Raising Meat Chickens

How we Raise Them

Hi Fellow Farmsteaders, We wish to educate and inform our customers of the process of producing scrumptious chicken all the way from our paddock to your plate!

Brooder

Welcome to Gracemere

Hi Farmsteaders, I’m Bethany from Gracemere Farmstead. I am the chief fence mover, all round have a go at everything. I am also the author of this blog. So who are Gracemere Farmstead? Gracemere Farmstead is an integrated multi-species, grass-based, beyond organic family farm located in the beautiful Northern Rivers of NSW.

Permaculture Principles

Hi Farmsteaders, Recently I have been studying permaculture and thought I would summarise what the principles mean to me and some real life applications of them in my life.

Observe and Interact- We have a mixed herd with 4 sheep, 2 horses, and 1 cow in it. Every day they are moved to a new paddock, to give them fresh grass and making sure that they are not grazing over their own manure. As the amount of feed that they consume depends on the grasses present, I need to observe their previous days paddock and adjust size accordingly. This ensures that all grasses are eaten evenly, and helps to improve the pasture.

Catch and Store Energy-  To catch and store energy we have 50 solar panels on the roof on our shed as well as a battery system to ensure that all our electricity that we use is is powered by the sun and we do not need to use coal-burning electricity generating systems. You can read more about off-grid solar system here

Wicking Bed Gardens

When we first moved onto our property one of the first things we did was set up some gardens in front of the shed. Using wooden pine edging we made raised gardens and started planting them. At first they worked well but as time went on they started to rot away and were falling apart. They were also very hard to work in as we couldn’t reach the middle without getting in the gardens to weed. We wanted to change our gardens but we weren’t quite sure what to do instead.

Raising Pigs

 
Hi Fellow Farmsteaders,
We were initially very hesitant to get pigs however we all enjoy pork and really wanted our own quality pork. After over a year raising pigs we have certainly learnt a lot and very quickly fell in love with these quirky animals.