We are a small farm north of Springfield, Missouri who are passionate about producing great food using regenerative methods. We believe in using our farming practices and skills to make our land, and the land it effects around us, a better place than when we purchased it, all while creating the most nutrient dense food possible, and we would love to share what we have learned with as many folks as we can.
the native dung beetles that eat like pigs/dogs/carnivore dung and what not are the hardest to get solidly on your land in your rotation. I always thought if they ate goose manure that's in pasture. but i've never caught them at it because the goose manure is gone so quick out here. dries because it's arid.
I did think about it, and considered using the wood chipper to process it, but just never managed to get around to it! I think it would be a great idea!
I wish I’d have made a lot more of it, cause the pigs loved it as a dried hay addition to their soaked feed over the winter, especially the gals and piglets in the farrowing yards.
Yup! We had kids of them all the time. At night there would be 1 or two in each of the loops on the top of the pool with ya, so easily 20+ just hanging out.
I also have lots of lard and started using it for lamps. The lard becomes too soft with string/fiber wicks; dropping in a twist of cotton also didn't work for me. The magic solution was a floating wick: fold aluminum foil into a square and bend the corners upward a little. Make a little hole in the center to run a wick through it. Voilà!
Those may actually be boreal chorus frogs. Peepers sound more like a baby chicken but rising in tone. And louder. These chorus frogs sound like finger nails running teeth rumning on a comb.
Nice video! Just one point I’d mention, there are “thornless” honey locust varieties. They will tend to still have some small thorns for the first few years of growth, but lose them as they get larger, similar to black locust. I have some thornless honey locust on my property, in addition to black, and they get quite a bit larger than black locust, at least in my area, but I still prefer working with the black, as they grow faster and straighter, are more rot resistant, and have higher btu’s for firewood.
Yup! I have planted tons of thornless honey locusts over the years! And I love both the thornless and thorned for different uses, but the caveat to thornless honey locusts is that the genes for thorns can be “turned on” by damage to the tree. I notice this in thornless seedling ones that I wind up deciding to coppice/pollard, or in ones that pigs, goats, or rodents have decided to do so for me 🤣. The regrowth seems to have thorns just like a normal thorned one from that first cut onward.
What i am trying to get over is much. I hear so much about a pig. But ive learned this. I believe what is in the bible. But what i have experienced thus far about a pig. How are they smarter than dogs and cats? I know they are because ive met people with pet pigs.online ive learned they are cleaner than alot of other animals if taught right. I know by science u are what u eat. But if u have no care or knowledge and u have not good food source. Any animal will go scavage. I know pigs dont have a lot of sweat glands but is that because of over thick skin? And i am not a heavy pork eater. I like bacon blue moon with coffee😊. A pork chop blue moon smothered with rice & gravy. And i dont know about anyone else but my joints in my body felt better. But i know what the bible says. But when the demons asked Yashua to spare them but let them go into the swine. My question would be why did they choose the swine? Was it because they knew the swines eye sight was not that great? Because pigs are smart there intuition is over crazy smart, especially if they are smarter than dogs and cats. I think those demons played on that back then because those particular pigs must have been a heard of scavengers and they had to be closed off somehow. Now when the demons possessed them the first thing the pigs did was jump off the cliff😂. Once the body is gone do those bad spirits die too? Or do they find another body? because to me them pigs said, "heck naw u demons aint about to live in us we'll take ourselves out before we let yall dwell within us!" They knew they had something bad inside them. If they had a choice and understood FULLY! I dont think they would have stood there. They probaby was amazed at Yashua and was amazed at the whole scene going on at the moment. Ive even seen bees eat and play in garbage cans and scavage on crap and trash, squirrels in the city will get in the trash can too. So if we raise pigs properly feed them properly. My question is are they still horrible for us? Yes i am still waiting on gods answer. I woke up this morning in my mind with spirit guides all in my head with microphones to my mouth. Looking like the guy in starwars with the long wool cloak. I dont know if that was OB One Kanobey or what. But i think waay more studies should be done on pigs they should be raised waay more better if they got to be food. And they have feelings too!😊Yes even the ones in blue😂 just kidding guys i love some cops too!
