Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[fishermans wife]

LOL.... My neighbor Tom was doing some Brush abatement around the house for me earlier this summer. He killed Two Female Rattlers. Each one was about four feet long and full of eggs. I asked what he did with the snakes? "I got em skinned and marinating in Teryaki" Enough food for about four people.

deb

 

[crazyaboutchickens]

I hope y'all don't mind too much but I'm going to get my soapbox out just a minute. I am a FIRM believer that there are MANY MANY cures for sickness in the great outdoors right under our noses! They problem is, we usually see whatever plant as a weed and try our best to kill it! I have had all kinds of plants growing around me my whole life and thought they were JUST DANG WEEDS! Today I am looking at maypops or passion fruit. I have a spot that I haven't mowed this year because there are a bunch of rabbits out there that I plan on trapping this fall/winter to eat. Anyhow, maypops are growing like crazy in that thicket of a mess! You would think I planted them, fertilized and watered them! I never knew what these weeds were until last year. I was just reading some more about them and they actually are a "superfood". They also taste really good. The seeds are kind of hard but they do crunch up like a hard sunflower seed would. I bet the chickens would love them. And ohhh the flowers are sooo pretty!!!

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/many-health-benefits-passion-fruit-consumption-2850.html

I'm glad more and more people are finally opening their eyes to the beneficial plants out there. This area hasn't been mowed in nearly 8 years, and it's been worth every second and penny saved. Not only does it now provide food and medicine for me and my flock, but also for the wildlife in the area. Then again, this might a bit area-specific, since we don't get wildfires, snakes are rare, and the chickens deal with the ticks.

This said, I've always considered lawn grass to be the worst weed of them all.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Sometimes its better to just Go and Do and not over think. Though I find drawing up stuff on grid paper is very very helpful with space planning.

I have worked with some incredible natural designers. I could never hold a candle to them. All men who worked their way up from the machine shop.

Like my dad. He was the son of a sharecropper. He graduated high school only.... Built his first airplane from scraps when he was sixteen. Taught machine shop in the army.... Became a tool maker then a tool designer.... When I was five we moved to Roswell NM where he worked designing and helping build missile Silos throughouut New Mexico. From there we moved to Las Vegas. there he worked for EG&G a contractor for Area 51. While I was Going to first grade he was coming home and doing experiments in his Lab (spare bedroom) and draw and solder and tinker.... some of his hand sketches from those days were incredible.

No my talents lie in coming in and fixing a design to make it easier to produce.... from materials issues to how to store the parts before assembly. Even sitting down on the production line and talking with the assemblers to find out what their issues are and how their job could be made easier. Some would say that is a Manufacturing Engineer.... I dont have a degree to prove it...

deb

 

[Lacy Blues]

How do you use it in the yard? Do you mix it with anything and just spray it around? My mini-schauzer is coming in with 3-4 fleas on her about every day. We've had to give her a bath in dawn the last 2-3 days. Hate washing her in detergent, but it works, until she goes outside. I think she is getting them from under the chicken coop. No sure though. Do you think if I deluted it and misted a little on her it would keep them off of her? I mixed up a little witch hazel and orange essential oil so when I find the fleas on her, I dip a cotton ball into it and apply it to the flea. I really stuns them so I can pick them off and flush down commode. But that is just a band aide. I want to get rid of them completely. We have never had fleas as long as we have lived here (39 yrs). I'm thinking of getting frontline to put on her, but I hate to do it.

I'll tell you... several years ago I was talking to someone who worked for a pest control place. He told me that cinnamon is probably the best flea repellant there is. I decided to give it a try. I was having quite a time with fleas at that point so I put some cinnamon in a clear container and went to the cat and caught a flea off of her (poor kitty!). I put the flea into the cinnamon container and had all the cinnamon at one end. The flea stayed at the opposite end. I tapped the container so the flea would land in the opposite end with the cinnamon. He promptly jumped back to the other end. When I tired of this little experiment, I leveled the container and spread the cinnamon throughout and just left it. I think I came back about 15 minutes later (maybe less) and looked and that flea was DEAD!

So... if you can afford lots of cinnamon to sprinkle around your house, maybe just at the doorways and such, and douse your pet in it, it would be very very helpful!

 

[Triple Willow]

Sometimes its better to just Go and Do and not over think.   Though I find drawing up stuff on grid paper is very very helpful with space planning.  

I have worked with some incredible natural designers. I could never hold a candle to them.  All men who worked their way up from the machine shop.  

Like my dad.  He was the son of a sharecropper.  He graduated high school only.... Built his first airplane from scraps when he was sixteen.  Taught machine shop in the army....  Became a tool maker then a tool designer....  When I was five we moved to Roswell NM where he worked designing and helping build missile Silos throughouut New Mexico.  From there we moved to Las Vegas.  there he worked for EG&G a contractor for Area 51.  While I was Going to first grade he was coming home and doing experiments in his Lab (spare bedroom) and draw and solder and tinker....  some of his hand sketches from those days were incredible.  

