This Sustainable House

Archive for the ‘Livestock’ Category

The last attempt to make bacon turned out to be a touch salty, though it will be great for cooking. A little research suggests that dry curing may be a part of the problem (as well as curing for too long). So I have decided to try wet curing or brining.

The brine mix that I made up was 12L of water, 1.2kg salt, 800g dark brown sugar, 2 tablespoons black peppercorns, 1 tablespoon piri piri and 1 tablespoon of whole cloves. The whole lot was brought to the boil, and held there for about 10mins, skimming the foam off the top. It is then left to cool, and then placed into the fridge to get it down to 4 degrees celcius.

A pork belly was then submerged into the mix (holding it in a non-reactive container) for 5 days. Frozen slightly, and then sliced. This is what is referred to as ‘Green Bacon’, not to be confused with Green Eggs and Ham, as it hasn’t been smoked. If you wanted to smoke you could certainly do it prior to slicing.

The net result of this process was some REALLY good bacon. It’s not salty to the taste but the subtle aroma of honey and spices permeates the meat beautifully.

Well the aquaponics system has been running for a couple of months, and the first feedback can be noted.

The biggest issue I have had with the system was an abundance of light making it’s way through the clear IBC’s leading to massive algal growth in the water. The water turned a bright green making it impossible to see the fish. This has been corrected by shading the sump tank, and painting the raft tank.

The ‘cost’ of destroying the algae, was that the dissolved oxygen (DO) of the system dropped rapidly leading to the death of a number of trout. As you might be aware, trout have a very high DO requirement and the rapid drop of DO due to decomposing algae was enough to cause some difficulties.There are still quite a few trout in the system, but approx 40ish were lost.

However, on the positive side, the bacteria in the system (which are the true work horses) have ‘cycled’ and are currently maintaining the ammonia and nitrite levels at very close to zero. Nitrate has been climbing, currently at approx 80ppm, though this isn’t too concerning at this stage. In fact, the plants have visibly grown in the past week demonstrating that they are enjoying the extra nutrient that is available. Today the beds were planted with some dwarf pea plants, and in the next few days another batch of lettuce will be planted into the raft tank.

I’ll keep updating you on the progress… both the highs & the lows.

One of the food production systems that I have been dying to try for many years is the concept of Aquaponics. Aquaponics is quite an advanced system in which we combine the best of aquaculture, growing fish and/or crustaceans, with hydroponics, growing plants in a soil-less culture. The reason that it works so well is that the plants feed on the wastes of the fish, essentially filtering the water before it returns to the fish tank. In fact, it is a touch more complicated than that (involving bacteria converting ammonia to nitrites then nitrates) however that’s the gist of it. The diagram below demonstrates the general principle.

Basic Aquaponics Cycle

The reason that have always wanted to try this system is because I feel that it can offer a lot of opportunities to the small-holder, or even householder, as one can grow a lot of food in a relatively small area. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of months back I wrote a post about the setting up of a new incubator, built out of an old fridge. The basis of the incubator is an old fridge, which had stopped working sometime ago, donated by a member of the Canberra Freecycle group. To this I have added an automatic egg turner, a fan & heat source, and thermostat. At the time of the last post I was still waiting on the thermostat but it has subsequently arrived. The video below has more details of the construction.

So early last week I finished wiring the device and today it lurches into life! This morning I set 34 eggs, from my wonderful hens, and over the few weeks I will follow their development via this post. Watch this space…

UPDATE -- Well approx 5 days ago the chicks in the incubator began to hatch. We had 11 chicks hatch successfully but many more pipped but ultimately died in the shell. I think the reason for the poor hatch were two design problems both of which I’m working to correct before the next run.

The first problem is that I think the humidity was a little high during the incubation period. This is the most likely cause for the results we received, as the eggs don’t lose enough water during incubation and the chicks actually drown inside the shells after pipping but prior to hatching. I did have a humidity meter in the incubator, which suggested all was good, but I’m wondering if it’s accuracy was somewhat lacking? This can be easily fixed by regulating the open water containers as well as replacing the meter.

The second problem was the fact that the hatching tray may have been a little too close to the heat source leading to the eggs receiving both convection and radiant heat when in the hatching tray. This has been corrected by better ‘gapping’ the hatching tray from the heat source. (see photo to right)

So it’s now time to rejig the unit, and set another batch of eggs to see if we have worked out all the wrinkles.

As some of you are aware, my last incubation attempt was a total failure! Unfortunately my incubator’s thermostat, a still-air foam model (which will remain brand-less), failed causing an unacceptable temperature spike. This spike killed the majority of the developing embryos resulting in a hatch of only 6 chicks (from 28 fertile eggs). This is an appalling hatch rate.

So I have decided to build my own cabinet style incubator, complete with digital thermostat. This ‘model’ will be capable of setting up to 132 eggs at a time (in the auto-turners) or 44 eggs at weekly intervals. It will also have a dedicated hatching tray, to facilitate cleaning, and the ability to use it during winter to whip up the odd brew…

I’m achieving all of this by using an old fridge, no longer in working order, as my cabinet. This has the benefit of being incredibly well insulated and easy to clean.

I’m adding to this a fan, a heat source, and my egg turners.

At this stage the prototype is undergoing initial trials with different heat sources and this clearly demonstrates the potential efficiency of the unit. Below is a picture of the measurement apparatus. You can see that the temperature inside the unit is a cosy 35.7 degrees celcius and is exceedingly even (hatching tray is located on the bottom of the unit, egg trays half way up). Of course, the current temperature isn’t quite high enough to incubate eggs but that temperature has been reached with only 48 watts of power (considering both the fan AND the heat). I’m guessing that a total of 60 watts of power will be necessary to run the unit, equating to a cost of ~$0.36 per day to run… Not bad when you consider it could have 132 eggs in it at the time.

Anyhow, this is just an initial post and I’ll return to this project in a week or two when it is fully operational to show you the ‘finished’ product.

Well it has now been a couple of months since the pigs first arrived at TSH (see Making a Pig of Oneself) but today the day finally came when it was time for them to move on.

They have done a stirling job digging and cleaning that garden area as the video below attests. The next step, after processing the pigs, will be to erect some temporary irrigation and then sow the area to green manure. This will grow for another couple of months, before another 5 piglets are brought in the to do the job for us again. The garden area should then be ready for planting in early spring.

The video below shows the wonderful work the pigs have done for us, and the end result of the last few months. I would like to warn those who find animal carcasses disturbing that there are images of the carcasses in this video. However there is a warning page allowing to you exit the video prior to the scene of the carcasses. There is no footage of the slaughter… that’s a private, and definitely unpleasant, moment.

The pigs were all slaughtered and dressed on-site, the advantage of which is that there was no transport stress whatsoever. It was just a normal day for the pigs until that rapid killing blow (by bullet). The downside of dressing them at home was that we had a few technical issues with the hot water production, leading to the animals having to be skinned… no crackling from our pigs. Not the end of the world, and will probably do our health a world of good anyhoo…

One of the principles of permaculture is to use animals and systems to do as much of the work as possible. This comes from the premise that an under-utilized output of any system creates pollution, and this applies equally to material ‘things’ as well as non-material stuff.

In this case I was planning on spreading some mulch around inside the pig pen and, rather than do the work myself, I chose to enlist the help of the pigs. It wasn’t too hard… you’d be surprised what they’ll do for a little cracked corn!

The video below demonstrates the principle with both a before and after viewpoint.