Images courtesy of hardworkinghippy, http://flickr.com/photos/hardworkinghippy, Caleb Ward, Caitlin (left to right)
Animals on confined animal feeding operations are regularly fed: same species meat; diseased animals; feathers, hair, skin, hoofs, blood, manure, and other animal waste; plastics; drugs and chemicals; and unhealthy amounts of grains.[1]
Cattle that are fed corn-rich diets suffer from many health issues including liver abscesses and acidic digestive systems.[2] These grain-induced health problems increase the need for antibiotics.[3] Livestock are often fed antibiotics to “promote faster growth and to compensate for crowded, stressful, unsanitary living conditions.”[4] Scientists estimate that an average of 25 million pounds of antibiotics are fed to livestock every year for these non-therapeutic purposes, which represents 70% of the total antibiotics fed to animals each year.[5] Only 3 million pounds of antibiotics are used in human medicine which means we are using less than 10% of antibiotics to treat human disease, and eight times as much to treat healthy animals.”[6] This widespread practice is speeding the development of antibiotic-resistant pests which we then ingest, creating a growing health concern that is already costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year.”[7]
We have simultaneously created a fertility problem and a pollution problem by creating a vast, tilled, monoculture agricultural system based on chemical supplements and feedlots. In essence, taking livestock off of farms and putting them into feedlots takes “an elegant solution—animals replacing the fertility that crops deplete—and neatly divides it into two problems: a fertility problem on the farm and a pollution problem on the feedlot,”[8] not to mention the immense burden of feeding these livestock.
For example, one quarter of all cropland in the United States is used to grow corn, 80% of which is fed to livestock.[9] That’s right, the majority of available farming space is used to grow food for livestock that they are not evolutionarily intended to ingest nor digest. What’s worse is that corn-fed animals produce meat that is higher in saturated fats. It is also more likely to contain muscle-building hormones, antibiotics, and anti-microbial medicines because of the high population density and tight confines of the feedlot.[10] So rather than a clever, self-sustaining system, we have designed a system that requires constant, costly inputs to produce a less valuable product.
For small gardens, and large farms alike, the problem can easily be resolved by bringing animals back to the farm. Pigs, cows, and chickens thrive on grass-fed diets, and will readily do your weeding for you if you let them. It can be as easy as having chickens that are free to roam sections of the garden, where they can feed on weeds and deposit manure where you need it most, and lay eggs, which can be kept and eaten or shared and bartered with the community. If predators are a problem, or you want to have more control over where the chickens graze, you might consider using a chicken tractor. Chicken tractors are essentially portable pens that can easily be moved around the farm to give chickens fresh plots to peck.
On large farms crop rotation systems of active and fallow plots are best. For centuries farmers in Argentina have successfully used a system of eight-year perennial pasture and annual crops where cows graze an area for 5 years, then farm that area for the next three years. In this scenario, the grazing eliminates weeds in the crop fields, and the crop tiling eliminates weeds in the pastures. In addition, the fields don’t require fertilizer because the cover crops and manure produce fertile fields for planting, year after year.[11]
Some basic design elements to consider when designing your own chicken tractor include:
- Long handles extending on either side of the coop to make it easy to move the pen.
- A wheel on one side so a single person can move it.
- Shade, if you live in a warm climate so the chickens don’t overheat.
[1] Union of concerned scientists, “They eat what? The Reality of Feed at Animal Factories,” available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/they-eat-what-the-reality-of.html
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Union of concerned scientists, “Statement on Hogging It!: Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock,” available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/margaret-mellon-on-hogging.html
[6] Id.
[7] Union of concerned scientists, “They eat what? The Reality of Feed at Animal Factories,” available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/they-eat-what-the-reality-of.html
[8] Pollen, Michael. “An open letter to the next Farmer-in-chief,” available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?pagewanted=4, quoting Wendell Berry
[9] U.S. EPA, “Major crops grown in the United States,” available at: http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/cropmajor.html
[10] Corn-Fed: Cows and Corn, PBS, available at: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/cows.html
[11] Pollen, Michael, “An open letter to the next Farmer-in-chief,” available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?pagewanted=4
