High Tech Homestead

[Beef11]

I really like the homestead mentality and way of life but i also enjoy the technological advances. My question is do homesteaders ever use repro technology like AI, ET or even progeny of clones? I sure don't have any inhibitions about it but i'm curious if anyone else does.

[sewtlm]

Some of the cattle and horse people use Artificial Insemination.
I don't think very many use Embryo Transfer this negates the hormone free issue.

I would never consider using a clone or its progeny and most here would not even consider this a viable answer.

[MELOC]

i guess this delves into the heated discissions of what constitutes a homesteader. i know lots of farmers and animal breeders here use one or more of those methods. would a homesteader? what is a homesteader? please don't go there, lol, but i will offer my thoughts.

i think some of the common threads in many views of homesteading are sustainability and self-reliance. how sustainable are these methods? can one do them with little or no support from anyone else if times get rough?

gee...that didn't take long. i need more thoughts.

[Beef11]

I guess i don't mind using them because they are profitable. If things got tough i could always step back to the bull scenario without trouble at all.

[sewtlm]

As far as I know cloning is not inexpensive nor non-invasive and I question the ethics behind this procedure.

A lay person can do AI and ET with just a little training. and yes sometimes a bull/stallion can be more expensive and dangerous.

But homesteading is about being self-reliant, self-sufficeint, and low cost.

[DQ]

I use the progeny of clones from tomato plants all the time

[sewtlm]

Plants are propagated via rootings. They are parts of a plant not a cloned animal which is from an embryo.

That's like comparing evolution to selective breeding.

[radiofish]

I have used cloning on flora not fauna...... Taking plant cuttings and rooting them using a hormone is one way to produce exact copies of a desired breed of plants. But I am still a outside dirt farmer, some folks are growing plants using hydroponics indoors.

[Shrek]

Homesteaders of past eras utilized the technology available. When thy could afford to upgrade from strictly hand tools to horse, mule , wateror steam driven innovations , they did.

Luther Burbank genetically altered flora to reclaim desert lands.

Cloning is the still advancing next generation of animal husbandry IMO.

[BillHoo]

I've been rolling around the concept of a robot chicken tractor in my head. Basically uses the CPU (Central Processing Unit) of a Roomba from iRobot:
http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=95

Except, the thing would be a large, enclosed chicken tractor. The Roomba is programmed to systematically vaccuum every inch of your living room. This chicken tractor would sector off your "grazing" area and move around so the chickens don't scratch the land down to bare earth.

It would have an automatica waterer, and at a pre-set time a recorded call would be played and feed would be dispensed.

You can monitor your hens remotely with a wireless internet camera and possibly interact with them - press a button on your keyboard and a bell would ring and feed pellets would be dropped in front of the camera. Multi-camera views allow real-time oberzervation of egg laying and roosting chickens. This could lead to internet chicken farming as a cottage industry. I'm sure some folks would get a kick out of paying $1 for the chance to interact with chickens over the internet! Heh!

Advertizers once paid a nickel per view for a guy with a website of a pot of coffee brewing. The webmaster made over a million bucks in a few months!

Netting overhead keeps the hawks out. A suspended perimeter of electric fencing keeps the other predators at bay. Solar panels and a battery bank will keep the fence charged and run the wireless cameras, appliances and coop lights.

I've seen remotely controlled guns for internet hunting operations. Maybe do the same to take potshots with a high-powered airgun at predators that come too close. Push another button to trigger a siren. For fun, the internet cameras could be trained on a decoy chicken willed with C4. Could be fun to watch a predator go after that one!

I'd only have to drive out to the "farm" once every month or so to fill the feed bin and refill the waterer. Eggs would automatically roll down a gravity chute into a refrigerated area for collection.

Don't laugh. It could happen! Robot Chicken Tractors are the way of the future!

[texican]

I embrace any technology that is affordable, allows me more independence from the interdependency of modern civilization, and will lessen my workload. Saying that, I also learn and embrace luddite technologies, just in case everything, including my technology falls apart.

I love my chainsaw... but I also have several one man and two man crosscut saws, with the files and tools to maintain them. Love my cutting torch and welding machine, but have a forge and anvil. I love my on demand electric grid, but still have my solar panels... Ooops, maybe both of those are high tech...

I've done the 'living in a cave' thingie.... it's dark and cold, and not much fun.

[ruby_jane]

Originally Posted by BillHoo

Don't laugh. It could happen! Robot Chicken Tractors are the way of the future!

Oh, you didn't mean Robot Chicken?

[BillHoo]

Originally Posted by ruby_jane

Oh, you didn't mean Robot Chicken?

I was wondering if anyone else out there would get the reference!

[Beef11]

I'm not much on robots but a robotic chicken tractor would be awesome. I'm getting the feeling that (some) homesteaders embrace whatever technology they can as long as it doesn't make them dependent on others (huge debt, massive infrastructure ....) and is a viable alternative to what they have now. Who has a well with a rope and bucket attached? Plows with a mule? Uses barbed wire?