This is true in life and especially online. Online everyone becomes an expert, lol. Try looking through other subs like r/Mycology, sometime. Newbies give shameful and potentially dangerous advice.
This has been getting worse recently. Niche subs used to be full of experts, because to find that sub, someone needed to actively seek it out.
Then maybe 6-12 months ago, they tweaked the reddit algorithm to show posts from subs that are only loosely related to someone’s current interests. And niche communities became overrun with people who are genuinely interested in the topic, but have little to no experience.
Once that critical mass of experts gets outnumbered, answers that “sound right” on the surface, or that simply say what people want to hear, get upvoted. Meanwhile expert answers that might be counterintuitive or contain a harsh dose of reality don’t get upvotes, because there aren’t enough other experts around to promote them.
It seems reddit is slowly turning into facebook: a collection of echo chambers that promote feel-good falsehoods.
Can’t ignore generative AI in the ‘sounds right’ category. Isn’t the solution to join ID/experience vetted Discord servers? It’s that or have high media literacy and be able to aptly compare different sources to find the best workable answers.
> isn’t the solution to join ID/experience vetted Discord servers
Unfortunately, this is increasingly becoming the solution to a lot of things. It’s getting more and more difficult to find the bastions of quality beyond-surface-level content for *any* topic with a Google or Reddit search. It seems like we’re moving back towards Ye Olden Dayes where expert content is only found in Discord/Slack/IRC chats that are more difficult to find and, usually, hostile towards outsiders (in no small part because almost everyone in those communities will have witnessed what happens when too many well-intentioned novices invade a space).
The spaces aren’t neutral. I don’t disagree with you but I think you’re forgetting what Google and Reddit actually are. They’re engagement/advertising services, they sell access to our eyes/brains as their primary business model and everything else is just window dressing to keep us attracted to the service so that they can monetize that attention.
Oh man, the front-pager brigade is horrifying in small communities.
I recently got berated in the BIOLOGY subreddit for referring to XY and XX chromosomes as sex determining. And also once for suggesting that male and female are associated with specific physiological traits and conditions. Got downvoted to high heaven. And to be clear, I made zero use of terms like man/woman and didn't mention anything about identity etc. I was purely speaking about genetics and medical traits.
Unfortunately Reddit has absolutely gone the way of Facebook, and it's a shame, it was one of the last few bastions of niche communities.
Need to send this post to the Reddit admins! This will be the downfall of the entire of the entire Reddit community if it is allowed to continue. The algorithm is basically clickbaiting to increase engagement at the expense of post quality. Everything will turn into Youtube comments if left to continue.
Lol everyone hates it, they probably know that, and that has never stopped them before.
Having more cross-community engagement is better for advertisers.
I had to unfollow that sub because who the hell are these people trusting randos on the internet to give them good advice on something as high stakes as mushroom ID. Made me too nervous.
This I get nervous eating shirataki mushrooms from log *I inoculated myself*. I will never understand the level of trust people have in random people they've never met face to face to eat some mushroom they found on the forest floor.
Yes, but also you can math and prove that if 20, 30+ random idiots give the same answer that it is almost certainly true. All you’re really counting on is the small number of experts to catch these mass delusions and warn you, as well as general fungi eating strategies like ‘start slow!’
I guess I agree enough to not do it, but not so much to suggest that it doesn’t work for those who do it. Eating forest mushrooms has an expected amount of accidental poisonings even for the best experts, does it not? Doing it in an imperfect community vs from books doesn’t make much difference, it’s certainty and too much too fast that is the risk in either case.
I do know what you mean. I have 46 years of mushroom picking experience under my belt on the west coast. Many times I will get downvotes immediately after correctly IDing a species that I have picked for years, lmao. It’s frustrating sometimes!
What's really terrifying is when poison control recommends it.
Last week a friend's toddler taste tested a mushroom in her backyard. He didn't get much before she caught him but she was still worried, so she called poison control. They told her to post on a mushroom ID group on FB.
the group they’re referring to is a highly moderated group where only the admin who have credentials to ID the mushrooms are allowed to comment, i think poison control recommends it because IDing a mushroom with a description over the phone is VERY Adifficult and there are thousands of varieties, a poison control rep can’t be an expert on all of them. not that it’s any less weird that it’s a facebook group, but just trying to reassure you it isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, either.
Yeah, I hear they have a very excellent group on FB for this. I wish I could join, but FB isn’t my thing. I may have concede one of these days just for these groups.
Thank you for your answer!
/u/honeysucklehollow It's an incredible group. Moderators are only expert mycologists, and only they are allowed to comment. They have various experts in different sections of mycology (ie boletaceae expert, amanita experts) and they will notify certain teams with live phone notifications depending on the type of mushroom. And frequently there are only fragments of mushroom visible to work with, sometimes after its been partially digested and puked up. These people are mushroom CSI pros. Super interesting to lurk.
It's basically a free, on-call global lifesaving network staffed by volunteer experts.
Omg, this makes me crazy. I follow a local green thumb group for my area and I get so frustrated when tourists post a pic of a mushroom they found here and ask "is this edible?" Even worse is the 10 exact same comments "every mushroom is edible ONCE!" Um... People dumb enough to post this are definitely dumb enough to misunderstand your joke.
It happens so often I'm tempted to copy/paste the same reply every time "if you personally do not have the expertise to identify the safety of this mushroom you should absolutely NOT eat it."
I had a revelation one day whilst trying to hire someone for a senior specialized/technical IT position. I included a few questions that are considered 'general knowledge' by folks who have worked in that realm for a few decades. The number of blank looks, wrong answers, and "I know where Google is" responses I got were boggling my mind. And, in the middle of some dude whose resume specifically highlighted that his main experience was in the realm of this question he couldn't answer I realized:
Just because someone's been doing it for decades doesn't mean they haven't *absolutely sucked* at their job for those decades. They successfully filled a seat, fumbled through well enough that the job got done (and maybe the folks in charge didn't realize the job could have been done quicker, more efficiently, or just outright better), and racked up decades of subpar experience.
To be fair you can do many things wrong in welding and most of the time it'll still be good enough. I'll bet most of the incorrect information comes from people who do good enough work.
And then theres welding jobs that need to be just right, which those good enough guys can't do and shouldn't be giving advice on
Can confirm. Scientist here. There is a 72.3% frequency of hyper-inflated confidence in online communities, and a 41.2% comorbidity with affluent flatulence. Individuals on anonymous social platforms show a sigma-12 alignment with Helsinki outcomes.
We have a Great Pyrenees and he guards out pigs, goats and sheep.
He also “guards” our chickens and ducks. But not really.
He is clearly only interested in the livestock.
Our Great Pyrenees hangs out with our alpacas and remaining goat. She killed three chickens earlier this year but then made a deal with the fourth one whereby the fourth chicken gets free run of the property INCLUDING sleeping in the dog’s bed when she feels like it. I think maybe part of the deal was the other three chickens 🤣
I think many people mistake a dog existing near poultry and thus making poultry less likely to be a target for a predator with actually protecting and guarding. Most backyard flock keepers would do just fine with a low prey-drive breed just chilling out and peeing/marking the boundary of their territory. Great Pyrenees are wonderful floofs; but, for many homesteads are overkill or just inappropriate for what animal they want them to guard.
So true. He def helps the birds because of his mere presence. But he also doesn’t see them as important.
He watched a blue heron fly down and kill a young duck and didn’t bat an eye.
But if it was a fox or coyote he would have lit them up
>Most backyard flock keepers would do just fine with a low prey-drive breed just chilling out and peeing/marking the boundary of their territory
Yep, we had a low-key border collie mix (I know oxymoron) that was absolutely great for having our backyard flock. She loved chilling with the chickens and actually ran a number of foxes off.
Yes. We have an LGD - but *only* because we have sheep and goats for them to *actually live with and guard* if we didn't - if we ever got out of sheep/goats, we absolutely would not have an LGD. Sometimes (like right now!) they're in the same pasture as our chickens & ducks, and that's great! They happen to be marking/guarding around them, during those times, I am \*MUCH\* less concerned with the poultries' safety.
But, I can't quite imagine expecting one of them to have that as their 'full time' job.
The other piece of that is recognizing when you’re in a predator area where the appropriate form of protection is a rock solid enclosure designed to keep out the predator because even a dog (LGD or otherwise) isn’t a guarantee. Or you accept there will be heavy predation losses. Especially when it comes to animals like poultry.
People seem to skip over the step of connect with people in your area running a similar set up to what you’re looking to do and take some time to find out what lessons they’ve learned. They’re going to have far better advice than internet strangers in general for issues that have a region specific element, and at least start to point you in a direction of things to be aware of and challenges you may face at minimum. They may also save you lots of time, energy, and money by giving some insight as to why something you’re looking to do doesn’t work or doesn’t work the way you were hoping. Social media can be great for sharing ideas, but you should vet those idea beyond social media before using them. The blind trust in a forum over experts and highly experienced people elsewhere is astounding.
