the daydream fund challenge thread

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

Oh . Its more important that you are well. You two have achieved SO MUCH that perhaps you simply need to pace your selves, now that everythng growing is busy too.

Yes, I'm worse today than yesterday, but lots better than last night when I had the sweats (but I got a row of Swiss Chard in first! ) DW is on the mend, definitely. I don't think it's the result of exhaustion, or anything like that. We have been chugging along OK. This bug has just gone around the village; it's probably a new strain.

I don't think there's a lot of difference in rootstock vigour in pears, but RAS would know. I'd guess you mean Deacon's nursery on IOW. Lots of the fruit planted here came from there....their labels last well!

choille

Do you have a reed bed system LIR.

Well we have rain now so I think most people are glad of it. It should damp the ground down - hopefully.
We may get chicks today, but probably tomorrow from Scot's Grey under the tree. I think my 4 chicks that hatched are three cockerels - drat!

Seems ages since we got rain.

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

Do you have a reed bed system LIR.

No not for the house. In the longer term we'll add a reed bed for the pond (if we can ever afford to do the pond) but it will only have to filter the run off/surface water, so be super clean. As it is its ''drinking water quality clean''. what we have instead of a septic tank does all of that. Planners prefer these now to septic tanks...it was a no brainer to install it ...but I think we should have gone for the bigger tank

Well we have rain now so I think most people are glad of it. It should damp the ground down - hopefully.
We may get chicks today, but probably tomorrow from Scot's Grey under the tree. I think my 4 chicks that hatched are three cockerels - drat!

Seems ages since we got rain.

We would LOVE rain here. Its tinder dry. Reasonably tempted to burn off some bramble...but its just too dry to risk.


we have at least two boys here aswell. One is living out with the biggies already (which answers Alfie's concerns, they should easily integrate with grown ups after a night in.) and his father is proudly protecting hi from the girls being a bit domineering. when I've separated six girls (I hope!) for Alfie I'll put any other ID's boys out too. The boys will have to take their chances this year. No meat on them, they are too legbarr-ish.

Davesnave

Enforced idleness had me in front of the lunchtime news today, just in time to catch a feature about a chap who's started a hen hotel in Cornwall. It's like kennels, but for hen owners who go on holiday. There ae lots of city-dwelling hens.

We've been discussing this one all afternoon. The feature didn't give us any confidence in the guy, as his hen houses looked like flimsy, Chinese things, nor did we see much acknowledgement of hygiene/disease control issues, but it is certainly something we could consider in the future if other income sources prove disappointing.

As I see it, the main problem would be resting the ground between
batches of hens making an interesting design challenge for runs, or perhaps not, if we used easily movable fences. What do others think?

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

We've been discussing this one all afternoon. The feature didn't give us any confidence in the guy, as his hen houses looked like flimsy, Chinese things, nor did we see much acknowledgement of hygiene/disease control issues, but it is certainly something we could consider in the future if other income sources prove disappointing.

As I see it, the main problem would be resting the ground between
batches of hens making an interesting design challenge for runs, or perhaps not, if we used easily movable fences. What do others think?

I wouldn't give visiting hens ''ground'' personally. Short term you could enhance in other ways. City hens are probably used to pens anyway, not free range. I'd do it with plastic houses on concrete bases, and disinfect between, and have solid walls between pens.....airbourne/contact diseases. Imagine the movement book for DEFRA....:eek: even under fifty hens you'd probably want to keep a movement book. Inevitably you'd get some with parasites and illnesses..so you'd want to make sure you weren't in trouble for transferring those to other customers, that's why I'd go sterile with ''enrichment'' through things like hydroponic grass, hung veg etc. Dust would have to be in a plastic dish/litter tray and replaced for each customer.
Holidays would be a good time to worm with a product that needs egg withdrawal though...something to think about.

Ultimately, for us, that disease risk with paying guests is the same. (I hope to do equine and rider B and B at some point in the future). Its tricky, because I have to compromise beliefs, or at least find ways to stand by them but safely. e.g. I do not believe it to be ''right'' to keep horses stabled all the time or without other equine physical contact (ours are all out together, we risk them kicking each other). BUT you couldn't do it with things staying short term, so big stables (somewhere else from ours for disease control), turnout on the yard by the house with non equine companions. Same way, I found tiimber stable partitions that would see me taking paying longer term guests next week, could get the whole barn done on a months money.....they don't look great BUT, with things coming and going for competition I want a solid surface box I can power wash and disinfect regularly...not great with wood, and the wood holds water. concrete block I can do it with. It won't eliminate risk (particularly as we won't have to the top walls, but rather dividing grills normally), but reduce it significantly. Sadly its more expensive, and I can't do it this year!

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

I don't think there's a lot of difference in rootstock vigour in pears, but RAS would know. I'd guess you mean Deacon's nursery on IOW. Lots of the fruit planted here came from there....their labels last well!

Wow they have alot of apple trees, I'm thinking about ordering a few more fruit trees to fit a border, this looks a perfect place to buy them! Thanks Dave.

I love apples, I want our apples to last as long in the year as possible.

Lotus-eater

Davesnave wrote: »

As I see it, the main problem would be resting the ground between
batches of hens making an interesting design challenge for runs, or perhaps not, if we used easily movable fences. What do others think?

I think very similar to LIR. It would be difficult.
Certainly it would seem to be a good idea for concrete and straw, then burning the straw after every batch of visitors.
Tbh, it needs alot of investment to get it to a decent std, to satisfy customers that it will be ok and don't forget they will be used to clean stuff around their hens, not what we are maybe used to. That sounds a bit wrong, but I hope you know what I mean.
On top of that, I wonder how big the market actually is for this sort of thing.

And Defra :eek: maybe you could contact them first for an idea of what you would need to do, before you even thought any more about it.

Davesnave

Lir & lotus, thanks, that's very interesting input and I agree 100% about disease control, but.....

I think if we went down a concrete & straw route we might lose the main attraction, which is a country holiday for hens. I know it's daft, but people going on holiday may feel better if they think their hens are having a treat, as well as just being looked-after.

OTOH, although the initial setup might be more complicated, the concrete & walls has the advantage of not needing to be constantly moved. Quick turnaround too. Definite plus points.

It's something we can just mull over for a while. As you say, it's hard to estimate what the demand would be like, but I imagine advertising would be a major & ongoing cost.

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

Lir & lotus, thanks, that's very interesting input and I agree 100% about disease control, but.....

I think if we went down a concrete & straw route we might lose the main attraction, which is a country holiday for hens. I know it's daft, but people going on holiday may feel better if they think their hens are having a treat, as well as just being looked-after. .

TBH, I expect if this thing did take off very quickly the disease etc aspect would become apparent, in a not nice way in media.......and you would get birds arriving with red mite or something at somepoint...so you NEED it to be controllable. e.g. think of the reputations kennels or catteries get when they are landed with illnesses they can't control animals arriving with....I know businesses run by good, caring people put out of business by it.

This really is an issue. I decided to stop my previous career in the field just after foot and mouth 2001. There is a reason I take this sort of thing seriously and its because when you are called to work on something like that you learn to take disease control in transient situations really seriously really quickly.:o

lostinrates

What about a retirement home for non layers instead? country home how you keep yours possible and nice, less risk! (steady income too!)