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"you could learn about animal husbandry and raise chickens for eggs"

My grandad, when he retired bought a smaller farm. He kept around 200 chickens in the old cow shippon. Now if you google "shippon", you'll be told it is a northern (English) term. My grandad was born in Paignton in 1901 and lived in Devon all his life. His working farm was near Dartmouth. I only searched to check the spelling for this comment, it turns out that the internets can spout ... approximations to truth sometimes (fancy!)

Anyway, the farm cat was called "Panda". His job was keeping an eye on the chickens. He was fed on top of the meal bin everyday next to the shippon, something/enough that kept him from deciding chicken was food.

Panda was quite a vigorous chap and once killed a fox that tried to do a DIY KFC. Any New Zealand readers familiar with Footrot Flats will see "Horse" here. Panda was Horse's British cousin. Murray Ball is a legend in my family. I have no idea why grandad called his farm cat Panda. Murray Ball called his cat Horse, probably for similar odd reasons.

The house cat was called Wee White - she was my mum and dad's that was left with her mum because they buggered off, sorry, got posted to West Germany, with me and my brother. Wee White had a white collar. Her sister Big Red had a red collar. She (Big Red) unfortunately was an example of why we ensure that cat's collars can slip off if caught in a tree.

In the US those farm cats are generally called "barn cats". They will live in the barn and their "job" is to kill vermin and protect the livestock that also live there. They seem to do this instinctively.

They need to be fed independently as it ties them to the barn. Otherwise they'll leave in search of food.

When farms are sold typically the barn cats will stay with the farm as it's the only home they've known and if taken they'll often try and return to the barn.

The complexity of all this behaviour is kinda crazy to see. It's likewise the case with dogs that have herding instincts. You'll see them blocking chicks or ducklings from getting out of their pen or just getting stressed when they think some of the animals are where they shouldn't be. Often any tendency to chase other animals is actually the dog trying to get the animal back where it belongs.

Quite. I think they are in the middle ground between domestic cats and wild cats. I don't think you have what I would call wild cats in the US (you have the bigger felines such as Lynx etc). In Scotland there are a few examples and they are being actively conserved. They look like large domestic cats but are completely wild.

The farm cat or barn cat is one that is clearly domesticated but encouraged to do whatever it likes with a few simple rules. It gets fed regularly and apart from a particular species (hens) it can destroy anything else at will.

We created these things and we should damn well look after them. Cats are not complex at all. If you "make" a farm/barn cat then it should be left as such.

Granny and granddad also had Wee White as a house cat. When the chicks were hatched they were stuffed into a tray and put into the house boiler cupboard to keep warm. This was the "airing cupboard". British housing off of the sixties and beyond often has a hot water boiler that was merged with the formal place that you air fabrics to dry them.

Their airing cupboard had a load of chicks in a tray and a cat on another shelf. You walk past a combination of purring and cheeping.

The mechanism described in the article is that human assistance benefits more dominant species over less dominant ones, which increases the dominant species population and further suppresses the less dominant species. How is your garden fundamentally different than using a bird feeder regarding this specific interaction?

The type and size of seed. Larger birds focus on larger (higher energy) seed sold at the stores.

The plants I select to go to seed have small seeds and feed small birds.

Just one of many observations I've had the pleasure of collecting anecdotal evidence on.

I don’t think the size of the bird is particularly relevant as birds of the same size compete for the same nesting sites. The article gives the example of blue tits dominating willow and marsh tits by hoarding the bird feeder and kicking them out of their nesting sites. Both the willow and marsh tit are slightly bigger than the blue tit. It seems to me that your garden would also have this issue.

A bird feeder is a very small location with an extremely high concentration of seeds. A garden, while small, is much larger than a feeder. I think less dominant birds would stand a much better chance of reaching the seeds in a spread out garden than they would at a feeder. Additionally, the plants in the garden offer cover for small birds to hide behind while they’re eating seeds on the ground. This should also help the less dominant birds survive.

Another factor is whether your practice also helps create additional nesting spots. Certain plants, leaving behind brush or downed trees, etc, can help create additional nesting sites, or leave ones that would otherwise be removed. For example, we maintain a few brush piles and downed trees rather than chipping everything. These make for busy way points where you’ll see less common visitors.