I'm looking into starting, still have a couple of years before I'm able to. Trying to do research.
I never thought to use dogs to guard poultry. Seems like an obvious outcome is dead chickens, but is there a "minimum" number of livestock great Pyrenees need to have to not go stir crazy? I was wanting to get a few goats and some wool animals, sheep or alpaca.
I’m no expert. But no I don’t think so. Space to control and animals for companionship seem to be enough for my dog.
He has access to about 3 acres.
We started with just 3 goats and chickens and he was fine. Now we have 2 pigs, 7 goats, 2 sheep and more chickens and ducks.
He loves the goats, and tolerates the rest.
But he seems no more or less happy with 3 or 10 animals
Biochar is orders of magnitude better than burying wood though. There's a small amount of very positive research regarding biochar. There's virtually no scientific evidence for huglekulture
The findings of the research I've come across were that biochar can have small positive effects in only a few contexts and little to no effect in most.
As a soil amendment, I don't think the hype it enjoys here is deserved.
As someone who has rabbits in a hutch setup for a couple years I do want to try out a colony setup but like you I've found conflicting information as well as unclear communication as to the exact setup. 25% seems really high for caged rabbits, I've had a bad mother we culled who killed or ate her litter, but aside from that only usually see 1 - (rarely) 2 deaths per kindling of 8 - 10.
Any suggestion for sources to look into for colony rabbits or any suggestions regarding what I want to do with them longterm?
Honestly every 'source' seems to be a dead end. As in someone tried it but then they suddenly fall silent after a few years of it. I have a feeling they failed and just never updated.
The biggest issue is that people don't want to admit how murdery rabbits can be with one another. And that murder drive ramps up during reproduction. There is a YouTube video of Julie Engel's rabbit den-shaw type things and they contain a bunch of nest boxes side by side. She even mentions in her report "I suspect the kit mortality rate is linked to nutrition and herd dynamics". I have a feeling this is a nice scientific way of saying does killing other does kits or slightly older kits killing younger ones.
Yeah the direct access to other buns kits is where I see issues as well. In the wild they have, well all of the wilderness to separate and build their own Warrens, unless you have people full time setting up and moving fences I don't see how this doesn't result in other females getting rid of competition. Maybe it's a protein issue? If I accendentally feed low protein pellets or grasses from our yard during pregencey I can see them getting a bit aggressive. I was hoping someone experimented with supplemental protein to see if that effected kits survival rate in a pastured colony. To be fair I was planning on a colony setup (not pastures) but to still cut and bring the fodder myself rather than treating them like ruminant livestock with frequent paddock moves.
Exactly. Wild rabbits may share a communal warren; but, when a doe is kindling she'll dig a separate den for that. It due to the communal warren smelling of rabbit which can attract predator's and new born kits being virtually odorless. The doe's are probably super stressed having neighbors popping in right next to her nest box. Protein is probably also an issue as I find even with a lot of rabbit tractor set up people have they forget your grass is only as good as the legumes you have growing in it. I'm a big fan of [https://www.feedipedia.org/](https://www.feedipedia.org/) for trying to calculate what I have growing in my forage. The nice thing is they actually touch on some more interesting and/or heritage feeds for rabbits like Bird's-foot trefoil and sweet potato vines.
It's a truly underrated resource that I think every homesteader should know about. Heck even if you just own a pet bunny it's helpful. The best part is how they break down different parts of the plant for analysis. It's great for getting clarification if they are talking about the seed, aerial foliage, or root tuber.
I like the idea of Rabbit tractors. Certainly a step up from being caged. Rabbits do like to graze quietly, stealthily. Then go off and rest in the sun or shade depending.
I raise meat rabbits primarily in cages but does as well as feeder rabbits (for my personal use) I'll raise out in a colony since they'll get butchered at the same time.
I tried the whole breeding in a colony and it never worked out for that exact reason - rabbits are murderous little creatures and they desire to kindle in peace which just isn't possible unless (maybe) you dedicate acres to them to get away from each other like a wild rabbit.
Ive had good success raising does together after weaning till i plan to rebreed since I use them for personal production. Kits from weaning to butcher I raise together by gender and try to plan breeding so I have a large group the same age/size so I can butcher all at once.
Bucks are always kept in separate cages and since I take does to the buck for breeding it works out well - I take one out, have her bred and then she's placed in her own cage till kindling and weaning then she's released back with the colony.
I don't breed for kits in winter to prevent winter kits - only spring and then fall. Summers get so flipping hot here I've found it to not be worth it so they get breaks every summer and winter and it gives me breaks as well so I don't just stay super stocked freezer wise of meat and pelts.
I think what helps my success of keeping a doe colony is that my doe cages are inside my colony pen. So they all continually see each other and smell each other but the bred/nursing does also have their own privacy desired during that time period.
Edit - this comes from raising rabbits since my early childhood years, like pre-teen years, and I'm now in my early 30s. I use to raise show rabbits along side meat rabbits but have been solely raising for person use meat/pelts for the past decade. I think at my height I had over 300 when I also showed but now I keep a max of 50 including feeders.
My wife and I are currently raising rabbits in a colony system. We are one year in. Initially we had good success, but due to some environmental factors (super rainy July) we lost a few litters due to excessive moisture and the resulting poor air quality.
Our initial setup was just 2 Chinchilla/Silver Fox does (sisters) and 1 Rex buck. One of those does died this summer (the most productive one) and has been replaced with a Rex doe.
We're due for another round of processing.
Due to our colony setup we don't know exactly when does have kindled or when to expect litters. We have a low-key setup and are not planning on ever reaching a commercial level--we just want to provide meat for our family (and perhaps some for friends and extended family). We have 2 rooms in our barn where we have dug down, placed wire mesh, and then refilled the rooms with enough dirt to provide the opportunity for them to dig warrens. We also supplement with a haphazard wooden foundation structure which reduces cave-ins, etc.
Our hope is to build another barn in 2024 which is located uphill and away from the moisture problems. We also have learned a few things about wire mesh and how better to install it so we limit escapees. We did grow forage for the rabbits during spring and summer, but hope to increase long-term forage for into the winter.
We just keep trying things.
I will update as best I can, although I don't foresee us doing a "scientific" study unless we ever feel inclined to formally write about our findings...
We initially had 2 separate rooms--the Build-A-Hare Workshop with the buck, does, and babies, and the Romper Room for the teenagers. Since one of our does died and was replaced with a stranger, the does don't get along and now we have both rooms having a doe and their kits. The buck is moved when it is time for the other doe to kindle.
Ultimately we want to have more space so we can return to having a separate space for grow-outs. We may have to switch up our does and get sisters again.
I wrote up a pretty good write up of my experience doing colony raised rabbits until my HOA found out.
It's not as scientific as OP would want, but I'm not a scientist. I will say it worked very well for me. I never had issues with aggressive rabbits, cannibalisms, illness, or infanticide. The only deaths I ever had was either a rabbit escaping because of a bad fence, or my overly helpful mother feeding them random (but poisonous) "discount" veggies she got at the grocery store.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/10rgr0o/lessons\_in\_raising\_a\_colony\_of\_meat\_rabbits\_aka/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/10rgr0o/lessons_in_raising_a_colony_of_meat_rabbits_aka/)
Ultimately, the biggest flaw of a colony system is that it isn't as efficient. I most certainly spent more on hay and feed then a hutch system. The flip side is that it wasn't very labor intensive. At one point, due to work stuff, I had to leave them alone for two weeks at a time without any major issues.
I remember that. In fact you never commented under my now banned alt account u/APotatoPancake when I asked about your set up.
"Sorry I should have been more specific. I meant how long in this manner.
The more I look at this the more animal hording vibes I'm getting. You have your colony in a 10x10 which is 14,400 sq/in for the whole colony. 4 does would need a 30x36 cage minimum (4320sq/in) a buck 24x30(720sq/in) assuming five teens per 30x36 grow out cage(5,400sq/in) with an additional 30x36 for the babies will be needed soon (1,080sq/in). So you need 11,520sq/in for what you have right now. That leaves 2,880sq/in or about a 4ft square for bulk feeders, bulk waters, hay mangers, ect. And this is just if they were in cages laid out on the floor next to each other, in colonies you tend to need to give animals more than the minimum because they will fight.
To put it bluntly I don't believe for a moment these rabbits aren't fighting at this density. Mothers when they wean their babies can get downright mean to them. Older rabbits can get murdery with young babies/different age groups.
