chickens would be 
easier in a more remote location.
Julie Z. Chamay
Reference Librarian
Sawyer Library, Williams College
[email-masked]