Chicken Tractor…pasture renovation and bug control

As part of our ever evolving homestead “system”, we try to approach things in tune with nature’s cycles and that includes how we care for our pastures and create tilth.  Tilth is essentially a healthy soil eco-system that enjoys the benefit of bio-diversity among the flora and the fauna that occupy it.  Out here in the lower Cascade Mountains, farms are fairly uncommon sights as most of that tilth has been washed out of the mountains and down to the lowlands where agriculture is generally found.  While that means the mountains are great for mining and gravel, and known for having really good drainage, it also means that soils are fairly depleted and run towards acidic.  So in order to cultivate a mountain meadow with a variety of grasses and forbs, and keeping it from returning to an evergreen forest, we have to manage nature’s cycles.  This includes having some grazers on hand who can forage and keep the grasses cut so that brush, like salmonberry and blackberry, don’t overtake it.  The alpacas and llamas tend to do a great job at that.  They also leave behind a highly nutritious soil supplement in the form of their manure. However, with a herd of grazers alone, we are still challenged with the results: poop piles attracts biting fly populations and other insects, the poop needs to be spread, and the herd is still selective in their eating habits (moss and old thatched grass gets passed by for more delectable items.) 

Thus enters the chicken tractor. Like a tractor which harrows a field, spreads manure, tills soils, a chicken tractor performs the same functions, albeit on a different timescale than the gas powered wonders of the modern age.  For this year’s run, which starts in May and ends between September and December, we are running twenty Rock Cornish Cross poultry meat birds and four turkeys (including a bronze).  We’ll start harvesting the poultry in September and butcher 3-4 per week leaving the turkeys to finish out in time for Thanksgiving and later ground turkey meat for the freezer.  While we are thankful for meat provided from free-ranging chickens, their primary purpose is really to help renovate the pastures.

Like most chicken endeavors, our chicken tractor is made from salvaged and recycled materials, some of which was leftover from the construction of our house.  A few carport metal tubes serve as skids and the bottom frame, and PVC pipe creates the hoop structure.  Fastened to the PVC are some leftover fence pieces and chicken wire. The two ends of the chicken tractor are leftover cedar plywood sheets with a door cut into one end. Covering about two-thirds of the entire structure is some white plastic tarp wrap that originally wrapped the wood delivered during the construction of the house.  Partly covering the tractor means there is always a shady and sunny area and the portion towards the front of the tractor which is covered helps keep the food dry during any rain. 

For the first few weeks of the chicken tractor, when the baby chicks are introduced, we add another tarp to fully cover the open portion of the tractor and prevent drafts while we brood the baby chicks.  We also add a heat lamp to help them remain warm. The heat lamp limits the tractor to an area within 100’ of the barn where the electricity comes from, but that only lasts until the chicks are fully feathered out and can keep themselves warm.  They also are offered free-choice chick starter feed which they can have as much as they can manage to eat.  Once the heat lamp is removed and brooding is complete, however, we’ll begin to wean them from the commercially manufactured feed and let them forage freely in the pasture for bugs, grasses, and clovers.  We’ll only use a small portion of commercial feed at the end of the day when it’s time for them to go back into the chicken tractor for the night.  This approach saves quite a bit on the feed bill and allows for some of the best tasting chicken meat that is free-range and grass-fed with minimal additional feed. 

If you try this approach for your own chicken tractor it’s important to have a well-fenced in pasture space for the birds to roam which offers enough for them to eat without over-grazing the grass down to dirt.  It’s time to move the flock to a new pasture when you notice the grass getting too short from the chickens eating it. As part of our strategy, we first let the herd of llamas and alpacas graze, followed by the slower moving chicken tractor to “clean up” after them.  The chicken tractor can stay in one of our small pasture areas for 3-8 weeks depending upon how much I choose to allow them to impact the area.

