[TunnelTy]

unfortunately I'm not at all related to this. I used to. my grandparents had a farm and I helped them regularly.

but I have plans for my future and they will involve the care of numerous breeds of animals. consider me ambitious and possibly intellectual.

so I asked Rosemary of smallholders a question via email, and she said it would most likely be better addressed on the forums. so consider it a great way of letting you know what sort of person I am. but only a little.

"I was reading on food requirements for varioua livestock.

Now lets say we don't have a grassland, but lets say we can make one.

I'm curious as to the mineral/trace element requirements for the livestock such as sheep, cattle, pigs, and chickens, as well as possibly goats.

But lets not do big numbers here.

Lets say we go small number on average. About how much land is required for just one of each of these, not altogether but one type of livestock as a time and then scale it up, does the land to animal ratio stay linear, and how much does it change for a pregnant or with young version of said livestock?

Also, say you had each of them completely seperate, and you had to make the soil specifically for that livestock. What are kind of mineral and trace elements are we looking at, provided we could somehow have a year round pastureland, for each livestock type, and how often should the soil nutrient levels be checked, and what is the best average for each unit of land nutrient wise?

How often can the sheep be sheared, the cows and goats milked, average temperature best for pastureland conditions, average rainfall biweekly, and the breeding times for each livestock relatively speaking.

I know these are very specific questions but lets hypothesize if a person were to build a biodome farm ecosystem from scratch without land already there but being imported.

Consider it a question based solely on scientific theory. I'm trying to do research into some personal plans... which may not be entirely possible but i would rather have my facts and figure right for such a possibility. Thats all.
 Please and thank you."


I'm very curious about all of these for the purpose of self sustained living environment. and lately I've grown very interested in the botanical side of the world and in the past week have already taken 10 plants to try and grow. 3 being chocolate mint plants. I'm not doing vegetables just yet outside the garden because In my current living area I don't have free reign of a kitchen on campus. but I have found some books that seem to give some basic information on most plants as well as an instructor of sorts if I have questions.

although on the topic of my plants they seem to be doing very well. barely a week has passed and I had to transplant 4 of them yesterday to a decent pot so they could have proper drainage, but they are doing quite well. I have another 6 which I am trying to get to grow some roots so I can give them their first bit of soil to really take root in and go wild before I transplant them to a better drainage system pot.


I hope I can learn a lot of things about the various creatures that can be raised and how to keep them happy and healthy, alongside the various plants I plan to propogate.

[devonlady]

Hello Tunnel Ty and welcome to the forum. I'm guessing from your post that you don't live in Britain? I'm sorry you've had no answers to your post but think that most folk (like me) have had a lot of food for thought with your questions and will answer your questions.
Firstly, you do need grassland for cattle and sheep. Two sheep could live on one acre but two cattle will need much more. Pigs don't actually need grassland but will be much happier outside on, maybe, woodland. Chickens can be kept in an average garden but, again will benefit from ranging on grassland.
As to mineral levels, someone here will be able to tell you.
Sheep are generally shorn once a year, dairy animals twice, or three times a day.
A biodome  sounds immensely interesting, though it would surely need to cover a very large area.
So, that's my contribution, we will see what others say.

[pharnorth]

There are well researched specific answers to some of your specific questions but the totality of your question is substantially more difficult to answer. Any bio system is by definition complex and if you optimise one aspect you risk restricting or harming another.  That in essence is the difference or dilemma between at extreme folk lore farming and intensive farming and why the majority (?)of people of this forum aim to apply knowledge, whether gained from tried and tested or scientifically derived means, but maintain a learning interaction with the world we are working with.

To put it another way, for me, many of your questions could be given simple answers but the simple answers would never enable you to create a sustainable living environment.  As an example I can create an 'ideal' environment for goats and an 'ideal' environment for sheep. Both require bought in minerals, organic matter etc because any land supporting a monospecies will get depleted. And the requirements of both are not identical, and in time can even be detrimental, e.g worm burden.

I applaud your ambition and look forward to hearing more, but I would start from a different place.