From what I’ve researched on biochar compost is that it needs to get into the soil rather than be the topsoil And if it’s just biochar definitely don’t just place it on top of the soil
This isn’t biochar compost, this is just biochar. It’s not becoming the topsoil though that would take an insane amount of it to do so on our half acre paddocks. My goal was to make enough to make it comprise 10% of the top 6” of soil, which is still a ton of biochar for a half acre paddock to make one bathtub at a time. As for placing on the top of the soil here that’s a context specific decision. We ran a lot of animals in our rotational grazing system, and coupled that with tall grass grazing. So that meant that essentially we could build soil layers in place, because up to 4-5x a year the grass would grow 2-4’ tall then get trampled flat, the tops die off, leaving a 1/2-2” thick dense mat of organic matter, covered in fertility rich manure and urine, then the base of the grass/forbes grows again, starting that process over. So in addition to the composting in place grass layering the biochar into the new soil, the pigs hooves also helped to drive it into the top of the soil with their impact. People’s concern with adding biochar to the soil without charging it with fertility first is that boost in microbial activity it causes pulling too many nutrients from the soil, but we actually often had too much fertility in this paddock so this actually helped to tie it in place and make sure it didn’t leave our farm and pollute down stream as runoff.
Yes, as long as you use the Noromectin Injectable 1% solution for swine and cattle. It’s approved off label as an oral dewormer for pigs and dogs per our vet. 1cc/50lbs live weight.
@@nateperez478 no problem, I hate leaving people hanging if I can help out! For that size I’d give her 1/4cc. Does she have visible parasites I.e worms in her poop, or lice? Or are you wanting to give this as a preventative? If as a preventative just give this once a year, if she has visible parasites then give that dosage 3 separate times 11 days apart to hit the hatching cycles of the parasites, and then move to annually from there.
@@greenthicketfarm i just got her and she hasn’t been wormed since birth she’s around 4-5 months old, she started rubbing her bottom on the ground yesterday and looks a little thinner than usual.
Thank you! Here’s the set up, just make sure you fully quench! Make Biochar the easy way…with a Bathtub! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SSSnXDQXMYw.html
Thanks for sharing I can’t imagine what that heat is like and how difficult it must be to manage the animals in it. I have a small farm in Scotland I’m just starting out had my first litter of kunekune pigs last year and 2 litters planned for this year, it is a steep learning curve but I love my piggies, we have 2ft of snow and -20c to manage them through but so far not gone over +28c yet so thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge 🙂
It’s an odd climate for sure lol, the record high and low for Springfield Missouri is 45c and -38c so we definitely can get a crazy swing. I think the worst I’ve farmed in here has been about 43c and -23c. Happy I could help! Good luck with your upcoming litters!
I catch a lot of flack for it but I love honey locust as a silvopasture tree! These are how I learned about Coppice! (Osage Orange and Honey locust) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Db8ZcS-QbEU.html
@@greenthicketfarm Osage are an amazing tree too . They used to be pruned and woven into living fences. Honey locust will always me my favorite though, going to start experimenting with a pellet mill that uses a hammer mill to prepare the seed before the pellet is made.
@@jonathanknobel2014 yea I had every intent to plant a full laid English style hedge row of Osage, honey locust, willow, crab apple, and a few other miscellaneous trees along our front road side. I got a lot of the trees planted but not all, before we moved this December. Love the pellet mill idea! I’d be interested to hear how that goes if you remember me once it’s up and running and you’ve tried it!
@@greenthicketfarm absolutely, planting a few hundred honey locust this spring to add to the pasture I’ve already had planted. Expect to be Getting the mill fully operational be this next fall.