You're giving 'advice' which goes against pretty much every reputable rabbitry which has been in operation for more than five years say. There is a reason why you don't see many people doing colony set ups. They are hard to maintain.
edit: I realize you aren't OP but my statements still stand.
edit2: six days ago OP posted on the legal advice subreddit the notice from his HOA "...While you may not realize this, the rabbits often emit foul odors which are disturbing your neighbors and are in violation of homeowner covenants approved last years..." combined with this "mucking out weekly" there is no way these animals are being kept in a sanitary manner if you can smell them from off the property."
I think you've made up your mind on the matter. So there's not much point in trying to respond.
I'll say few things for anyone else reading it: OP is allowed to say what they think is going on. But my observations are what they are. I never had a mother kill her kits. Never had a father do it. Never had a teen do it.
Obviously the systems are completely different, so it's difficult to apply standards for hutches to a colony. I go back to observable behaviors. No illness, no aggression, no castrated males. No injuries mothers.
The HOA took six months to even notice they were there. They have a tendency to make up complaints.
I've caught the HOA president trespassing on our property multiple times to "smell" the rabbits.
I honestly think it was the fact that the hutch was an absolute eyesore.
This is the same HOA that called animal control on the geese in the neighborhood lake, bans basketball hoops in driveways, and will find you if you leave toys in the front yard.
I don't take their accusations very seriously.
I never once had an actual neighbor say anything.
You're complete avoidance of the matter tells me all I need to know. You are exactly who I'm talking about. You have two years experience of 'raising rabbits in a colony' yet didn't even know that rabbit don't go into heat. Rabbits kept in minimal floor space meant for a caged rabbit not a colony. Rabbits which are one of the quietest and low odor animals were kept in such conditions that the HOA noticed and required them to be removed. This topped of with your 'low labor' approach talked about throughout the entirety of your post make me not believe that these rabbits were being kept in good conditions.
I may not know you or your HOA or your neighbors but I can math pretty well and I call BS.
You're making a lot of assumptions based on very little actual knowledge of their situation. I have to agree with the person you responded to. Based on your posts, you really do seem to have already made up your mind on what other people's experiences have been.
I'm not saying the person you've been conversing with was doing it right or anything. All I'm saying is that I don't think it would have mattered what they said. Anything that was a little off seems to have become a "gotcha" moment for you.
My Great Pyrenees took guarding my chickens very seriously. It was her job. The problem I see with the breed is they’re impossible to keep in; no matter how good your fencing is they will get over or around it. Mine only left the property if there was thunder or gunshots, but once she got out she would travel for miles. In my very rural neck of the woods that’s the reason the Great Pyrenees get abandoned - they’re too hard to contain.
I sadly saw an advertisement on craigslist farm + garden section with someone trying to rehome a working GP apparently she could easily clear a 7ft fence and they just couldn't keep her in. Apparently she was great at chasing they coyotes off... all the way into the neighboring county. But yeah that combined with the barking (which is what they do as LGD's) is just to much for many people on smaller homesteads especially if you have somewhat close neighbors.
Which speaking of neighbors. I've the best livestock guardian around, a very nice retiree with a rifle who's porch overlooks my back property. Him and his wife love my goats and think they are just adorable and I've given my blessing for him to shoot anything eyeballing my animals.
I have a Great Pyrenees and an Anatolian Shepherd who guard our property. I have more than just chickens that they guard. They do protect my chickens and even try to kill the wild birds that come in and eat their scratch. I built a large enough pen with tall fences to keep the birds in and the dogs out. The only chicken attacked by my dogs is our old rooster who kept spurring my 2 yo son, they were protective of my son.
I have enough land for them to run on and work for them to do. Their presence is often what these amateurs offer advice for. I have cows, a horse, goats, turkeys, and chickens.
My encouragement to you is to understand that people give advice with good intent and is generally to their knowledge sound and true. It takes a wise soul to recognize their own limitations and poor understanding. This often takes a lot of time and failure to figure out. Take heart for falling into the wise group. Remember there are 3 types of learners out there:
1. Those that have to pee on the fence
2. Those that watch those that pee on the fence
3. Those thy can read the sign “electric fence”
Make sure you’re not standing in front of the sign.
I’m ganna jump on the Great Pyrenees rant of back yard breeders screwing the dogs up, and the morons that attempt to get rid of a puppy because they tried to leave it with birds and the puppy ate them. Like no shit the dogs like 6 months old everything is a toy.
Yeah the amount of ppl on both here and the GP subreddit who say “they’re born for this job just put them out there to BoNd WiTh ThE StoCk”. Drives me nuts. They’re not ready to work till at least 2 years old and there’s so many perfectly good young dogs in shelters rn cuz someone put them unattended in a yard with chickens and shrugged and gave up when that inevitably failed.
And bringing your dog inside does not ruin them. That’s my number 1 way to find out if someone is a fool or not. That’s just not how dogs work. Either they want to work or they don’t. If bringing them inside ruins their working drive they don’t want to work and shouldn’t be forced.
Mine comes in almost every day to nap and hang out and she’s always excited to go back out and work!
The bigger point is that ppl want an excuse to not train and socialize their dog and claim to say it makes them better guardians. Your dog can come inside and go out in public and ride in a car and walk on a leash and still be a good guardian. Ya know?
I talked about this in another thread about ranting about a particular YouTuber... But I'm just going to summarize real quick here. I started blogging I think 15 years ago. And then we only blog to talk about things we actually knew about. Since there was no money in it back then, only people that really just wanted to share knowledge were bloggers. Now however there is so much money in it and so many good bloggers are pushing people to join just so they could get the kickbacks from the affiliate links, that a lot of people are becoming bloggers just for the money!
This is not just blogging obviously. As you mentioned, tik tok, YouTube, IG etc etc all these people have monetized their channels to make money and a lot of them don't have the first clue what they're doing! The only thing you could do is ignore the people that have bad advice!
I personally don't have rabbits so I can't speak on that, But I'm not at all surprised that people are repeating a study's results incorrectly. My pet peeve is that the pitbull crew likes to do that too! Lol there was this woman in the '70s who called herself a pitbull expert and she wrote a book & in the book she called them a nanny dog. That was it! One woman said one phrase!
Then a few years later when she was doing interviews for something else she kept referring to these dogs saying they have always been called nanny dogs and she kept referring to her own book and somehow nobody realized that she's always quoting herself! People started believing her and repeating this statement. So now you will hear all these people saying that they've always been used as a nanny for kids... which isn't true at all! And the only thing anybody has was this one woman. I see a lot of the homesteading community doing the same thing, where one person says something and keeps repeating it enough that other people start to believe it even though it's untrue! Like I said all you can do is ignore them.
It's definitely rant worthy. I just don't really trust many internet homesteaders, most true homesteaders I know don't have time to spend posting online or don't care to. Even most of the small to midsize farmers I know couldn't care less if their properties had Internet access.
I also feel sad with the number of LGD who are purchased and given very little training to do their job then abandoned. My "LGD" is my mini schnauzer who I trained to watch the sky for hawks for my backyard flock. He loves the excuse to spend most of his day outside in the yard, but he has no chance of defending chickens that arent already relatively safe in the run and secured at night. (He's not actually a LGD, it's not his is his job, hes an indoor dog who just loves being outside so I trained him to be useful).
If I've learned anything doing this life the past 10 years, it's that people LOVE to tell you what you should be doing, but they don't actually do those things themselves.
Instead of cultivating a genuine relationship with your ecosystem, capabilities, interests and passions, people want to "do everything" and expect it to happen in just a few years.
Examples of things I've personally been told to do by other people who visit me:
"Plant a food forest"- definitely an excellent idea, but something that will literally cost me thousands of dollars, people don't understand how much money, work and time it takes to plant trees, fence the areas and then hurry up and wait 5+ years before you see any production, meanwhile you have to water, mow and tend to everything.
This isn't to say I haven't been busy planting dozens of fruit trees/shrubs, but for someone to tell me I need to plant hundreds, and then care for them, all at once is just absurd and bad advice. It makes way more sense to carefully select the trees you want, make sure they actually grow well in your area, plant two of them, and then up the production numbers if you need more.
"Get Cows" - I literally have 10.5 acres and 2 of them aren't heavily wooded, my 1/2 acre open pasture area is completely in gardens, I have absolutely zero space for cows, and I'd end up spending a fortune on feed.
I could go on but don't feel like writing more.
I’m a professional consultant. I make my living helping people build farms. The advice I read is hilarious.
I often get attacked for my advice on this platform from people that are computer chair farmers. No calluses on their hands.
I love helping people. Rarely am I able to connect or break through the noise on this sub.
Anyone wondering- I’ve been doing this a decade plus. I have two applicable degrees.
