Hello all! - Newbie here

[Poppy57]

Hi everyone. I am a newbie here from Australia, ready and willing to learn all that I can. We moved to Australia 10 years ago and after a long stint in the city we are more than ready now to get back to country living once again.

Our passion is to be able to raise heritage breed stock and be as self Sufficient and Reliant as we possibly can, including going totally off grid.

We love making our own soaps, canning, gardening, animal husbandry and living in general where we care for the land and the environment along the way.

We are looking forward to meeting other like minded people and continuing to learn as much as we possibly can to ensure that we can become the best possible stewards for our land.

 

[Poppy57]

Oh my goodness, you have all manner of challenges when it comes to gardening! @Beekissed and @CrealCritter are great gardeners with good tips on soil building, for when you're ready! You can pick their brains. (Apologies if I left anyone out now, I'm thinking in garden pics and updates now)

Cochins would make great incubators for you, when you get some hens. And they are the sweetest things from what I heard.

Thank you Sumi. Challenging it definately is and is a great deal of the reason we can't just buy any property. it is a real mission as we need to research government records to see what aquifers are under where the land is. Australia is majority a huge desert sitting on a gold mine of water, but the trick is finding out where that water is and then tapping into it. I will be sure to pick as many peoples brains as I can when the time comes. That is one thing about being self sufficient or homesteading - we never stop learning.

I want to thank everyone here as I have not found another place where the people are so welcoming and helpful to a stranger.

Thanks for the tips on the cochins being good sitters. I did sort of wonder if they might be like the silkies. I want to have the chcken free ranging but I need to look at the cost of preditor proofing as we have so many preditory birds, foxes, wild cats and dogs here. The foxes, wild dogs and cats we can deal with easy enough wth rapid dispatching But the birds are relentless as thee is not a lot of natural food for them.

I am leaning towards using the orchard we will have as their feeding ground as we have to enclose that with mesh to stop the parrots eating everything in sight. I figure that the chickens can do a multiple purpose in the orchard by fertilising it, keeping the bugs down and controlling the grass and weeds while being kept safe by the protective netting for the fruits. it would also be easy enough to incorporate water feeders on the drip lines too the trees to supply water for the chickens.

Here we have to think totally outside the box because all my horticultural training goes out the window here. All the principles we were taught need to be put on steroids so to speak and many things need to be more or less reinvented to combat the extreme climate.

So many challenges face us ahead, but with determination we will get there.

 

[Poppy57]

I know here that if there are weather extremes through the year that are not what would be regarded as normal then the snake populations increase or decrease accordingly. This could have been that case in your area when you were a child.

Wee are going to have a very hot summer and so the numbers will be up dramatically herfe this summer.

Yes we have snakes that you only need a tiny, tiny bit of venom to enter the body and it is fatal. We have seen a huge increase in the King Browns here already which is not good as they usually don't enter the built up areas. We have already had a few deaths from these this year. We have had to watch our dogs much closer and put protectove barriers around our bird enclosure.

No I don't mind you asking at all.

new Zealand although a magnificently beautiful country the cost of living there is insane. My husband was odffered a job here that paid 3 times what he could ever earn in New Zealand so he came over and I followed 3 months later. ubby now pays more in tax here than he ever earned in New Zealand in a year. I really miss the countryside there but don't miss the poverty people are forced into there, I had over 50 years of that there and that was enough for me. Land just got far too expensive to b uy there as it was all being sold off to the Chineses or any other outsiders that had millions of dollars to get rid of fast.

Now I help people here in Australia that might be struggling to get on their feet again and stay there.

 

[Poppy57]

Hi! Welcome, from Texas! Looking forward to hearing more about your adventures.

Hello Frustrated Earth Mother. Thank you for the warm welcome. it is nice to meet someone from Texas. I understand that Texas is the cattle State.

As our journey unfolds I will be happy to share it.

 

[Poppy57]

Hello Baymule, nice to meet you and thank you for the warm welcome. We don't have the farm as yet - still searching for the right place but got a couple on the radar that we are keeping an eye on - but just as soon as we do I will be sure to post photos of farm and animals.

What breed of sheep do you have? I had a quarter horse some years back, she was awesome. Do you have heritage pigs now?

I love canning and can anything that isn't nailed down as my husband would say. I have to admit that these days I do not freeze much as electricity here is insane ad it just is not economically viable to freeze foods when it is far cheaper to can them.

I so love to garden but it is hopeless where we are as everything literally cooks in the ground. I have two wicking beds which keeps me in herbs and some Swiss chard (we call it silverbeet), chillies and tomatoes.

I yearn to get back country where we can build structures and have free water so we can have a good sized garden again. I so miss going out to te garden and picking the vegetables for a meal.

 

[Poppy57]

Welcome from Ireland Great to have you here! I lived in a hot, hot place myself in South Africa, before moving here a few years ago. I hear you on farming around extreme heat, expensive water, etc. It's a challenge, but it's doable. Have you tried pumpkins and watermelons? Those I know handle heat o.k. We also grew corn, spinach (Swiss chard), peppers, green beans and zucchini, though we had to pamper the latter a bit. A good soaking watering in the mornings and a top up in the evening when it cools down worked for them.

