[permaculture-oceania] feeding pigs and nutrient run-off

[Robyn Francis]

As Sue said in here email. Pigs always poo in one spot, they don¹t manure
all over the place like most other animals. Depending on numbers/scale of
operation one should be able to develop a strategy to collect and use the
manure (compost, worm farm, methane digester) or spread the manure and mulch
heavily then plant a heavy feeding or fast growing annual fodder crop.

For a larger scale perhaps swales planted as nutruent sinks/fodder banks
with heavy feeding fodder crops. I grow Qld Arrowroot for this purpose in
drains below the chook yard - most of our rain is during summer when the
arrowroot is growing prolifically.

It;s a matter of adapting the stragies to the site and climate.

Ciao
Robyn

 On 20/6/06 4:27 AM, "steve_burns at wvi.org" <steve_burns at wvi.org> wrote:

> So, to rephrase the question - what plants need a lot of nutrient and will
> be able to turn it all into productive growth...?
> 
> one that comes to mind is artichokes - they love a heap of feed, and have
> the additional benefit of being OK to have in one location for a long
> while, plus they create an imposing barrier if you plant them right on the
> edge of the property..
> 
> maybe you could have a slight rise along the downslope boundary, with a
> depression in front of it to trap flow-off so that water soaks in and feeds
> whatever's growing; another heavy feeder would be rhubarb, and perhaps you
> could plant a row of comfrey and borage in there as well - borage for
> flowers and bee fodder, comfrey to harvest for liquid compost so that you
> recycle the nutrients back up slope into the garden......
> 
> so, yes, the pigs might create havoc unless you put an electric fence along
> the area where you had your plantings... if it's a large area, perhaps you
> don't need to have plantings all the way along your downslope side - you
> could use a swale to gather water and nutrients and direct them to a
> planted area (as long as the volume of water during peak flow didn't drown
> everything)
> 
> another approach would be to plant fodder trees that would soak up the
> nutrient and turn it into acorns, millable timber, etc....
> 
> so many options!  ;)
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> 
>                  
>            "kdawborn"
>            <kdawborn at bigpond
>            .com>                                                      To
>            Sent by:                  "'permaculture-oceania'"
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>                  
>                                                                  Subject
>            06/14/2006 05:38          RE: [permaculture-oceania] feeding
>            PM                        pigs and nutrient runnoff
>                  
>                  
>            Please respond to
>            permaculture-ocea
>                   nia
>            <permaculture-oce
>            ania at lists.cat.or
>                  g.au>
>                  
>                  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for your suggestions on pig fodder and forage and
> general feeding ideas. Looking forward to more thoughts on this too! No
> replies yet on dealing with nutrient runoff ­ which is a big thing we need
> to deal with. To remind you of the question it is included again below!
> 
> Cheers all,
> 
> Kerry Dawborn
> 
> 
>           3)       Nutrient runoff from paddocks into creek: we are
>           concerned about the nutrient load going into our creek from
>           animal manure. It seems likely that the most sensible way to
>           view this is that really, the nutrients are something we want
>           to keep and use rather than allow to pollute the creek, so
>           perhaps the thing to do is grow more stuff that can soak it up.
>           Any suggestions re useful fodder (especially) or human food
>           plants or other plants, and ways to lay things out in order to
>           best catch the runoff? As I write I¹m thinking swale-type
>           arrangements with appropriate plantings could work, but we are
>           talking paddocks with pigs so for stock management and other
>           reasons, am not sure whether this might create problems.
> 
> 
>           Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcomeŠ
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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