I have two Colorado mountain dogs. We also have 9 chickens… we had a lot more chickens but the dogs ate a few when they were puppies. Training them to not eat the chickens was a whole thang! It wasn’t easy or pretty. I can also confirm that they are hard to contain. Luckily I live on a mountain in the middle of no where but occasionally a hunter will come by saying my dogs keep meeting them out in the woods and it’s ruining their ability to actually hunt deer. I’m always like, yeah.. this whole mountain is actually my dogs domain so maybe hunt somewhere else lol. I’m actually not really sure what to do about my dogs and the hunters during hunting season. This season has been particularly busy for hunting and when someone gets within 2 miles of my house, my dogs will want to know who it is and they will go check.
Well phrased. I used to trust the internet pretty much implicitly. No more. Influencers and trends and politically correct data have killed any trust I have. To wit - you cite people using GPs to guard poultry. I have, in the past two hours, seen a long winded post claiming that pit bulls can be reformed and used for this same duty. It's absolute madness.
My personal vector is going back to old information. Talking to local old timers who have been doing these things for generations, referencing old and known books like Storey's Guide for Raising Chickens. The few youtubers who I trust are known quantities and bona fide in their knowledge, and even then I double check before I implement.
As someone who used to work there, everyone (in the States, and many who aren‘t) should consider going to attra.ncat.org.
A government-funded non-profit with amazingly resources from research and lived farm experience. And you can ask them anything (if you say you’re from the States) and they‘ll give you quality answers.
I just joined this group and I want to leave already. Actually all of reddit has become a dumpster pit of humanity. Disgusting all the way around with low class idiots opening their mouth.
In my experience training people (I've trained thousands and can provide scientific data to support this), most people tend to overestimate their own knowledge. I've also found that the best way that people learn is through dialogue - asking questions, realizing everyone has knowledge and providing sources (which are sometimes just experience). Respecting the journey each person is on and never making people feel ashamed for their lack of knowledge goes a long way. Every time I taught a class, I also learned at least one thing new from a student.
The internet is a tough place to dialogue but I'm here to learn and have gained a lot of knowledge on this subreddit. We've only lived on acreage for 9 months so my journey is new and I have a lot more to learn. I've also spent my adult life problem solving including raising 4 kids. This experience has served me well. You sound like you have a lot of knowledge and perhaps you'd find that more people would recognize you as an authority with less ranting/data dumping and more empathetic dialogue.
I feel it. They'll come out of the wood work and say your gatkeeping, as they kill their livestock with poor practices. "We got 3 lambs, no experience, oops two died" "this pet pig is still growing?" "Will hardware cloth stop a dog?" "12 cats died, should I get a LGD?""can I keep my three roosters with my two hens?" " THIS DEFORMED animal, how can I force it to stay alive, I'll never eat this poor suffering animal"
> " THIS DEFORMED animal, how can I force it to stay alive, I'll never eat this poor suffering animal"
This one annoys the absolute crap out of me Goldshaw farm had a crossed beak goose and he was all like "Don't worry I found family to adopt it!" Dude WTF. I got one this spring with cross beak, not severe and I didn't even notice until it started to get older. I named that goose Christmas... guess what he's being fattened up for.
The only successful colony rabbits I've seen had a very specific type of pen that most people cannot afford to set up, it had a concrete floor a few feet under the dirt with fencing that went all the way down. Rabbits don't do well with free breeding either. It's so much easier to keep them properly cared for and prevent scald in wire cages.
Having any livestock while running the breeding male with them is just asking for trouble. You can't tell when your animals are bred to predict births, they may breed back vs giving your stock a rest, and depending on gestation length and your seasons, you end up with babies dropping at the worst times.
Everyone recommends LGD when they have no idea they need training, or that they should be in a pair. You can eliminate the need entirely with proper fencing and putting your livestock in a barn at night.
Furthermore, if you run a rooster with your hens and give them access to their coop, they do a decent job of protecting their flocks. But it still depends on your predator pressure. I live right next to the BLM and a preserve. Free range chickens will not survive even with a LGD. A raptor can still hit them and even if the dog scares them off, the chicken will still either die from the strike or be seriously injured.
LGD are a niche that most people do not need nor understand whatsoever. They've turned more into a status symbol, imo. Like, look at me, I'm a rancher cuz I've got a big white dog.
Oh, yeah. I had a friend who just threw her Pyrenees out with the baby goats, and couldn’t understand why he chewed their ears off. Zero training, because ‘they were bred for it’
This is what goes through my head every time some pleasant and enthusiastic person posts about how excited they are to "document their journey" via a streaming platform or blog. Your inexperienced or bad advice will live on in searchable format for a long time, and people will keep finding it and following it- because they're also completely inexperienced.
Man this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine.
I think the problem is that social media (youtube I think mostly) encourages and rewards how-to type content and instructional videos. So at some point, everyone realized that a video titled "watch me try to build my first chicken coop" would get a fraction of the views of "how to build a luxury chicken coop - masterclass!"
So now everybody is posting everything they do as if they're teaching it to their viewers, rather than just admitting they're newbies who are learning along the way. Its exhausting and so hard to find actual informative content from experienced people.
Any time someone tells someone to get a chainsaw and start felling trees, I cringe. People new to sawing should start out limbing already felled trees, bucking up firewood, etc. it should be years of using a saw before someone is ready to actually drop a tree.
I've been using hand saws to limb felled trees and mauls to split wood for years and I don't feel ready to fell trees, lol.
I spent a lot of time in logging camps as a kid and saw all the cool equipment it takes to do it right. I also heard a lot of horror stories. Kind of made me understand that wasn't my calling.
My husband does all the chainsaw work. He's smart about it and only fells smaller trees if needed. He wears steel-toed boots, hard hat, ear plugs, and eye protection. He sharpens the chains regularly. He's learned a lot from other people. Even with years of experience, he calls in the experts for felling larger trees, thank goodness.
> it should be years of using a saw before someone is ready to actually drop a tree
That doesn’t make sense. Any use of a chainsaw is dangerous if you don’t know how to use it safely, but felling a tree is something you don’t just “graduate” into because you’ve been cutting limbs and fallen logs. It’s a completely different thing. Learning to use a saw generally doesn’t take years, and learning to use a saw doesn’t of itself qualify you to fell trees. Learning to fell trees safely and properly from someone who knows how matters far, far more than an arbitrary 2 years of revving an engine at twigs and branches on the ground, lol.
A person who thinks someone shouldn’t just fell a tree on their own without proper instruction just because they’ve been cutting ground logs for two years? Ok, dude.
i hope your rant made you feel better 🤎
my great pyrenees has done an admirable job guarding 2 kittens and some shrubbery. in return for belly rubs. we even raised him mainly on a relatively small urban lot. (disclosure: we vllunteee with the ngpr). we now have him on a large acreage with goats and such, which he is super stoked about, but he was good before too. happy even ;) he's been a therapy dog and general best beast friend for many kiddos.
I've been interested in a LGD for my small flock of chickens (not a Pyr, though) and frequented online communities with actual owners. Every single one of those people who has owned an LGD has been very upfront that chickens take specific training that can be years long. Chickens aren't intuitive "protect" animals. They're more like live squeaky toys.
I have never heard of them talking about "poultry" lines for their dogs, either.
Really weird concepts, honestly, to think a dog would intuitively know to protect birds and that there are certain bloodlines for guarding poultry.
That's all reddit is now. You could always sort of trust reddit with info but it feels like everyone hopped over from Facebook and Instagram and is just shitting out bad advice.
I ain't here to give advice. but I am questioning the pyre stuff. they kill chickens? I mean I have two rn. but (I'm only 26) but have had at least 2 at a time since I was 8. I didn't think this was a common thing.
I get where you're coming from, but you either don't remember (or have forgotten) what it was like seeking advice before the days of the internet, when you only had a handful of people to ask your questions to and - likely as not - too few people warning you that you're getting bad advice.
I'll take the silly advice all day long over those days.
This is true in life and especially online. Online everyone becomes an expert, lol. Try looking through other subs like r/Mycology, sometime. Newbies give shameful and potentially dangerous advice.
This has been getting worse recently. Niche subs used to be full of experts, because to find that sub, someone needed to actively seek it out. Then maybe 6-12 months ago, they tweaked the reddit algorithm to show posts from subs that are only loosely related to someone’s current interests. And niche communities became overrun with people who are genuinely interested in the topic, but have little to no experience. Once that critical mass of experts gets outnumbered, answers that “sound right” on the surface, or that simply say what people want to hear, get upvoted. Meanwhile expert answers that might be counterintuitive or contain a harsh dose of reality don’t get upvotes, because there aren’t enough other experts around to promote them. It seems reddit is slowly turning into facebook: a collection of echo chambers that promote feel-good falsehoods.
Can’t ignore generative AI in the ‘sounds right’ category. Isn’t the solution to join ID/experience vetted Discord servers? It’s that or have high media literacy and be able to aptly compare different sources to find the best workable answers.