No my talents lie in coming in and fixing a design to make it easier to produce....  from materials issues to how to store the parts before assembly.  Even sitting down on the production line and talking with the assemblers to find out what their issues are and how their job could be made easier.  Some would say that is a Manufacturing Engineer....  I dont have a degree to prove it...

deb 

That's awesome that you and your dad both can do all of that without training! So you got it honest huh? I think my mom said that my grandfather had a 6th grade education. That man was a master carpenter! He built numerous houses and built them back in the days before all the modern tools and probably did it without much electricity. There is a church he helped build where they handmade each and every fancy block in it. He also built my mom's house, a three bedroom brick house with a full basement. It is built better than any typical house is built these days. He also helped build a lot of roads back in the day when they did it with teams of horses.

Do you still do that line of work?

 

[Triple Willow]

I'll tell you... several years ago I was talking to someone who worked for a pest control place.  He told me that  cinnamon is probably the best flea repellant there is.  I decided to give it a try.  I was having quite a time with fleas at that point so I put some cinnamon in a clear container and went to the cat and caught a flea off of her (poor kitty!).  I put the flea into the cinnamon container and had all the cinnamon at one end.  The flea stayed at the opposite end.  I tapped the container so the flea would land in the opposite end with the cinnamon.  He promptly jumped back to the other end.  When I tired of this little experiment, I leveled the container and spread the cinnamon throughout and just left it.  I think I came back about 15 minutes later (maybe less) and looked and that flea was DEAD!

So... if you can afford lots of cinnamon to sprinkle around your house, maybe just at the doorways and such, and douse your pet in it, it would be very very helpful!

What about cinnamon essential oil mixed with a little bit of some kind of oil as a carrier and finished off with water in a spray bottle?

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: Master carpenters use incredible tools tools they make. Its amazing what can be done with a piece of string and a weight a level and a straight edge. Kind of like drafting on a grand scale. I am good with metal I suck with wood. I still cant get over the fact that a two by four is really 1.5 by 3.5 or there abouts.... drives me nuts that i have to design on center..... But master carpenter do heady things like figuring a hip on a roof Compound angles fo eves and how in the heck do they make those birds mouths come out in the right place..... Or framing up a post and beam roof.... I am in awe...

With regard to no training....I wouldn't say no training... Like your grandpa people taught me.... good math skills and understanding a little about geometry helped. And listening carefully when someone took time to teach you something. When I took the equivalent of an apprentice job at Teledyne Ryan I was terrified all those big bucks tool designers would find me out..... Back then they made 50-75 K a year... Me Waaay not so much.... LOL Minimum wage was around five or six bucks back then.

So I read every manual that accompanied the project. Having to do with ANSI Standards and what Boeing required with regard to their drawing protocols. Six months in I wound up telling a Drawing checker he was wrong when he marked my drawing in red..... And proved it. He hired me away when he left to start his own company....

Also in all the places I have worked the best ones had machine shops on premisis.... I learned more from those guys as well. Especially when I messed up. But often they would tell me tricks about designing according to how it was going to be manufactured... There is a difference between a hand brake for bending sheet metal and a press brake.... and even if it can be made with the machinery in house.

I would love to be back in the business of drawing and designing..... My last job took me in the relm of Sustaining engineereing which involves a huge amount of paperwork that has to be appoved by a stupifying chain of people with special interests and standards. You see Europe has a different EPA standard than us.... Theirs is called ROHS.... Dont remember what the acornym means.... But they wont allow manufacturing with lead of any kind.... That job intailed converting products existing and being sold here in the US over to the ROHS standard because we were beginning to sell those products over seas. Not only did we have to find equivalent parts and swap them out we had to proove those parts were compliant to the ROHS standards. Plus since we were sellng internationally we had to comply with ISO9001 standards.... basically documentation and accountability through the whole process from first article to end of life. This last was also required by the AMA because we were producing equipment for the medical industry.

I burned out.... I would love to work in house lend some of my design skills to a start up company for part time wages. Or even go through some place and convert their paper drawings to CAD and provide Form Fit and Function checks. Sadly I cant work for myself..... tried it didnt like it.

No right now I am writing a book. Living with Grandma and giving her the support she needs. Even though she is 97 she has every spark she was born with. I cook dinner take her to the doctor and sleep with a baby monitor at my head incase she falls again. She broke her hip last year.... sigh. She gives me a little money that feeds the animals at my house and handles the utilities and fuel.