Wrong. Activated carbon is produced from steady steam of water that is being broken apart to frack( the correct term) the oils and tars off. In those areas where the frackin happens (breaking apart of water) co2 is produced from the oxygen from the water being used to burn more pores into the surface, simply quencing a barrel of charcoal in no way produces any activated carbon... its more involved and nuanced then simply dumping water in... you need to continue to input heat energy while inputting steam.
Ours did, we just needed to find that balance of bees wax as a carrier. Also used wooden wicks on a later batch and really liked that better than the cotton.
If you had an entire (160+acres) field chocked full of honey locust and hedge apple then i believe you'd be spreading the real truth about these horribly invasive nuisances. As someone who has many, many hours experience in removing these species from our pastures, this video is simply disgusting. These trees have no place in any managed landscape, regenerative or not. Coppiced hedge that might provide a tiny bit of forage but eventually will leave a canopy of bare earth, or decent stand of diverse grasses and forbs properly covering the ground without trying to attack everything within range? I think i'll put priority on creating areas that will grow better grass forage instead of sacrificing the area for an absolute trash tree even if they could potentially have forage value. Furthermore I'd be willing to bet that the amount of forage you are preventing from being able to grow, or the amount that won't be accessible to the livestock once these trees are established far outweighs the amount you'd gain from these ridiculous trees. But wait! It's permaculture and that has to be cool, right? Nice try.
While Green Thicket Farm was(we’ve recently moved to manage a larger farm a couple hours away) only 6 acres I’ve also managed a 1,600 acre farm here in the Ozarks, and yea it had plenty of them to work with also, and nope I still feel the same way about them. Also quick side note, they aren’t invasive here in the Ozarks, they are just a very prolific native, especially when poor land management causes bare soil or low density forage stands. You can call it disgusting if you want but I find wastefulness disgusting and ignoring a resource or wantonly destroying it disgusting. Allowing trees to grow in your pasture under good management doesn’t decrease forage, even if you want to ignore the forage the trees provide, multiple studies have shown that grasses and forbes grown under a 30% shade cover produce around 16% more biomass, and a higher protein content to forages grown in full sun, as well as cattle and sheep have been shown to have greater daily weight gains, and higher milk production in 30% shade cover. So if you wanted to “create areas that grow better grass forage” you’d do a better job managing the “trash trees” you have instead of trying to create an open pasture. Also you talk about “when these trees are established” or a “canopy of bare earth” so I think that sounds like you might not have listened to the full video, because the whole point of the video is on routinely cutting down and harvesting the trees while they are at a manageable young size. I suggest in the video cutting them to the ground every 7-15 years depending on species. I’ve clear cut, de-branched,and stacked dense stands of young bush honeysuckle, honey locust, and junipers before and was able to manage about 1-2 acres a day by myself with a chainsaw so if I was trying to manage 160acres I’d just break it into 16 sections, 10 acres each and clear cut or even leave a few standards on each 10 acre section every year. That would mean you’d never have a honey locust older than 16 years old, and the logs would be perfect size for firewood with minimal splitting or if you really wanted to make money, those would also be perfect size to make shiitake and oyster logs and burn the brash for biochar. So then not only would you be making better forage for your cows with the 2 week’s work every year you were going to spend cutting honey locust anyways, you’d also get 3 additional products to sell, not have to waste money on herbicides, and never run out of the resource that now is making you money and making better pasture. I care less about permaculture “looking cool” and more about it helping farmers make more money while also taking the best care of their land and stock they can with the resources they already have and might be overlooking. Here are the studies talking about the increased grass and forbes biomass, the increased protein, and the increased adwg and production: vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/a7079756-9868-4d69-9340-d7d0dd05d601/content www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/aen/aen99/aen99.pdf www.researchgate.net/publication/237270613_The_Effect_of_Shade_on_Forage_Quality
@greenthicketfarm First off, you need to refamiliarize yourself with the characteristics of an invasive plant then get back to me. Who is going to buy thorny Locust firewood? Was that a serious response? Better pasture? You've obviously not dealt with these trees once they have taken over. There isn't any forage underneath a nasty hedge apple! It's bare ground under there! Livestock can't access forage around the base of locust trees because they are protected by thorns! All for a few beans or some leaves? That's better pasture than having a quality stand of grass/ legumes in the same spot? Again, doesn't appear that you've experienced just how detrimental these weeds can be. It simply doesn't make sense when there are so many other useful trees that could still provide shade and even better forage options. Show me data on how invasive monoculture and bare soil benefit any ecosystem instead of your report on shade, and I'll consider that these trees have a place in my pasture.