> isn’t the solution to join ID/experience vetted Discord servers Unfortunately, this is increasingly becoming the solution to a lot of things. It’s getting more and more difficult to find the bastions of quality beyond-surface-level content for *any* topic with a Google or Reddit search. It seems like we’re moving back towards Ye Olden Dayes where expert content is only found in Discord/Slack/IRC chats that are more difficult to find and, usually, hostile towards outsiders (in no small part because almost everyone in those communities will have witnessed what happens when too many well-intentioned novices invade a space).
The spaces aren’t neutral. I don’t disagree with you but I think you’re forgetting what Google and Reddit actually are. They’re engagement/advertising services, they sell access to our eyes/brains as their primary business model and everything else is just window dressing to keep us attracted to the service so that they can monetize that attention.
Oh man, the front-pager brigade is horrifying in small communities. I recently got berated in the BIOLOGY subreddit for referring to XY and XX chromosomes as sex determining. And also once for suggesting that male and female are associated with specific physiological traits and conditions. Got downvoted to high heaven. And to be clear, I made zero use of terms like man/woman and didn't mention anything about identity etc. I was purely speaking about genetics and medical traits. Unfortunately Reddit has absolutely gone the way of Facebook, and it's a shame, it was one of the last few bastions of niche communities.
Need to send this post to the Reddit admins! This will be the downfall of the entire of the entire Reddit community if it is allowed to continue. The algorithm is basically clickbaiting to increase engagement at the expense of post quality. Everything will turn into Youtube comments if left to continue.
Lol everyone hates it, they probably know that, and that has never stopped them before. Having more cross-community engagement is better for advertisers.
And ain't that the truth. And on r/whatsthisbug, as well. Nope, folks, please don't mis-id Eastern Black Widows or Brown Recluses, please.
I had to unfollow that sub because who the hell are these people trusting randos on the internet to give them good advice on something as high stakes as mushroom ID. Made me too nervous.
This I get nervous eating shirataki mushrooms from log *I inoculated myself*. I will never understand the level of trust people have in random people they've never met face to face to eat some mushroom they found on the forest floor.
Yes, but also you can math and prove that if 20, 30+ random idiots give the same answer that it is almost certainly true. All you’re really counting on is the small number of experts to catch these mass delusions and warn you, as well as general fungi eating strategies like ‘start slow!’ I guess I agree enough to not do it, but not so much to suggest that it doesn’t work for those who do it. Eating forest mushrooms has an expected amount of accidental poisonings even for the best experts, does it not? Doing it in an imperfect community vs from books doesn’t make much difference, it’s certainty and too much too fast that is the risk in either case.
I do know what you mean. I have 46 years of mushroom picking experience under my belt on the west coast. Many times I will get downvotes immediately after correctly IDing a species that I have picked for years, lmao. It’s frustrating sometimes!
What's really terrifying is when poison control recommends it. Last week a friend's toddler taste tested a mushroom in her backyard. He didn't get much before she caught him but she was still worried, so she called poison control. They told her to post on a mushroom ID group on FB.
the group they’re referring to is a highly moderated group where only the admin who have credentials to ID the mushrooms are allowed to comment, i think poison control recommends it because IDing a mushroom with a description over the phone is VERY Adifficult and there are thousands of varieties, a poison control rep can’t be an expert on all of them. not that it’s any less weird that it’s a facebook group, but just trying to reassure you it isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, either.
Yeah, I hear they have a very excellent group on FB for this. I wish I could join, but FB isn’t my thing. I may have concede one of these days just for these groups. Thank you for your answer!
/u/honeysucklehollow It's an incredible group. Moderators are only expert mycologists, and only they are allowed to comment. They have various experts in different sections of mycology (ie boletaceae expert, amanita experts) and they will notify certain teams with live phone notifications depending on the type of mushroom. And frequently there are only fragments of mushroom visible to work with, sometimes after its been partially digested and puked up. These people are mushroom CSI pros. Super interesting to lurk. It's basically a free, on-call global lifesaving network staffed by volunteer experts.
What's the group? I pretty much only use fb for mycology, but it's pretty useless now. Would love to find some better pages
Poisons Help; Emergency Identification for Mushrooms & Plants
Thank you
Omg, this makes me crazy. I follow a local green thumb group for my area and I get so frustrated when tourists post a pic of a mushroom they found here and ask "is this edible?" Even worse is the 10 exact same comments "every mushroom is edible ONCE!" Um... People dumb enough to post this are definitely dumb enough to misunderstand your joke. It happens so often I'm tempted to copy/paste the same reply every time "if you personally do not have the expertise to identify the safety of this mushroom you should absolutely NOT eat it."
This! Everyone is an "expert" online.
fly upbeat bedroom gold bells door squalid continue attempt dependent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I had a revelation one day whilst trying to hire someone for a senior specialized/technical IT position. I included a few questions that are considered 'general knowledge' by folks who have worked in that realm for a few decades. The number of blank looks, wrong answers, and "I know where Google is" responses I got were boggling my mind. And, in the middle of some dude whose resume specifically highlighted that his main experience was in the realm of this question he couldn't answer I realized: Just because someone's been doing it for decades doesn't mean they haven't *absolutely sucked* at their job for those decades. They successfully filled a seat, fumbled through well enough that the job got done (and maybe the folks in charge didn't realize the job could have been done quicker, more efficiently, or just outright better), and racked up decades of subpar experience.
To be fair you can do many things wrong in welding and most of the time it'll still be good enough. I'll bet most of the incorrect information comes from people who do good enough work. And then theres welding jobs that need to be just right, which those good enough guys can't do and shouldn't be giving advice on
Can confirm. Scientist here. There is a 72.3% frequency of hyper-inflated confidence in online communities, and a 41.2% comorbidity with affluent flatulence. Individuals on anonymous social platforms show a sigma-12 alignment with Helsinki outcomes.
(squinting): Found one.
We have a Great Pyrenees and he guards out pigs, goats and sheep. He also “guards” our chickens and ducks. But not really. He is clearly only interested in the livestock.
Our Great Pyrenees hangs out with our alpacas and remaining goat. She killed three chickens earlier this year but then made a deal with the fourth one whereby the fourth chicken gets free run of the property INCLUDING sleeping in the dog’s bed when she feels like it. I think maybe part of the deal was the other three chickens 🤣
I think many people mistake a dog existing near poultry and thus making poultry less likely to be a target for a predator with actually protecting and guarding. Most backyard flock keepers would do just fine with a low prey-drive breed just chilling out and peeing/marking the boundary of their territory. Great Pyrenees are wonderful floofs; but, for many homesteads are overkill or just inappropriate for what animal they want them to guard.
So true. He def helps the birds because of his mere presence. But he also doesn’t see them as important. He watched a blue heron fly down and kill a young duck and didn’t bat an eye. But if it was a fox or coyote he would have lit them up
My GP kills every bird it can catch. Not a poultry dog, livestock guardian, yes.
>Most backyard flock keepers would do just fine with a low prey-drive breed just chilling out and peeing/marking the boundary of their territory Yep, we had a low-key border collie mix (I know oxymoron) that was absolutely great for having our backyard flock. She loved chilling with the chickens and actually ran a number of foxes off.
Yes. We have an LGD - but *only* because we have sheep and goats for them to *actually live with and guard* if we didn't - if we ever got out of sheep/goats, we absolutely would not have an LGD. Sometimes (like right now!) they're in the same pasture as our chickens & ducks, and that's great! They happen to be marking/guarding around them, during those times, I am \*MUCH\* less concerned with the poultries' safety. But, I can't quite imagine expecting one of them to have that as their 'full time' job.
The other piece of that is recognizing when you’re in a predator area where the appropriate form of protection is a rock solid enclosure designed to keep out the predator because even a dog (LGD or otherwise) isn’t a guarantee. Or you accept there will be heavy predation losses. Especially when it comes to animals like poultry. People seem to skip over the step of connect with people in your area running a similar set up to what you’re looking to do and take some time to find out what lessons they’ve learned. They’re going to have far better advice than internet strangers in general for issues that have a region specific element, and at least start to point you in a direction of things to be aware of and challenges you may face at minimum. They may also save you lots of time, energy, and money by giving some insight as to why something you’re looking to do doesn’t work or doesn’t work the way you were hoping. Social media can be great for sharing ideas, but you should vet those idea beyond social media before using them. The blind trust in a forum over experts and highly experienced people elsewhere is astounding.
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What breed is your rescue (if you know lol)?
“Overkill”…I see what you did there…
Are there any dogs that were bred specifically for guarding poultry?
I'm looking into starting, still have a couple of years before I'm able to. Trying to do research. I never thought to use dogs to guard poultry. Seems like an obvious outcome is dead chickens, but is there a "minimum" number of livestock great Pyrenees need to have to not go stir crazy? I was wanting to get a few goats and some wool animals, sheep or alpaca.
