Chickens in the greenhouse
In response to the October article about keeping poultry in the greenhouse in winter, a reader advised that growing crops at the same time could present food safety hazards. Although the article clearly states that the chickens were fenced into a corner of the greenhouse, she suggested that the dust they kick up could contain pathogens that would settle on food crops.

We agree that housing poultry along with food crops probably would not pass a GAPs inspection, so we recommend that you grow a cover crop if you bring poultry into the greenhouse in winter. We also asked the author of the article, Harvey Ussery, if he would like to comment. Here is his reply:

“This is one of those cases–like using chickens in the garden and thereby creating a “raw manure withdrawal period” (of 90 or 120 days depending on the nature of the crop)–where there’s a theoretically correct possibility and a more likely real-world outcome.

“Someone who’s growing in a greenhouse to supply a market is going to have to be more cautious/stringent, of course. But I believe that a healthy, well-managed home flock is simply not much of a threat to human health. We’ve been scared to death by half-a-billion egg recalls and routine contamination of dressed chicken in the supermarket (well over half the broilers randomly sampled by Consumer Reports) and assume we face the same threats from our home flocks. I don’t think so. I plant in soil I’ve just chicken-tilled and get on with the season–i.e. don’t worry about a withdrawal period. And yes, there’s some obvious dust generated by chickens in a greenhouse (I see a little of it accumulating between the two plastic layers, near the blower), but I’ve never given it a thought. Of course we wash salad greens thoroughly, whether from garden or greenhouse, but I simply don’t think of my flock as an incubator of lurking disease. That’s the industrial model.

“We’ve gotten so afraid of our food! The fact that that fear is justified where industrial food is concerned is the best possible reason to grow our own. If we do so we should exercise common sense precautions, of course, but can stop worrying about contamination under every feather.”

Welding workbench
In his October article about metalworking on the farm, Josh Volk said that he uses a 55-gallon drum as a workbench. Lyn Miller wrote — with alarm — that a drum is a bad idea. “As a welding instructor and certified welder, I say NO NO NO!  Recently a man in Iowa was doing the same thing, the drum exploded, the man was decapitated and his body was burned in a horrific fire.  PLEASE print a disclaimer!”

Okay, here is the disclaimer: Don’t use a drum that was previously used for flammable liquids. Josh did say in the article that the drum should be one that never had anything flammable in it, and we want to re-emphasize that fact again here, thanks to Lyn. Josh uses an upside-down food-grade drum with the top completely removed.

Lyn Miller sent along this additional advice: “Josh is technically correct in his use of food grade drums; I did see that in the body of the article.  As an instructor, I have learned to try and limit what others may merely see me doing ( as opposed to what I may have said, or are saying at the time).  Too often “passers-by” (or casual perusers of publications!) won’t take the time to read the details – it’s just what they see.

“I would recommend one of many commercially available welding tables, fabricating one from a number of plans available on the internet (Miller Welding had a good plan on their web site, www.millerwelds.com) or constructing a modest metal table from scrap plate and pipe found on many farms.”