Livestock wise at the moment I have chickens only and I happen to have a light Sussex hen. She is awesome. Great temperament, excellent layer and cause me absolutely no trouble at all in the little over 3 years I've had her. We had cattle in S.A. Native Nguni cows, and we had some cross bred sheep, pigs of unknown breeds and 100's of assorted mix breed chickens.

Hello Sumi. I am pleased to meet you. Thank you for the warm welcome. I love Ireland, it s such a beautiful country. So much colder to here or S.A. I tried growing all manner of vewgetables but when it ends up costing you $600 per month for water alone it just is not economical or viable. We cannot eat the equivalent in organic produce in that time so for the meantime it is better for us to just buy most of what we need. The other issue we have where I am is we don't have soil. It is straight sand which reaches temps of 70C and hence why plants just cook in the ground. Mulching only works until the ants carry it all away and we can't keep organic matter in the ground either as the ants eat all that as well, in a matter of weeks. it really is extremely frustrating.

I wuld love to have a few chickens at least just now but the city bylaws won't allow it. Just all more incentive to get back country again. I do like the Sussex chickens and they do seem to do well here even with the heat.

 

[Poppy57]

My sheep are Dorper/Katahdin mixed. I am going towards Katahdin and will be culling my flock for ewes that consistently have twins. I love my hair sheep, they are so easy to care for.

I don't have pigs now, taking the winter off. LOL Last one was a Red Wattle and before that we had two Hereford hogs.

We have a retired 31 year old Tennessee Walking horse and a retired 29 year old Quarter Horse. Also have a stocking legged, blaze faced chestnut gelding, age 9-ish? that came out of a slaughter pen. Just got a 12-15 year old Tennessee Walker mare from a slaughter pen that was skin and bones, we are feeding her up.

Hope you find your place soon. It's out there waiting on you to find it!

Hi Baymule. Ah Dorpers are another sheep breed I have been looking into, another of the "hairy" sheep. We need to look at breeds that we don't have to sg=hear as I am not way too old to do that anymore. They are a good breed from what I have been reading. I will look into the Katahdin. it is a breed that I have not heard of before, which could mean that they are not available here. I will have to check that out.

I have a friend in Tennessee that had a Tenessee walking horse, she was so beautiful but sadly the teenage daughter tired of caring for it so my friend sold her on. I so miss my quarter horse.

I am a real sucker for rescueing animals. We have 2 Rotties and 2 cats that were all rescues. I want to have an animal sactuary for all manner of unwanted animals. Isn't it amazing how some people so horrifically treat animals. I worked at a rescue centre for a good many years as a young person and we got to see some shocking sights.

I am guessing we are at least a year away fro buying the right property. We still have some work to do on this place before we can sell it and sadly the house prices have dropped here. That's great for home buyers but a killer for those of us needing to sell. All will happen whjen it is meant too.

 

[Poppy57]

I'm over on the mild, wet side of the mountains here. I did grow up on the hot, dry side of the mountains. Not quite as extreme as you get most likely.

Using lattice and other things to help shade the ground some keeps plants from cooking as bad. Just not feasible for large areas.

I only have chickens right now. I really need some goats to help keep plants in check. Just ameraucana and silkie chickens. Even though silkies are a very old breed, they aren't considered heritage because they don't pasture well and few people want to eat black chicken.

Hi Hinotori. yes we tried shading the plants but it seemed to lock the heat in more, especially when we don't get even a breeze. One of the major drawbacks with living in a city where the houses are almost touching each other. The breeze just cannot entre the properties at all and all the concrete and brick just acts like a huge bake oven. We will be able to have a large garden again once we go country again. The area we are looking at gets a lot more rain and cooler weather plus it has dirt and not sand. Moving will just be a mission as it is almost 1000km away.

Goats are so good for breaking in land and keeping the weeds down on larger areas. We can get ameraucana hens here from time to time and I live the silkies. How do you find them for layng? Are the silkies good sitters for hatching like the bantams are? Oh wow I always thought that the silkie was a heritage breed! Yes people want big plump chickens to eat like the ones on shops and think all chickens are like that.

 

[Hinotori]

Here, unless the breed can be pastured and used for eggs or meat, they aren't considered a heritage breed. So even though they were in the original American Poultry Association's Standard of Perfection, they aren't heritage. Silkies are too feather blind to pasture. Easy pickings for predators. Interestingly, polish are considered heritage even though they are just as feather blind and it was the introduction of polish into silkies that caused the modern huge silkie crests.

Silkies are way too broody for good egg production. They are very good mothers. Only breed that comes close to them in broodiness mothering is the cochins. Large fowl cochins would be my go to for other fowl species like turkey or geese. Silkies are just too little.

We only have one size of silkie here. Hens weigh 2 pounds. I think you have the two sizes like Europe does.

Not saying other breeds don't mother well, but my silkies will happily raise 4 batches of chicks a year. Broodiness was the whole reason silkies were kept for a while. The best broodies where bred and the instinct is now turned up to 11 in the breed.

 

[Mini Horses]

Sumi, that site has some wonderful info. Thanks!