[Fleecewife]

As Pharnorth says, I would start from a different place.
You can dream and calculate and find out averages and rates and every kind of data, but you will know nothing until you get out there and experience it for yourself.  There are international schemes such as HelpX and WOOFS where you gain experience on farms, organic or otherwise, in return for giving a helping hand.  You've made a start with growing something and your reaction to that will let you know if you're cut out for horticulture.  Once you've tried the farming side, now at the age you are not when you were a child, and seen reality with all its muck and sickness, then you will have a better idea whether you want to commit your life to this grand scheme.

Living and farming in a biodome is in a whole different realm of difficulty compared to doing the same thing out in the open.  I don't see that it would work at all for you to jump straight from theory to biodome with out learning what you're doing first from practical experience 

[TunnelTy]

I see... and while I did understand that I would have to deal with depletion it didn't truly occur to me on the grand scheme.

so my best option is effectively to go for some sort of round robin style rotation system on a specific basis so as to allow for certain plants and animals within the microsystem to replenish lost resources.

which ultimately means having several minidomes with a herd route between them while every dome is set up to be exactly the same, but with one specific creature in mind for the particular time of year...

also I live in America. we did raise a couple of pigs down in Arkansas once. sadly they killed a tree. not sure if the tree was already dying or if the pigs rooting about actually killed the poor old tree.

but this does give me something to think about here. because to have a properly controlled environment will require the full spectrum of animals and knowing what they require to produce multiple domes, probably into excess simply to allow some to be laying "fallow" as it were, with certain ground coverage to be grown in the period of disuse.

thankfully I have no schematics to amend at current.

but... if the base numbers are true... and it's a linear scaling... each portion will be rather expansive indeed. effectively the end result plan is a self sustaining city, but the population will require an area of land to be at least 15-20 in diameter for the sake of balance, with a further external ring for the animals separated by a couple miles. hmmmm....  so much to think about. but I can't use strips of land, it has to have a decent balance for the build in mind, as well as keeping the entire land area balanced based on the shifting weight of the animals upon them.

think of it like having a ship in the sea with animals, you want them to be able to graze, but the balance of the entire ship is important to the survival of all the animals as well.

interesting. it's like a Rubik's cube.

[Fleecewife]

Is this to be a spaceship like 'Silent Running' or for colonising Mars?

[TunnelTy]

well... maybe in the long run. but short run is going to be an oceanic floating island city utilizing the currents and motion of the ocean to generate electricity, but is to be self sustained by it's own farming plots. although it could easily be a basis for colonization. after all I will be trying to figure out a way to make each and every part of the island a bio dome sort of construct due to the fact that large waves and oceanic techtonic activity could easily cause problems unless the city and all it's connected parts are submersible.

it's a very lofty and costly end goal for even a twenty year short term, but if it happens then it will mean we can slowly and carefully expand into the ocean to help problems with population density as well as world wide food shortages. we could easily turn into a lunar or mars colony if we can fix up the system with an oxygen farm or five to cover in excess all of the creatures and such that would be taking up residence. although thinking of getting a cow into space is going to be a whole new issue... although I bet making sure we have a botanical garden of every plant species under a specialized ecological containment unit will probably be useful, as well as the excess biomaterial can be used for all sorts of things, and it's own garden of plants means that medical science will probably make some leaps and bounds considering we have very little information on medicinal plants in low gravity. imagine crawling ivy in a space station. that would be very interesting. however the oxygen farms will more than likely be some sort of salt water algae. and we need a renewable source of electricity

[Fleecewife]

All plants of course give off oxygen in the normal course of their lives - the Earth's lungs.  They also give off carbon dioxide so that would need to be sunk back into the system.

I understand now what your project is, but I still suggest you need people with practical, down-to-Earth, hands-on knowledge of every aspect of your plans.   For the cow, you only need a fertilised ova and a growing medium (vat)......    But do you really need livestock in this system?  There are other far more space-saving sources of protein for human consumption.