Since I do let the birds out of the tractor during the day, I wait until I move them to another pasture to perform the remaining human-based cultivation tasks.  That generally includes spreading out some more straw and raking any remaining llama poop out and adding grass and clover seed.  The pasture is then set for the season.  A heavily renovated pasture may have the llamas and alpacas mob-grazing it for week or two and the chicken tractor working it over for another 6 weeks. After that, I’m guaranteed a lusher, more sustainable pasture for next season.  If a pasture only needs a light renovation, because most of the grasses and clovers are established, I may leave the chicken tractor in pasture for a shorter duration and then return the herd back to it later in the season for another grazing.  I can also choose to limit the birds foraging for a day by keeping them within the tractor over a portion of a ground, say with lots of moss, until they’ve really dug it all up and then move them to another spot.  If I do this the chicken tractor is moving on a daily basis to assure they have enough to forage, or I’m supplementing with a little more feed until they are done with that spot. Generally, when I’m brooding the baby chicks, the chicken tractor gets located on the mossiest spots I can find since it moves less often than when the birds are more fully grown.

By the end of the chicken run season, all the poultry birds have been harvested and dispatched to the freezer.  Our birds are allowed to grow longer than the typical “young chicken” label you see in most store bought chickens.  As a result, we end up with chickens that can produce breasts which weigh 6-8 pounds; very large chicken breasts. The only occupants left to finish out the run will be the turkeys.  So as September winds down and October sees the grasses slowing their growth, the chicken tractor is moved to the front paddocks of the barn where some deep straw bedding is added and the turkeys are given finishing feed, and garden scraps for the reminder of their time.  After the last bird is harvested for meat, come Spring the deep bedding, with rich turkey manure,  will be raked out into the paddock where it will be planted with corn and beans or wheat, grasses, and clovers.  When the herd is pulled off pasture for the season, it’s these garden paddocks that they get for their final foraging before strictly feeding on their winter hay bales.  Once these paddocks go fallow again, they are ready for another garden season the next year allowing the ground to recover.

Be sure to check out the video of the chicken tractor brooding this year’s baby chicks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjap5ym-7SE

Paca Pride Progressing … the fight to stay alive!

The downturned economy means everyone is tightening their belts these days and Paca Pride is no exception.  It takes a lot to launch a small business in the world and turn it into something successful.  For many, that business could simply mean taking advantage of the internet for all their sales and thus the overhead is quite a bit lower with no store front, office space, or real estate to worry about.  For us, however, we started with 17 acres of land that was logged in 1998 by the previous owners wanting to get some timber monies, had 10 years of nature reclaiming it and covering the logging debris, and left us starting with stump piles to burn.  That’s right, no power, no well, no house, no pastures with fencing, no pastoral scene to share with the public.

Our story started in 2005 when we bought this parcel to make manifest the change we’d like to see in the world. Witnessing America at a crossroads, we saw that the only way to survive in corporate America was to incorporate. Putting our heads together, we wrote a business plan, moving to a rural location, with the hope of bringing future jobs to a popular tourist destination. That’s how Paca Pride Guest Ranch started offering a twist on camping with some cool structures, yurts. We decided to position ourselves as a destination that could demonstrate green principles, sustainability, homesteading, even offer farm fresh eggs from our chickens.  

But, all is not without its struggle through adversity. Having to carry our costs for two years without establishing a revenue stream until the county executed their 120-day process and issued our permits dwindled our cash reserves to bring further yurt accommodations on to the property. Over $50,000 went into satisfying the county’s requirements, including hiring experts and professionals to navigate the regulatory waters.   We even had to fight through a serious cancer battle, during that time, that tested our mettle.

Eventually, that had us stepping back quite a bit from the original business plan to see how we could use our remaining funds most effectively. We now struggle to determine the most effective ways to get out and market ourselves as well as how to generate further capital to invest in the business, bringing more yurts on board, followed by adding the rustic amenities.

But we are here! We started a small business! Our shingle is on the side of the road! We had a moderately successful summer season, in 2010, of bookings and retail sales of alpaca related products, eggs, and even a few items from our garden! We have great hope that we can take our business to the next level of growth and continue to make a deeply felt impact on the community we are now a part. The Mountain Loop community, especially within the tiny Robe Valley, has been filled with excitement and been inspired by our efforts, we hope to be able to one day hire staff from this valley and bring jobs to this rural, and very historic, area.

Certainly, all this could never have happened without all the love and support from our friends and family.  We count our blessings everyday and choose to remain positive that others will also continue to see the value in our venture as we enter into the 2011 camping season.  Perhaps an angel investor will somehow find it within them to support our efforts?  Until then, we’ll continue our hard work to grow and mature this new attraction that continues to awe the tourists and hikers alike once they drive up the front entrance. 