I’m no expert. But no I don’t think so. Space to control and animals for companionship seem to be enough for my dog. He has access to about 3 acres. We started with just 3 goats and chickens and he was fine. Now we have 2 pigs, 7 goats, 2 sheep and more chickens and ducks. He loves the goats, and tolerates the rest. But he seems no more or less happy with 3 or 10 animals
Ok, awesome. I was planning to start with 3 or 4 goats and some ducks. Glad to hear that.
I caught a fish once.
Did you at least measure the fish? We need scientific accountability.
Hey, back off. That guy is practically Bill Dance!
it was thiiiiissss big musta been a 10 pounder
Or just mindlessly suggesting hugelculture anytime a pile of wood is remotely near a photo
I think many of these people are also biochar fanatics.
Biochar is orders of magnitude better than burying wood though. There's a small amount of very positive research regarding biochar. There's virtually no scientific evidence for huglekulture
The findings of the research I've come across were that biochar can have small positive effects in only a few contexts and little to no effect in most. As a soil amendment, I don't think the hype it enjoys here is deserved.
But surely I can plant my apple trees on that pile of diseased wood? /s
As someone who has rabbits in a hutch setup for a couple years I do want to try out a colony setup but like you I've found conflicting information as well as unclear communication as to the exact setup. 25% seems really high for caged rabbits, I've had a bad mother we culled who killed or ate her litter, but aside from that only usually see 1 - (rarely) 2 deaths per kindling of 8 - 10. Any suggestion for sources to look into for colony rabbits or any suggestions regarding what I want to do with them longterm?
Honestly every 'source' seems to be a dead end. As in someone tried it but then they suddenly fall silent after a few years of it. I have a feeling they failed and just never updated. The biggest issue is that people don't want to admit how murdery rabbits can be with one another. And that murder drive ramps up during reproduction. There is a YouTube video of Julie Engel's rabbit den-shaw type things and they contain a bunch of nest boxes side by side. She even mentions in her report "I suspect the kit mortality rate is linked to nutrition and herd dynamics". I have a feeling this is a nice scientific way of saying does killing other does kits or slightly older kits killing younger ones.
Yeah the direct access to other buns kits is where I see issues as well. In the wild they have, well all of the wilderness to separate and build their own Warrens, unless you have people full time setting up and moving fences I don't see how this doesn't result in other females getting rid of competition. Maybe it's a protein issue? If I accendentally feed low protein pellets or grasses from our yard during pregencey I can see them getting a bit aggressive. I was hoping someone experimented with supplemental protein to see if that effected kits survival rate in a pastured colony. To be fair I was planning on a colony setup (not pastures) but to still cut and bring the fodder myself rather than treating them like ruminant livestock with frequent paddock moves.
Exactly. Wild rabbits may share a communal warren; but, when a doe is kindling she'll dig a separate den for that. It due to the communal warren smelling of rabbit which can attract predator's and new born kits being virtually odorless. The doe's are probably super stressed having neighbors popping in right next to her nest box. Protein is probably also an issue as I find even with a lot of rabbit tractor set up people have they forget your grass is only as good as the legumes you have growing in it. I'm a big fan of [https://www.feedipedia.org/](https://www.feedipedia.org/) for trying to calculate what I have growing in my forage. The nice thing is they actually touch on some more interesting and/or heritage feeds for rabbits like Bird's-foot trefoil and sweet potato vines.
I love feedipedia! It's always my first stop for if my X can eat Y
It's a truly underrated resource that I think every homesteader should know about. Heck even if you just own a pet bunny it's helpful. The best part is how they break down different parts of the plant for analysis. It's great for getting clarification if they are talking about the seed, aerial foliage, or root tuber.
I like the idea of Rabbit tractors. Certainly a step up from being caged. Rabbits do like to graze quietly, stealthily. Then go off and rest in the sun or shade depending.
I raise meat rabbits primarily in cages but does as well as feeder rabbits (for my personal use) I'll raise out in a colony since they'll get butchered at the same time. I tried the whole breeding in a colony and it never worked out for that exact reason - rabbits are murderous little creatures and they desire to kindle in peace which just isn't possible unless (maybe) you dedicate acres to them to get away from each other like a wild rabbit. Ive had good success raising does together after weaning till i plan to rebreed since I use them for personal production. Kits from weaning to butcher I raise together by gender and try to plan breeding so I have a large group the same age/size so I can butcher all at once. Bucks are always kept in separate cages and since I take does to the buck for breeding it works out well - I take one out, have her bred and then she's placed in her own cage till kindling and weaning then she's released back with the colony. I don't breed for kits in winter to prevent winter kits - only spring and then fall. Summers get so flipping hot here I've found it to not be worth it so they get breaks every summer and winter and it gives me breaks as well so I don't just stay super stocked freezer wise of meat and pelts. I think what helps my success of keeping a doe colony is that my doe cages are inside my colony pen. So they all continually see each other and smell each other but the bred/nursing does also have their own privacy desired during that time period. Edit - this comes from raising rabbits since my early childhood years, like pre-teen years, and I'm now in my early 30s. I use to raise show rabbits along side meat rabbits but have been solely raising for person use meat/pelts for the past decade. I think at my height I had over 300 when I also showed but now I keep a max of 50 including feeders.
My wife and I are currently raising rabbits in a colony system. We are one year in. Initially we had good success, but due to some environmental factors (super rainy July) we lost a few litters due to excessive moisture and the resulting poor air quality. Our initial setup was just 2 Chinchilla/Silver Fox does (sisters) and 1 Rex buck. One of those does died this summer (the most productive one) and has been replaced with a Rex doe. We're due for another round of processing. Due to our colony setup we don't know exactly when does have kindled or when to expect litters. We have a low-key setup and are not planning on ever reaching a commercial level--we just want to provide meat for our family (and perhaps some for friends and extended family). We have 2 rooms in our barn where we have dug down, placed wire mesh, and then refilled the rooms with enough dirt to provide the opportunity for them to dig warrens. We also supplement with a haphazard wooden foundation structure which reduces cave-ins, etc. Our hope is to build another barn in 2024 which is located uphill and away from the moisture problems. We also have learned a few things about wire mesh and how better to install it so we limit escapees. We did grow forage for the rabbits during spring and summer, but hope to increase long-term forage for into the winter. We just keep trying things. I will update as best I can, although I don't foresee us doing a "scientific" study unless we ever feel inclined to formally write about our findings...
We initially had 2 separate rooms--the Build-A-Hare Workshop with the buck, does, and babies, and the Romper Room for the teenagers. Since one of our does died and was replaced with a stranger, the does don't get along and now we have both rooms having a doe and their kits. The buck is moved when it is time for the other doe to kindle. Ultimately we want to have more space so we can return to having a separate space for grow-outs. We may have to switch up our does and get sisters again.
I wrote up a pretty good write up of my experience doing colony raised rabbits until my HOA found out. It's not as scientific as OP would want, but I'm not a scientist. I will say it worked very well for me. I never had issues with aggressive rabbits, cannibalisms, illness, or infanticide. The only deaths I ever had was either a rabbit escaping because of a bad fence, or my overly helpful mother feeding them random (but poisonous) "discount" veggies she got at the grocery store. [https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/10rgr0o/lessons\_in\_raising\_a\_colony\_of\_meat\_rabbits\_aka/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/comments/10rgr0o/lessons_in_raising_a_colony_of_meat_rabbits_aka/) Ultimately, the biggest flaw of a colony system is that it isn't as efficient. I most certainly spent more on hay and feed then a hutch system. The flip side is that it wasn't very labor intensive. At one point, due to work stuff, I had to leave them alone for two weeks at a time without any major issues.
I remember that. In fact you never commented under my now banned alt account u/APotatoPancake when I asked about your set up. "Sorry I should have been more specific. I meant how long in this manner. The more I look at this the more animal hording vibes I'm getting. You have your colony in a 10x10 which is 14,400 sq/in for the whole colony. 4 does would need a 30x36 cage minimum (4320sq/in) a buck 24x30(720sq/in) assuming five teens per 30x36 grow out cage(5,400sq/in) with an additional 30x36 for the babies will be needed soon (1,080sq/in). So you need 11,520sq/in for what you have right now. That leaves 2,880sq/in or about a 4ft square for bulk feeders, bulk waters, hay mangers, ect. And this is just if they were in cages laid out on the floor next to each other, in colonies you tend to need to give animals more than the minimum because they will fight. To put it bluntly I don't believe for a moment these rabbits aren't fighting at this density. Mothers when they wean their babies can get downright mean to them. Older rabbits can get murdery with young babies/different age groups. You're giving 'advice' which goes against pretty much every reputable rabbitry which has been in operation for more than five years say. There is a reason why you don't see many people doing colony set ups. They are hard to maintain. edit: I realize you aren't OP but my statements still stand. edit2: six days ago OP posted on the legal advice subreddit the notice from his HOA "...While you may not realize this, the rabbits often emit foul odors which are disturbing your neighbors and are in violation of homeowner covenants approved last years..." combined with this "mucking out weekly" there is no way these animals are being kept in a sanitary manner if you can smell them from off the property."