Some Northern European Studies suggest 40% shade 😎 is still Beneficial. A note... many many professional growers recognize evidence based studies that crops often receive too much sun and they shut down. In hoop houses you will commonly see shade cloth over tomatoes in August. Increasing Co2 decreases the amount of sun needed to grow plants everywhere including hoop houses. John Kempf Regen Podcast
Glad I could help! We had just bought a big spool of the basic candle yarn from Micheals. It worked ok, but it kinda tunneled a bit so we wound up on a follow up batch trying out wood wicks, and those had way less tunneling!
Thanks for the video. We raise AGH and Kunekunes and we are going to be making soaps soon. I like hearing about your trials and mistakes along the way. Much appreciated.
I was going to comment on black locust and then you mentioned it. By the end of this video I subbed and liked and then went and found your locust video. Did you make a follow up? As another commenter said "bow staves". I tried to start some osage and long story short , failed. If you want some root cuttings or seeds from BL , I'm your guy. I've been into locust for years and this winter I'm doing some coppicing and pollarding some bigger ones. I really liked the in depth info on both the tree videos. If you want to trade some hedge apples for locust seed or cuttings lmk. By the way I'm in northern NY. It's Christmas day and the ground is not even frozen yet. We usually have at least 10 ' of snow fall by now. The reason I mention this is climate change. I'm planting for the future.
Glad you liked it! I love being able to share my passion for this stuff, we’ve just moved and I’m now managing another farm so I’m trying to think through a good way to continue the channel based on the planned changes we have in our life. But with that I wouldn’t have much use for the seed at the moment since I don’t have a spot to plant it with where we are living being temporary, but I’d highly recommend checking out the Missouri Department of Conservation George O white nursery sale, the trees are under a dollar, and are usually 12-18”(I’ve gotten up to 24”) so stellar price for the size, they’ll ship to most states, and they have the best survival rates of almost anywhere I’ve ordered! I did some follow ups scattered throughout the “Farm Tour Tuesday” series, but I didn’t do a dedicated follow up video. The results were that the cuttings I placed vertically almost all sprouted and grew, but only one horizontal one grew, and it didn’t make it whereas all the other vertical ones did! I feel ya there, we absolutely have to plan for dryer drys, wetter wets, colder colds, and hotter hots. When you work closely with the land you feel the shifts happening with the seasons, I’ve only been in ag for around 16 years but even I have seen it, I talk to some old farmers that have been doing it for 40-60 years and they all see it, and then when you look at the records it’s plain as day. The climate is changing and no matter whether folks want to believe we are playing a big part in it or not doesn’t change the fact that we need to be planning for how to adapt to it as farmers if we want to be successful.
@@greenthicketfarm I agree on all points. Whatever the cause climate and in turn weather are changing. I've planted walnuts , which grow here but were not native. Maples , our dominant tree is more and more prone to dieses. Thanks for the nursery lead. You are talking about osage trees I'm guessing. Sorry to here about your farm. I had to quite raising my highlanders due to costing me to much. One needs a good paying federal job to stay in farming anymore. It's sad. I'm planting christmas trees and some other stuff on my farm land. $50 bucks a pop on xmas trees. By the time mine grow it'll be $100.
Stopping our Swimming Pigs ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qzNNHOkfkBM.html Paddock moves and some farm updates ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Yu59Nr5D-SE.html You’ve commented on the final solution video, these two links are prior updates, including the initial attempt and explanation. Then there’s also some follow ups in the Farm Tour Tuesday series! Thank you for your interest!
