Soil building with ducks and geese
It's hard to tell whether the approach works, but a recent drone flight gave us some much needed reassurance.
Having scaled up our duck and geese flock this year, we've had to figure out how to provide them with the fresh pasture they need while at the same time regenerating the soil instead of depleting it. We read a lot about rotational grazing and holistic management. We experimented with different grazing plans, observed the results, and adapted.
The current system involves 4 bird coops, each with two attached paddocks. The (currently) 3 flocks of birds rotate across them generally spending about a week per paddock.
It's hard to tell whether the approach works, though. Some spots in the grazing paddocks have particularly poor soil with narrow, stringy grass that the birds don't eat. The high traffic areas in front of the coops invariably turn into a muddy mess. Is the pasture actually improving in the long term?
A recent drone flight gave us some much needed reassurance. The photos below are taken one month apart in late autumn. Paddocks 1W and 2W were resting during this time, and they've really bounced back:
Left: November 7. Right: December 8.
The grass seems to be growing faster than it was before – it looks like all the bird manure is improving the soil instead of depleting it. It's going to be interesting to see the results over a longer time span, especially in the poorer paddocks such as 4W.