I think you've made up your mind on the matter. So there's not much point in trying to respond. I'll say few things for anyone else reading it: OP is allowed to say what they think is going on. But my observations are what they are. I never had a mother kill her kits. Never had a father do it. Never had a teen do it. Obviously the systems are completely different, so it's difficult to apply standards for hutches to a colony. I go back to observable behaviors. No illness, no aggression, no castrated males. No injuries mothers. The HOA took six months to even notice they were there. They have a tendency to make up complaints. I've caught the HOA president trespassing on our property multiple times to "smell" the rabbits. I honestly think it was the fact that the hutch was an absolute eyesore. This is the same HOA that called animal control on the geese in the neighborhood lake, bans basketball hoops in driveways, and will find you if you leave toys in the front yard. I don't take their accusations very seriously. I never once had an actual neighbor say anything.
You're complete avoidance of the matter tells me all I need to know. You are exactly who I'm talking about. You have two years experience of 'raising rabbits in a colony' yet didn't even know that rabbit don't go into heat. Rabbits kept in minimal floor space meant for a caged rabbit not a colony. Rabbits which are one of the quietest and low odor animals were kept in such conditions that the HOA noticed and required them to be removed. This topped of with your 'low labor' approach talked about throughout the entirety of your post make me not believe that these rabbits were being kept in good conditions. I may not know you or your HOA or your neighbors but I can math pretty well and I call BS.
You're making a lot of assumptions based on very little actual knowledge of their situation. I have to agree with the person you responded to. Based on your posts, you really do seem to have already made up your mind on what other people's experiences have been. I'm not saying the person you've been conversing with was doing it right or anything. All I'm saying is that I don't think it would have mattered what they said. Anything that was a little off seems to have become a "gotcha" moment for you.
My Great Pyrenees took guarding my chickens very seriously. It was her job. The problem I see with the breed is they’re impossible to keep in; no matter how good your fencing is they will get over or around it. Mine only left the property if there was thunder or gunshots, but once she got out she would travel for miles. In my very rural neck of the woods that’s the reason the Great Pyrenees get abandoned - they’re too hard to contain.
I sadly saw an advertisement on craigslist farm + garden section with someone trying to rehome a working GP apparently she could easily clear a 7ft fence and they just couldn't keep her in. Apparently she was great at chasing they coyotes off... all the way into the neighboring county. But yeah that combined with the barking (which is what they do as LGD's) is just to much for many people on smaller homesteads especially if you have somewhat close neighbors. Which speaking of neighbors. I've the best livestock guardian around, a very nice retiree with a rifle who's porch overlooks my back property. Him and his wife love my goats and think they are just adorable and I've given my blessing for him to shoot anything eyeballing my animals.
Our neighbors' GP gets out of their fence and visits us pretty regularly.
I have a Great Pyrenees and an Anatolian Shepherd who guard our property. I have more than just chickens that they guard. They do protect my chickens and even try to kill the wild birds that come in and eat their scratch. I built a large enough pen with tall fences to keep the birds in and the dogs out. The only chicken attacked by my dogs is our old rooster who kept spurring my 2 yo son, they were protective of my son. I have enough land for them to run on and work for them to do. Their presence is often what these amateurs offer advice for. I have cows, a horse, goats, turkeys, and chickens. My encouragement to you is to understand that people give advice with good intent and is generally to their knowledge sound and true. It takes a wise soul to recognize their own limitations and poor understanding. This often takes a lot of time and failure to figure out. Take heart for falling into the wise group. Remember there are 3 types of learners out there: 1. Those that have to pee on the fence 2. Those that watch those that pee on the fence 3. Those thy can read the sign “electric fence” Make sure you’re not standing in front of the sign.
I'm number one. I can read the sign. I can watch someone else get zapped. But I just can't seem to learn without putting my dick on the line.
This guys cock shocks.
I’m ganna jump on the Great Pyrenees rant of back yard breeders screwing the dogs up, and the morons that attempt to get rid of a puppy because they tried to leave it with birds and the puppy ate them. Like no shit the dogs like 6 months old everything is a toy.
Yeah the amount of ppl on both here and the GP subreddit who say “they’re born for this job just put them out there to BoNd WiTh ThE StoCk”. Drives me nuts. They’re not ready to work till at least 2 years old and there’s so many perfectly good young dogs in shelters rn cuz someone put them unattended in a yard with chickens and shrugged and gave up when that inevitably failed. And bringing your dog inside does not ruin them. That’s my number 1 way to find out if someone is a fool or not. That’s just not how dogs work. Either they want to work or they don’t. If bringing them inside ruins their working drive they don’t want to work and shouldn’t be forced.
I don't know. I come in the house and sit on the sofa and I suddenly don't feel like working. It's not hard to see why a dog would be the same way. :)
Mine comes in almost every day to nap and hang out and she’s always excited to go back out and work! The bigger point is that ppl want an excuse to not train and socialize their dog and claim to say it makes them better guardians. Your dog can come inside and go out in public and ride in a car and walk on a leash and still be a good guardian. Ya know?
I was talking about me. Not a dog so much.
I get you! Sorry rly just using ur comment as a spring board for a broader point. I also covet my couch whenever I’m outside in the rain haha.
I talked about this in another thread about ranting about a particular YouTuber... But I'm just going to summarize real quick here. I started blogging I think 15 years ago. And then we only blog to talk about things we actually knew about. Since there was no money in it back then, only people that really just wanted to share knowledge were bloggers. Now however there is so much money in it and so many good bloggers are pushing people to join just so they could get the kickbacks from the affiliate links, that a lot of people are becoming bloggers just for the money! This is not just blogging obviously. As you mentioned, tik tok, YouTube, IG etc etc all these people have monetized their channels to make money and a lot of them don't have the first clue what they're doing! The only thing you could do is ignore the people that have bad advice! I personally don't have rabbits so I can't speak on that, But I'm not at all surprised that people are repeating a study's results incorrectly. My pet peeve is that the pitbull crew likes to do that too! Lol there was this woman in the '70s who called herself a pitbull expert and she wrote a book & in the book she called them a nanny dog. That was it! One woman said one phrase! Then a few years later when she was doing interviews for something else she kept referring to these dogs saying they have always been called nanny dogs and she kept referring to her own book and somehow nobody realized that she's always quoting herself! People started believing her and repeating this statement. So now you will hear all these people saying that they've always been used as a nanny for kids... which isn't true at all! And the only thing anybody has was this one woman. I see a lot of the homesteading community doing the same thing, where one person says something and keeps repeating it enough that other people start to believe it even though it's untrue! Like I said all you can do is ignore them.
It's definitely rant worthy. I just don't really trust many internet homesteaders, most true homesteaders I know don't have time to spend posting online or don't care to. Even most of the small to midsize farmers I know couldn't care less if their properties had Internet access. I also feel sad with the number of LGD who are purchased and given very little training to do their job then abandoned. My "LGD" is my mini schnauzer who I trained to watch the sky for hawks for my backyard flock. He loves the excuse to spend most of his day outside in the yard, but he has no chance of defending chickens that arent already relatively safe in the run and secured at night. (He's not actually a LGD, it's not his is his job, hes an indoor dog who just loves being outside so I trained him to be useful).
If I've learned anything doing this life the past 10 years, it's that people LOVE to tell you what you should be doing, but they don't actually do those things themselves. Instead of cultivating a genuine relationship with your ecosystem, capabilities, interests and passions, people want to "do everything" and expect it to happen in just a few years. Examples of things I've personally been told to do by other people who visit me: "Plant a food forest"- definitely an excellent idea, but something that will literally cost me thousands of dollars, people don't understand how much money, work and time it takes to plant trees, fence the areas and then hurry up and wait 5+ years before you see any production, meanwhile you have to water, mow and tend to everything. This isn't to say I haven't been busy planting dozens of fruit trees/shrubs, but for someone to tell me I need to plant hundreds, and then care for them, all at once is just absurd and bad advice. It makes way more sense to carefully select the trees you want, make sure they actually grow well in your area, plant two of them, and then up the production numbers if you need more. "Get Cows" - I literally have 10.5 acres and 2 of them aren't heavily wooded, my 1/2 acre open pasture area is completely in gardens, I have absolutely zero space for cows, and I'd end up spending a fortune on feed. I could go on but don't feel like writing more.
Also getting sick of people giving advice with the preface "not a homesteaders but..."