The hardest part is the making of the decision. Such a relief once that is done. You have learned so much that is a benefit to the land, the animals, yourself and others. You have done every right, to the best of your ability, and in a healthy world that would have been admired, rewarded, and held up as an example for others to strive for. Instead, you have essentially slaved away for years, because you loved the life.
I know it took me way too long to respond to this but I can’t tell ya how much this comment meant to me. I’ve actually gone back and re read it several times over the last 2 months. Thank you so much for the support! We’ve since moved and are almost done selling the farm. I’m now managing a farm in north Missouri that has a large focus on getting folks out to the farm and helping them connect with where their food comes from. The lesson I ultimately took from this was that I need to use my passion for creating great food to help build that bridge. 💚
One thing to possible consider is the willow as a cash crop. Good willow for weaving baskets is rather hard to come by, but there are groups in every state that enjoy keeping the tradition of willow basketry alive. With that much water, you could grow a very nice crop of different varieties of willow. And when pollarded at a comfortable height, it's pretty easy to harvest the whips. Might be something to look into.
I absolutely love growing willow! We had a few hundred coppiced and pollarded willows. They pop up fairly routinely in my videos. We sold some cuttings from them, sold some bundles for decoration(mostly curly yellow), but primarily I grew them for biochar and pig shade! Here’s a video where I talk about just that as far as the water goes: Grow what works on your farm! For us it’s willows and pastured pork! ru-vid.comkxBAR3_xy1c?feature=share
Okay. Let’s talk honey locust. They send out tap roots for new tree and seed pods. If you aren’t careful, they will take over. Do you have any problems with pigs stepping on them? They are brutal on the foot pad and can reach 6 inches in length per thorn.
Nice!!! Keep teaching people how to do this. Every street in the country should have a community brushpile and a biochar maker. Thank you. The world needs more BIOCHAR!!!
@6:06 osage orange is extremely dense and burns extremely hot. i believe that the heat output in joules, calories or BTUs is comparable to coal. it's better to cut green, as dead wood will dull chainsaw chains quickly. honey locust is a less dense fire wood, but it still has a good heat output if you can deal with the thorns.
Yea, Osage is the densest wood in North America for use as firewood, it’s awesome! And yea honey locust is about mid level, better than many! Here’s a break down from university of Kentucky: www.uky.edu/Ag/Forestry/McLaren/firewood_properties.htm
There’s 11 different Prunus species found in the wild in Missouri, and I only feel comfortable for sure saying it’s not maybe 5 or 6 of those lol. Most likely just P. americana, but 🤷♂️. I do know they are red, super tart, and delicious with a big seed once they are ripe, I love making a custard pie or cheesecake with them when ripe.
Great strategy! I will take your advice and run with it. One question is how do the willow do when it is wet and hogs are able to dig? Do you take them off the pasture or do they do well?
I recommend watching some of our farm tour Tuesdays! The great thing about IPPs is that they don’t really root like other hogs. We loose some that are too close to the centers of the wallows, and occasionally they eat the bark off some or use them as scratching posts, but since they are so cheap(free) and easy to replace any we loose each spring I just plant way more than necessary to account for losses.
@@greenthicketfarm Excellent, it is funny, I use my black locust, mulberry and hackberry in my pastures but kept my willow in beds for propogation and wind/privacy fencing. So watching your video was one of those head slapping moments I get every once in a while.
@@GrizzlyGroundswell I’m glad it was helpful! It also helps that our farm holds a ton of water in a lot of areas so it makes willow propagation really easy lol.
@@GrizzlyGroundswell that’s exactly what I’m doing 😂. Grow what works on your farm! For us it’s willows and pastured pork! ru-vid.comkxBAR3_xy1c?feature=share
Ha! Thankfully no, it was all show. It was way worse the night before last, that was a ton of wind, rain, and the most lightning I’ve ever seen. But no tornado. 🤣
