To make a very long story short…
From 2005 to 2010, i moved back to a house i own on 2.3 acres, a house that i grew up in, surrounded by a wonderful community. I wanted to make more use of the land, and try farming. The first thing i did, in the fall of 2005, was attend a Hawaii County workshop on growing and processing Tea. I joined the Hawaii Tea Society and spent a few years planting out a field of tea. We built a fancy chicken coop, day-old chicks arrived on Valentine’s Day, 2006, and produced eggs for a few years. I found a way to import organically grown chicken feed, and in 2007-2008 i had the only organically-fed hens on the island. I learned about biochar in 2006 and by 2010 i was producing useful amounts on the farm.
Trying to make the whole operation sustainable (environmentally and economically) became a long, fascinating growth curve, that continues to this day.
In 2010-2018, i had to return to Silicon Valley for employment, but now I’m back on the farm, still trying to grow food and tea sustainably.
I maintain a detailed notes page on biochar at http://ahualoa.net/ag/notes_biochar.html, feeding chickens at https://ahualoa.net/chickens/ and growing tea in Hawaii at http://ahualoa.net/tea/
Your write up on using azolla for chickens interests me very much.
I visit a pond where it grows and would like to do something more useful with it than skimming it off. There is way more than we need for mulch and compost.
Did you use it dried or wet for the chickens?
Thanks for any updates.
Hope you continue to return regularly to Hawaii. How marvelous to be in both the Bay Area & the Big Island.
I tried azolla for the chickens wet. Most larger scale use of it around the tropical world seems to be drying it and pressing it into pellets, along with other feed components.