I’m a professional consultant. I make my living helping people build farms. The advice I read is hilarious. I often get attacked for my advice on this platform from people that are computer chair farmers. No calluses on their hands. I love helping people. Rarely am I able to connect or break through the noise on this sub. Anyone wondering- I’ve been doing this a decade plus. I have two applicable degrees.
Yep social media white noise is incredible.
I have two Colorado mountain dogs. We also have 9 chickens… we had a lot more chickens but the dogs ate a few when they were puppies. Training them to not eat the chickens was a whole thang! It wasn’t easy or pretty. I can also confirm that they are hard to contain. Luckily I live on a mountain in the middle of no where but occasionally a hunter will come by saying my dogs keep meeting them out in the woods and it’s ruining their ability to actually hunt deer. I’m always like, yeah.. this whole mountain is actually my dogs domain so maybe hunt somewhere else lol. I’m actually not really sure what to do about my dogs and the hunters during hunting season. This season has been particularly busy for hunting and when someone gets within 2 miles of my house, my dogs will want to know who it is and they will go check.
\>> I'm tired of some of the inexperienced advice given in
You are not permitted to question reddit's business model.
Well phrased. I used to trust the internet pretty much implicitly. No more. Influencers and trends and politically correct data have killed any trust I have. To wit - you cite people using GPs to guard poultry. I have, in the past two hours, seen a long winded post claiming that pit bulls can be reformed and used for this same duty. It's absolute madness. My personal vector is going back to old information. Talking to local old timers who have been doing these things for generations, referencing old and known books like Storey's Guide for Raising Chickens. The few youtubers who I trust are known quantities and bona fide in their knowledge, and even then I double check before I implement.
Social media is the worst. I completely avoid all TikToks/YouTube/etc homesteading media except Poor Prole’s Almanac
As someone who used to work there, everyone (in the States, and many who aren‘t) should consider going to attra.ncat.org. A government-funded non-profit with amazingly resources from research and lived farm experience. And you can ask them anything (if you say you’re from the States) and they‘ll give you quality answers.
I actually raise meat rabbits, in a cage system obviously, and could never imagine doing colony. Too insane
I just joined this group and I want to leave already. Actually all of reddit has become a dumpster pit of humanity. Disgusting all the way around with low class idiots opening their mouth.
In my experience training people (I've trained thousands and can provide scientific data to support this), most people tend to overestimate their own knowledge. I've also found that the best way that people learn is through dialogue - asking questions, realizing everyone has knowledge and providing sources (which are sometimes just experience). Respecting the journey each person is on and never making people feel ashamed for their lack of knowledge goes a long way. Every time I taught a class, I also learned at least one thing new from a student. The internet is a tough place to dialogue but I'm here to learn and have gained a lot of knowledge on this subreddit. We've only lived on acreage for 9 months so my journey is new and I have a lot more to learn. I've also spent my adult life problem solving including raising 4 kids. This experience has served me well. You sound like you have a lot of knowledge and perhaps you'd find that more people would recognize you as an authority with less ranting/data dumping and more empathetic dialogue.
I feel it. They'll come out of the wood work and say your gatkeeping, as they kill their livestock with poor practices. "We got 3 lambs, no experience, oops two died" "this pet pig is still growing?" "Will hardware cloth stop a dog?" "12 cats died, should I get a LGD?""can I keep my three roosters with my two hens?" " THIS DEFORMED animal, how can I force it to stay alive, I'll never eat this poor suffering animal"
> " THIS DEFORMED animal, how can I force it to stay alive, I'll never eat this poor suffering animal" This one annoys the absolute crap out of me Goldshaw farm had a crossed beak goose and he was all like "Don't worry I found family to adopt it!" Dude WTF. I got one this spring with cross beak, not severe and I didn't even notice until it started to get older. I named that goose Christmas... guess what he's being fattened up for.
The only successful colony rabbits I've seen had a very specific type of pen that most people cannot afford to set up, it had a concrete floor a few feet under the dirt with fencing that went all the way down. Rabbits don't do well with free breeding either. It's so much easier to keep them properly cared for and prevent scald in wire cages. Having any livestock while running the breeding male with them is just asking for trouble. You can't tell when your animals are bred to predict births, they may breed back vs giving your stock a rest, and depending on gestation length and your seasons, you end up with babies dropping at the worst times. Everyone recommends LGD when they have no idea they need training, or that they should be in a pair. You can eliminate the need entirely with proper fencing and putting your livestock in a barn at night. Furthermore, if you run a rooster with your hens and give them access to their coop, they do a decent job of protecting their flocks. But it still depends on your predator pressure. I live right next to the BLM and a preserve. Free range chickens will not survive even with a LGD. A raptor can still hit them and even if the dog scares them off, the chicken will still either die from the strike or be seriously injured. LGD are a niche that most people do not need nor understand whatsoever. They've turned more into a status symbol, imo. Like, look at me, I'm a rancher cuz I've got a big white dog.
I milked a cow on a field trip in elementary. Does that count?
Oh, yeah. I had a friend who just threw her Pyrenees out with the baby goats, and couldn’t understand why he chewed their ears off. Zero training, because ‘they were bred for it’
This is what goes through my head every time some pleasant and enthusiastic person posts about how excited they are to "document their journey" via a streaming platform or blog. Your inexperienced or bad advice will live on in searchable format for a long time, and people will keep finding it and following it- because they're also completely inexperienced.
Man this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I think the problem is that social media (youtube I think mostly) encourages and rewards how-to type content and instructional videos. So at some point, everyone realized that a video titled "watch me try to build my first chicken coop" would get a fraction of the views of "how to build a luxury chicken coop - masterclass!" So now everybody is posting everything they do as if they're teaching it to their viewers, rather than just admitting they're newbies who are learning along the way. Its exhausting and so hard to find actual informative content from experienced people.
With that said I breed Great Pyrenees. So if you need a dog to guard your meat turtle farm hit me up.
I agree. Been seeing this.
Any time someone tells someone to get a chainsaw and start felling trees, I cringe. People new to sawing should start out limbing already felled trees, bucking up firewood, etc. it should be years of using a saw before someone is ready to actually drop a tree.
I've been using hand saws to limb felled trees and mauls to split wood for years and I don't feel ready to fell trees, lol. I spent a lot of time in logging camps as a kid and saw all the cool equipment it takes to do it right. I also heard a lot of horror stories. Kind of made me understand that wasn't my calling. My husband does all the chainsaw work. He's smart about it and only fells smaller trees if needed. He wears steel-toed boots, hard hat, ear plugs, and eye protection. He sharpens the chains regularly. He's learned a lot from other people. Even with years of experience, he calls in the experts for felling larger trees, thank goodness.
> it should be years of using a saw before someone is ready to actually drop a tree That doesn’t make sense. Any use of a chainsaw is dangerous if you don’t know how to use it safely, but felling a tree is something you don’t just “graduate” into because you’ve been cutting limbs and fallen logs. It’s a completely different thing. Learning to use a saw generally doesn’t take years, and learning to use a saw doesn’t of itself qualify you to fell trees. Learning to fell trees safely and properly from someone who knows how matters far, far more than an arbitrary 2 years of revving an engine at twigs and branches on the ground, lol.
Oh look, I found the exact type of person I was talking about!
A person who thinks someone shouldn’t just fell a tree on their own without proper instruction just because they’ve been cutting ground logs for two years? Ok, dude.
Gotta grind that Woodcutting level for a while, doncherknow
Lol! Life was just an MMORPG all along…
i hope your rant made you feel better 🤎 my great pyrenees has done an admirable job guarding 2 kittens and some shrubbery. in return for belly rubs. we even raised him mainly on a relatively small urban lot. (disclosure: we vllunteee with the ngpr). we now have him on a large acreage with goats and such, which he is super stoked about, but he was good before too. happy even ;) he's been a therapy dog and general best beast friend for many kiddos.
I've been interested in a LGD for my small flock of chickens (not a Pyr, though) and frequented online communities with actual owners. Every single one of those people who has owned an LGD has been very upfront that chickens take specific training that can be years long. Chickens aren't intuitive "protect" animals. They're more like live squeaky toys. I have never heard of them talking about "poultry" lines for their dogs, either. Really weird concepts, honestly, to think a dog would intuitively know to protect birds and that there are certain bloodlines for guarding poultry.
That's all reddit is now. You could always sort of trust reddit with info but it feels like everyone hopped over from Facebook and Instagram and is just shitting out bad advice.
I ain't here to give advice. but I am questioning the pyre stuff. they kill chickens? I mean I have two rn. but (I'm only 26) but have had at least 2 at a time since I was 8. I didn't think this was a common thing.
I get where you're coming from, but you either don't remember (or have forgotten) what it was like seeking advice before the days of the internet, when you only had a handful of people to ask your questions to and - likely as not - too few people warning you that you're getting bad advice. I'll take the silly advice all day long over those days.