Earth friendly heating and lighting options on the farm...?

Question

We have started our humaine grass fed free range meat operation this year. We raise chickens, turkeys, hens (for eggs), pigs, and cattle. I put the money out for a solar fencer, but I need ideas on how to heat the brooding house for the baby chicks (35 C) I have to run two 250Watt heat lamps for them in the early spring all day, when the summer heat comes I can keep the lamps off during the day. I do several batches of chicks throughout the spring and summer. I also need ideas to keep the hens water from freezing in the winter. I dont know if there would be any realistic solar options, or maybe there are other options? We do not have alot of money, but we can work on it a bit at a time...

Thankyou for your help

Answer 1

Good for you. It is not "free range" livestock that is is causing global warming, it is caged and or feedlot style "factory farmed" livestock that is causing the problem. Free range animals harvest grass, weeds, and in the case of poultry and hogs, bugs, insects, and  waste food products and convert these unusable items to usable food products, while providing fertilizer to feed all kinds of plant life. It is not a case of either/or thinking... but a case where the current centralized corporate mass production of livestock needs to be changed. Just like the current mass production style of of mono cropping needs to be changed. We need to convert our farming which includes livestock back to the old fashioned family farm style, where in spring, a man's wealth was counted by the pile of animal manure/fertilizer he had to spred on his crop fields, and in fall his wealth was counted by the amount of surplus crop he produced using the animal fertilizer from spring. Nature has plants and animals working together.

As to your question about heating your brooder house. A friend of mine solved this problem by running water through a big coil of polypipe and catching heat from the sun. He had the pipe in a wood box with a glass top situated on top of ht little house. He ran the polypipe down from the passive collector, and  through the middle of a 3 or 4 inch layer of concrete he poured as the floor to his his brooder house. The warm water warmed the floor and raised the temp quite a bit, not always enough, but he was able to cut way back on the amount of extra heat he needed. Another way you can cut the need for extra heat is to have an area in the brooder house where the chicks/poults can congregate together, that has a low "ceiling" about 4 inches above their heads. The body heat of the birds will be trapped closer to them instead of escaping to the top of the brooder house.

Using hens to brood the young birds is of course the most effecient way to conserve heat.

Answer 2

Put some windows on the south side of the coop you'll be surprized by how warm it'll be in the daytime. As far as the water problem try a small fountain pump circulating the water you'll still get some ice but it won't freeze solid. And this to the veggie people out there.... When you get down to it PLANTS are living things too. Maybe we should just starve to death.

Answer 3

I hope that you know that the United Nations 2007 global warming report showed that the meat industry was the #1 cause of green house gas emmitions, and all of the world's transportation was #2.  Being an envirnmentalist cattle farmer seems extremely hypocritical.  Its a fact that real envirnmentalists should not be eating meat.  You would be doing much more by just going vegetarian than driving a hybrid car.  Also, I would suggest you shut down the animal slaughter operation, you might just get a visit from some friendly masked people at night.

Thanks, have a great day!

Answer 4

You might have to resort to electrical heat and a thermostat for the chix. If you can warm the area for the chix you can put the watering device for the hens in/near to that area to prevent freezing. If you have sun in the winter you could use solar panels even when there is snow/ice on the ground. The heated water from the solar panels will keep the chix warm and the drinking water thawed. We raised rabbits when I was a child. Sometimes we had to turn the oven on and bring the newborns in and warm them on the open oven door.