the Megalong Permaculture Project

Creating mini eco systems: What have we done so far.

The Wetland area .. creating a Billabong at the front of the property. 

We bought the property in 1991 and there was a large high walled dam and a lot of granite parking areas. The first thing we did was to reduce the amount of granite and grassed these areas. Cars can park just as well on grass!

We bought in the dozer and put in a Billabong and a small island for the birds to retreat to away from the foxes.

This  billabong has captured the excess runoff from the larger dam and  reeds have grown around the edges.  The ducks now can find shelter and we have seen an increase in the number of native ducks, water fowl, egrets and storks.

Our noisy, cheap to keep workers - the cockies.

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By putting whole grains in the horses feed, the seed goes straight through into the manures and the cockies tend to spread it over the paddocks. This then spreads the manures and reduces the amount of worms by exposing the eggs to the sun and drying them out

We maintain a number of dead tress to allow the cockies to perch.  They like to have  open areas and this encourages them.  We don't mind having a lot of cockies, they spread the manures...  and we only have to pay them in seed

THE FARMYARD

We built a bigger poultry yard. The smaller yard now holds the sheep. We were loosing a lot of poultry to foxes during the day so we now have them housed in a  7’ high wired enclosure, with  another wired yard  off the tool shed for more security.

This area now can have the waste from the livestock put into the compost area to create a vegetable garden.

But with every action there is a re-action.  The lovely foliage of the tea tree which provided protection for the baby chickens and geese  has been dying as we have changed the flow of water and changed the eco-system. So now we have to put in a different type of shrub that will adapt to the changed environment

the chooks and geese love scratching around in the horse manures looking for whole grains. The manures are bought in for the compost area. This is the next stage, building the veggie garden.