Symbiosis

This is a photo of a vision I've had in my mind's eye for years. The vision has finally been realized. On the right you see sheep grazing lush pasture with yesterday's grazing in the foreground. On the left is a flock of chickens grazing the pasture paddock where the sheep grazed about 10 days ago.

I titled this photo "Symbiosis" because of the beneficial relationship between the sheep, the chickens and the grass. The sheep benefit because the chickens will scratch up their manure pellets, eating fly larvae and causing parasite eggs and larvae to die from exposure. The chickens benefit because they prefer to eat short tender grass that has already been grazed by the sheep. Finally, the grass benefits because the sheep eat it and cause it to remain in a tender vegetative state and the chickens scratch in it (de-thatch) and fertilize it with their nitrogen rich manure. Joel Salatin writes that in nature birds always follow herbivores.

In the days before industrial agribusiness replaced pastoral agriculture, farmers knew about the benefits of livestock diversity without giving it much thought. It's a shame that a 33 year old new farmer like me has to learn this stuff from books.