I have a 1 ft. x 1 ft. platform with 1 inch sides, which I hang from a huge Oak tree.

I put in peanuts, and wild bird seed.

The black birds, and the squirels only eat the peanuts.

The smaller bids eat the seeds.

I have only seen the Squirrels chase away the black birds, but there are days when it's the other way around.

The smaller birds wait until the peanuts are mostly gone, and they go in.

Since I put in my bird feeder, I have noticed more birds of all species some using my property. I have had a small bird (I think a finch) set up nest on my front porch 3 times. The nests are a few yards from the feeder, and bath.

I have noticed small birds eating spiders under my eaves.

Since man has built houses, and paved land; I can't see how a bird feeder does much of anything besides bring in a lot of species. Peanuts will bring in rats too. Squirels bury the peanuts, and rats will dig them up. Squirels seem to forget where they buried their stash?

I probally over feed with the peanuts. I've noticed the black birds will squawk for peanuts around 4 pm., and the Squirels practically tell me to feed them. There was one who used to rattle tge screen door.

I've noticed this year in particular, the watering platform is used by more birds, and insects. I could be me. I might be thinking they are thirsty because of the drought, but I just see a lot of action in that water. (If you supply water, try to change it daily. There's some bacteria going around.)

> If you supply water, try to change it daily. There's some bacteria going around.

I know the answer is obvious, but I don’t know what it is. Why is promoting animal growth better than promoting bacteria growth?

I don't know for sure, but off the top of my head I can come up with two reasons:

1. Bacteria can be dangerous (for the animals, for us)

2. Birds are beautiful and squirrels are adorable (esp. with their their fuzzy tails). A pool of sludge is repulsive. So, uhm, I like animal growth better for personal, subjective reasons :)

Animals have an inherently higher worth in terms of energy, niche, process, consciousness.

Bacteria left unchecked, could wipe out a species due to it's crazy exponential growth factors. For example over running the immune system.

Lately we have had scientific observations of some or of illness killing many birds across many species.

In this case you clean the "watering hole" if you are going manage that artificial shared resource to prevent being part of the problem.

One isn’t inherently better than the other, but if you spend time making a platform for birds, you probably want to enjoy looking at them rather than let them die.

> Squirels seem to forget where they buried their stash?

This is well-documented. In the wild they do this with acorns. It's estimated they "remember" ~70% of their buried acorns.

What's crazy is the other 30% is where the trees come from.

This is neat. Just doing nothing with a section of the garden seems to help. Let things grown and leave them alone and all sorts of stuff appears. We now have weta, which I like (at a distance), though others are less keen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wētā

How many chickens should I plan on for a household of two? We dispose of just a few handfuls of veggie scrapings & trim and a coffee puck each day, some fatty scraps of meat over the course of a week, and not much else. Currently composting but could well do a few chickens…

Chickens like to be in flocks, I would say 6 hens would be good for two people, yields 6 eggs per day, you'll never buy eggs again (assuming you continue the process). They can be picky so my recommendation is to also maintain a compost area they may access. The soil life breaks it down into other forms which the birds may use. Good luck!

One last video for you to get pumped up: https://youtu.be/fydmrz5EThw

Oeuf! That’s four more eggs than I’d need! Maybe my neighbour would like to share.

Is it practical to let them free-range in an urbanish neighbourhood? We have deer, raccoons, cats, the occasional coyote, osprey and eagles, etc—we are not far from open range and open wildlands. I assume they’d need some sort of enclosure at night, but during the day?

I’ve checked and we are allowed a coop…

("Oeuf!" made me do a snort-coffee-out-my-nose laugh. Genius.)

I am no genius, my dear Mrs. Peaker, for were you to call me a wit it would be too kind by half.

But I do like to think that I have my moments.

I concur, as a permaculturist myself, 100% completely.

We get an extraordinary variety of species in our garden every year, and its because of the plants we grow - not because of the birdseed we buy in bags.

We raise chickens and find them incredibly endearing and entertaining.