I need to build another computer though and get my software up and running again so i can practice.... The coop project is keeping me motiviated for that.

deb

 

[maryhysong]

That's awesome that you and your dad both can do all of that without training! So you got it honest huh?

I think my mom said that my grandfather had a 6th grade education. That man was a master carpenter! He built numerous houses and built them back in the days before all the modern tools and probably did it without much electricity. There is a church he helped build where they handmade each and every fancy block in it. He also built my mom's house, a three bedroom brick house with a full basement. It is built better than any typical house is built these days. He also helped build a lot of roads back in the day when they did it with teams of horses.

Do you still do that line of work?

I have looked at a lot of old books and what not. Previously an eighth grade education is equal to a present HS education. Folks that are in their late 70s and 80s went to HS at a time when Latin was still a foreign language, when geometry and calculus were still required math, ect. I have a three volume home study course for the Civil Service exam published around 1920. Most two year college students couldn't pass that test today.

 

[waltandlori]

Sorry pic didn't work I'll have to figure this out tomorrow

Walt

I give up pic is in preview but not here!

 

[waltandlori]

Master carpenters use incredible tools tools they make. Its amazing what can be done with a piece of string and a weight a level and a straight edge. Kind of like drafting on a grand scale. I am good with metal I suck with wood. I still cant get over the fact that a two by four is really 1.5 by 3.5 or there abouts.... drives me nuts that i have to design on center..... But master carpenter do heady things like figuring a hip on a roof Compound angles fo eves and how in the heck do they make those birds mouths come out in the right place..... Or framing up a post and beam roof.... I am in awe...

With regard to no training....I wouldn't say no training... Like your grandpa people taught me.... good math skills and understanding a little about geometry helped. And listening carefully when someone took time to teach you something. When I took the equivalent of an apprentice job at Teledyne Ryan I was terrified all those big bucks tool designers would find me out..... Back then they made 50-75 K a year... Me Waaay not so much.... LOL Minimum wage was around five or six bucks back then.

So I read every manual that accompanied the project. Having to do with ANSI Standards and what Boeing required with regard to their drawing protocols. Six months in I wound up telling a Drawing checker he was wrong when he marked my drawing in red..... And proved it. He hired me away when he left to start his own company....

Also in all the places I have worked the best ones had machine shops on premisis.... I learned more from those guys as well. Especially when I messed up. But often they would tell me tricks about designing according to how it was going to be manufactured... There is a difference between a hand brake for bending sheet metal and a press brake.... and even if it can be made with the machinery in house.

I would love to be back in the business of drawing and designing..... My last job took me in the relm of Sustaining engineereing which involves a huge amount of paperwork that has to be appoved by a stupifying chain of people with special interests and standards. You see Europe has a different EPA standard than us.... Theirs is called ROHS.... Dont remember what the acornym means.... But they wont allow manufacturing with lead of any kind.... That job intailed converting products existing and being sold here in the US over to the ROHS standard because we were beginning to sell those products over seas. Not only did we have to find equivalent parts and swap them out we had to proove those parts were compliant to the ROHS standards. Plus since we were sellng internationally we had to comply with ISO9001 standards.... basically documentation and accountability through the whole process from first article to end of life. This last was also required by the AMA because we were producing equipment for the medical industry.

I burned out.... I would love to work in house lend some of my design skills to a start up company for part time wages. Or even go through some place and convert their paper drawings to CAD and provide Form Fit and Function checks. Sadly I cant work for myself..... tried it didnt like it.

No right now I am writing a book. Living with Grandma and giving her the support she needs. Even though she is 97 she has every spark she was born with. I cook dinner take her to the doctor and sleep with a baby monitor at my head incase she falls again. She broke her hip last year.... sigh. She gives me a little money that feeds the animals at my house and handles the utilities and fuel.

I need to build another computer though and get my software up and running again so i can practice.... The coop project is keeping me motiviated for that.

deb

I was supposed to be a draftsman, I worked for sikorsky and was going to get in their drafting program (when they did it with #4 pencil and thick tannish hard paper. Well a disease I've had all my life kicked up and I had an operation, missed the program and wound up in the machine shop. I was there when the sikorsky helo fished Alan Shepard out of the ocean. Only worked there a few years and moved back home (not a city boy I guess), and went back into mechanics. I've been a diesel mechanic for 30 mumble mumble years. I can read blueprints and use all the measuring devices, which came in handy for rebuilding engines (see some things do work out). I built 2 log homes from prints( one quite large) and remodeled 2 or 3 including electrics, plumbing. Now I'm far from a master anything, although certified in some things (nut case). However all things considered I can't hold a candle to learning cad programs and your resume. Dang girl that's an accomplishment- wow. I can't even figure out sketch-it, can't figure out how to get the lines to go where I want them, so I always go back to #4 and paper BTW I still do long division too lol.