Selfsufficientish.com

Hi, if the battery runs down, i'll charge it on the mains overnight. 6 days now and counting Interesting you mention liver fluke because we have sheep and they are prone to that and our ground is all in a flood plain so close to the water table - would i need to get the water sampled to check it is ...

Hi All, Sorry i forgot to look on this for a while - very busy lately. Good to see the aqua culture is going well over in Carolina and congratulations on the successful birthing! Would the spawning mops work for trout? I was told they need a fine gravel bed and also my fish farm trout may be sterile...

Hi everyone, i have a 1st time broody hen that i confined in a broody coop and added 6 eggs to make up her batch up to 12 (maybe too many as she isn't a big chicken) She sat fine for a couple of days and I let her out for 30 minutes everyday and topped up her grain and water. This morning i found he...

Hey all, We are trying to work out the best system for irrigating our quite large veg plot in SW France. We have the legal right to pump up to 40 cubic metres of water a day from a mill leat that crosses our land so no shortage of water (although i don't want to waste the stuff for nothing of course...

Hey Chuck, I am not being at all scientific so i am chucking a handful a day as per instruction from the fish farmer. He told me to stop when the food runs out which it has just about. They should be eating bugs and weeds from now on. My concern now is the stork that has appeared this morning. He mu...

Hi Chuck, good luck with the tilapia.

We keep feeding our trout through the extreme cold weathe but i think they are becoming fairly self sufficient. They rise nicely for the pelleted fish food i throw. I'll have to catch a few to gauge how much weight they have put on.

Cheers

Hi Everyone, this exchange interested me so i searched for a homemade tick and flea treatment and found this link. I just received some Rose Geranium and Peppermint essential oils from an online retailer in the UK and we will give it a go this summer. If it works it will cost almost nothing compared...

Hi, the range of different products for worms, fluke and flystrike is frankly baffling and i wondered if anyone can recommend brands or treatments they have found to be effective. I would like to try diatomaceous earth for worming (they were treated with cydectine by the farmer who sold them to us) ...

Hi Chuck, Yes i think i can get the hose to drop about 60cms and i like the idea of it splashing onto some stones to break up the flow into droplets. I think this will keep my trout alive and growing throughout the very productive summer. The pond is literally alive with insects for many of the spri...

Hi, just to put this into context i have quality flat grazing in a river valley but well drained so i agree with Trinders views on choosing animals suited to the terrain. We deliberately don't want a small leggy sheep from a mountainous environment as our land can cope with larger sheep. We are in S...

We are about to acquire some sheep for our own consumption for our small holding in SW france and a question springs to mind. Many people concentrate on a particular rare breed of sheep (or pig for that matter) and it made me wonder if it is not more sensible to get complete cross breeds? I can unde...

Hi, we are thinking about growing maize (we are in hot climate with unlimited irrigation water) simply because it is easily hand picked and can be given to livestock with no threshing as they take the kernels off themselves. Anyone know if this is a good idea? Oats would work here on a winter crop b...

Hi Chuck, Thanks for the info - i will syphon directly from the mill leat (like a small canal) and prop the lower end of the tube up on a stake so it drops into the lake instead of emptying. I suppose any disturbance in the flow will add oxygen to the water? There is an overflow in the lake that flo...

Hi, we have a largish pond here (about (20m x 10m) and i just put in 50 x 150g rainbow trout in it to grow over the cooler winter months. I heard i might need to fish them all out in the spring before the water temperature climbs avove 20 degrees otherwise the trout may not survive with relatively o...

Hi, got 2 chicks that are 4 weeks old, have been kept with their Mum and are now running around in an new large enclosed pen. We have a cock and another hen who are currently free range that we want to put into the pen too. At what age can we let the adults in with the chicks? The Mum is very protec...