Return of the Robins! It must be Spring, hibernating hikers are eager too!

The tide of snow seems to be receding up the valley towards where it will perch upon the peaks of the mountain tops as the last defense upon an encroaching Spring feel in the air.  Spring in the mountains is always a tenuous affair; sure, the lowlands have their cherry trees blossoming, and the exodus of southbound birds for the winter has turned northward again, but here on the western slopes of the North Cascades, we watch closely for the harbingers of winter’s demise, the robins.

For Paca Pride Guest Ranch, the return of the robins signals an awakening on various fronts.  We know we can start growing in the garden again. We know the grass is coming out of dormancy, making for some eager alpacas that want some fresh greens in their diet.  We know the tourists are ramping up in numbers too.  Typically, what has been a shoulder season for campers seeking outdoor adventure usually has only the diehards venturing out to pitch a tent.  However, the number of day hikers are like the robins, suddenly spiking in numbers on your front lawn seeking those worms.  Indeed, at the most famous “hidden secret” of a trail, the Robe Canyon Historic Park trail, which leads down to the old Everett & Monte Cristo Railway tunnel, you can quickly lose count of the parked cars at the trailhead. 

It’s always been a dilemma for outdoor enthusiasts exploring the Mountain Loop Hwy’s many hiking trails, whether to go hiking or camping.  These days it seems the two are somehow mutually exclusive, an either/or proposition.  Either you are going hiking or you are going camping.  If you go camping, you are committing yourself to a nesting in at a campsite and not wanting to leave it to do much exploring, instead enjoying the local surroundings of your campsite. You just never know how secure your campsite will be if you left it alone for a few hours to go hiking.  So, most hikers don’t camp out this way. They choose to plan a day trip hike and not camp. 

Fortunately, another tide of change is working itself on the mountain that is making camping much more accessible to those day hikers who dismiss pitching a tent as not worth the effort.  Paca Pride Guest Ranch offers a furnished guest yurt, with bed and linens, electricity and even heat. We even have a larger Roundhouse that could be used as an accommodation space. For those hikers and day-trippers out here, it’s beginning to open up so many more options. Yes, you can go on that longer trail you’ve always wanted to try, but didn’t want to get up so early in the morning for the drive out there.  Yes, you can explore several hikes over the course of the weekend and return to a cozy bed at a hosted campground.  Yes, you can even pitch a tent here and not worry too much about security knowing those same hosts are onsite. 

So, as Spring winds itself up and winter retreats into it’s own hibernation, the day-hikers of the Mountain Loop become as numerous as the robins. Like our robin family that chose to makes its nest here at Paca Pride, and return with the kids this year, hikers have the opportunity to nest in the round comfort of a yurt after a long day of adventuresome hiking.

That Robin family? Oh yes, here’s mama robin feeding her new young this past Spring. Come out in April and May and you’ll see this scene in person!

Paca Pride Guest Ranch becomes the Headquarters for the Mountain Loop Tourism Bureau

“You Are Here” How often have you come upon a map and the first thing you reference is that famous little tagline that let’s you determine the course of your upcoming adventure? That sense of grounding, of showing your location and informing you of what’s possible is an important part of the tourist’s experience in an unfamiliar setting. 

For a long time, the Mountain Loop Highway, a national scenic byway, remained a hidden gem within Snohomish County, Washington.  It is the loop within the larger (and traditionally more promoted) Cascade Loop. To find your way to unlocking it’s secrets and exploring it’s attractions meant becoming an investigator doing some in depth research ahead of your trip.  Well, such will be the case no longer!

Paca Pride Guest Ranch is teaming up with About-The-Wow promotions (www.AboutheWOW.com), to start a new non-profit organization to fill this gap. The Mountain Loop Tourism Bureau (www.ML-TB.org) is officially established bringing a new level of service to the over 250,000 cars per year that travel this route!