Look to other cultures for small scale intensive, fully integrated and self supporting production, for example the Chinese, for whom a pig, in the past, was an integral part of the recycling of their bodily and plant waste into useable fertiliser.

There are peoples in certain parts of the world who live on river boats and farm on floating mats of reeds.  This gives flexibility to their gardens, which is something worth considering - lowtech rather than hitech.

For your ocean-based domes, the potential for farming aquatic animals (rather than just plundering the oceans) is a huge source of protein.

My favourite film ever was Silent Running - will you be including robots in the management of your farms?

[TunnelTy]

the thing is for this project its meant to be self sustainable, and have a happy populace. the easy part is self sustainment on a lowtech scale, but to have people happy means having all the possible sources of food. if some family that enjoys the taste of beef moves here, the adjustment will be very large and cause a cascade effect as they are unhappy with the fact that every meal with protein is fish and tastes as such, other problems include allergies to seafood. by giving the population every possible source of food I can in specially maintained microclimate biodomes, not only do they get to leave the crowded city for the local vacation spot which helps to sustain their nutritional happiness, but they get to feel like they went to a far off locale for a vacation, despite being able to do so every weekend.

by providing every possible livestock I can, it also gives the entire city it's own economic power in the greater world, by being in the seas, we can ship our products around the world for a slightly lower cost because we are effectively more centrally located as compared to the other nations to each other. this in turn allows us to draw upon the people of any culture to create a greater more diverse melting pot of culture and learning than has ever been seen in the world, a place designed to make every one of every skin color and culture feel at home by what they can cook if not what it looks like, and a city with so many languages that eventually everyone knows just about every language and there aren't as many cultural barriers between people anymore. granted I know the city will automatically subdivide into ethnic groups, but if my plans are allowed to go to fruition, people will be given homes based on their localized needs, and not their ethnic background. maybe one building will be a condominium with all one ethnic background to make them feel more comfortable around their neighbors, but the city block will have about as many as the rest of the city.

but some people will be vegan and so we have the various vegetable farms, and until I can find a way to hire someone to be in the position to monitor the various farms that is their expertise, I have to make sure I can do it. for all I know I will be trying to pull this off singlehandedly, so I have to sprout extra fingers, just so I can keep one in every part of the pudding until I get someone to handle it better. some people will be vegan, so we have farms, some people are going to be down home redblooded carnivores, if that's the terminology you want to use, and would rather leave with their family, than go without a good juicy steak every week. my problem is, while I'm not picky, I do require certain skills and skill sets, but the people with those skill sets might be the picky ones, and if that is the case then I have to meet those needs to fill those jobs with the most qualified people I possibly can.

and there is nothing wrong with a 100% self sustainable city. I chose the ocean because it has a decent location, it has problems if their comes a tsunami, but I plan for the entire city to be submersible on a very carefully monitored and controlled vacuum based ballast system, meaning the entire thing can go atlantis and sink beneath the waves in the event of a bad storm, sadly this will be disorienting, but eventually citizens will hopefully get used to it. it will prevent waves from capsizing the city in a hurricane, or buildings being damaged, by simply not being effected whatsoever by the waves. there will be areas for fish farming, but the external ecosystem is not meant to be interacted with in any way, the city is meant to be in a portion of the sea with few if any currents, utilizing a buoyancy based ocean hydroelectric generator, but that is the only external extent of the city. it wouldn't be too much different on another planet, sure you have to worry about making enough atmosphere to block harmful radiation, but you might be able to make an external device for that purpose, but otherwise the power system is meant to be externally generated, on things like solar panels and such.

I wish it were so simple, but sadly the scope of the idea is too large to be able to succeed based on cutting the food supply down in such a way.  however if I can get the idea off the ground as even an oceanic research base we can study the various effects of the denizens of the ocean which surrounds us to better our knowledge of the ocean, the creatures there in, and maybe make some breakthroughs that could be useful in other fields of science. perhaps we could find a type of algae that produces more oxygen, this would be highly beneficial to grow as a crop of some variety to help in case of extended storms or for use in a space program.

as I named the post, curiosity can go a LONG way.