Accommodations, businesses, services, attractions, trails, events, festivals, workshops, campgrounds, and much more will become readily accessible to the tourist adventurer.  Favorites like Big Four/Ice Caves or the Mt. Pilchuck Lookout trails will certainly be highlighted, but so will little known secrets like the “Boom or Bust” cave that most tourists just drive by without knowing is even there.  MLTB will become a source for hikers, campers, and general outdoor enthusiasts as well as helping connect visitors to the variety of accommodations to stay locally in the area. MLTB is forming partnerships within each of the gateway towns along the loop, Arlington, Darrington, and Granite Falls, to help establish Tourism Outposts assuring that no matter where you are on the Loop, tourism information is available.

Not without your help and support!  As you well know nothing happens without a lot of groundwork backing it up. So we look to you, the visitors, the regulars, the residents, the mountaineers, hikers, campers, skiers, geo-cache seekers, anyone who has some knowledge or experiences of the sights they’ve seen out here and wish to share.  Send us information on your favorite spots anywhere along the entire Mountain Loop which every visitor should consider and which MTLB should highlight. 

The Mountain Loop recreational area, which includes national forest, has a rich history rooted in the gold rush mining days of Monte Cristo.  Serving a continually growing number of tourists each year, the Mountain Loop Tourism Bureau is dedicated to promoting this region.  The MLTB is a non-profit organization and happily accepts your donations and assistance.  If you wish to help fund our efforts to educate, promote, and inform the consumers of the Mountain Loop, consider sending us a tax-deductible donation.  Contact us at info@pacapride.com for more information about donating or becoming more involved.

Oh, and if you are wondering where along the Mountain Loop Hwy you’d find Paca Pride, well, just look for the “You Are Here” on the map above. Happy Trails!

A Bit of Snow, Holiday Cheer, and Looking Forward

This was the scene here at Paca Pride Guest Ranch  during the last week of the year. We haven’t seen any snow through most of December, only Thanksgiving weekend had the impressive six inches,  so it’s nice to see it back just in time to celebrate the New Year.  The weather is cooperating by giving us some cool and clear nights, assuring the snow will last until New Year’s Day. That makes fun in the snow possible for toboggans. Our road down to the lower pasture becomes the attraction as you can see <here>. 

Inside the lodge, holiday cheer still abounds and visitors are welcome. The new chalkboard displays above the reception area will feature rates for the yurts and campground along with information from the newly started Mountain Loop Tourism Bureau.  Watch this space develop over the next year! Of course, Maximo and Shadow, the ranch greeters, are always on hand to say hello to everyone and officially welcome you to the ranch.

Our store space has seen some brisk traffic over the course of the holiday season leaving our stock looking pretty depleted. Not only do we look forward to replenishing our alpaca socks, we also look forward to how this space will change over this coming year. In the window will be some more garden fresh indoor grows including basil and lettuce. Currently, our fresh Malabar spinach vines out and grows its berries there.  The entire back section of the store is set to feature the tourism efforts of the Mountain Loop Tourism Bureau.  Paca Pride is fortunate to be one of the very first stops that visitors see when they leave the town of Granite Falls behind and climb Sand Hill towards Robe Valley. At the mouth of the valley and sitting on the edge of the Green Mountain plateau, we are the stop along the Mountain Loop for a spectacular view of Mt. Pilchuck.

Winter Scenes from Seasons Past…Happy Holidays from Paca Pride Guest Ranch!

And, of course, who can forget this winter scene!

Celebrating the Winter Solstice

Tonight at Paca Pride Guest Ranch the confluence of cooperative weather fronts brings us a great opportunity to usher in the return to longer days along with a fostering of festive winter spirits! We’ll be lighting a Winter Solstice bonfire and placing a symbolic rock at the fire pit to mark the position of the sun in the sky as it sets on the shortest day of the year.  The clear sunny day, and warm partly cloudy night will afford us with some fantastic night views lit by the still full moon that was eclipsed last night.

All are welcome to stop on in start at 6pm.  Bring a folding chair if you so desire, sit around the bonfire, enjoy the sense of communal spirit, and reflect upon the journey made through the previous year.  In addition, if you wish, toss a symbolic token to burn in the fire and mark the shedding of old skins, old habits, or the transition into new beginnings. 

We’ll also be setting out a “Generous Gesture” can to foster good will and strengthen our bonds with community. Consider donating a symbolic dollar amount and help us raise funds and further the great efforts for our all-volunteer fire department, the Robe Valley Fire Dept.  We’ll donate what we collect to them.