In the videos there were shots that showed hams hanging in the home. It also talked about the butcher shop having to buy refrigerators. I would like to hear about the non-refridgerated shelf life of the products that were made in the videos. Especially things like bacon and ham. Will you please ask him about that?
They are around, at least here in Oklahoma. I just got a puppie that is 1/4 Akbash 3/4 kaba dog. They are both considered Anatolian Shepheards. Ther is lots of good info here: http://anatoliandog.org/thebreed.htm
Ok, now I have seen it in person. Traditional wood stove outside. Heat exchanger on top. It convects cool air in on the low side and hot air out on the high side. He plans on adding a solar charged 12v fan to force more air through the heat exchanger. Not the most efficient on the wood but does a good job keeping the plastic on the greenhouse from melting due to a wood stove inside.
I bet the good people at inbio will be thrilled to help. I really enjoyed my visit to their park back in 2000. I saw my first blue crowned mot-mot there.
You are in a Tropical Rain Forest. Many species few individuals. May or may not even be known to science yet. I would talk to one of the naturalists at INBio in San Jose. They might be able to help. http://www.inbio.ac.cr/en/default.html
Wow! Lots of great stuff there. I never dreamed that when I saw the check your guns at the door stuff I could read it all and come away feeling good. They have a lot of stuff right. The co-dependence stuff was interesting. A set of guidelines like this is a good start. Thanks for the link to it.
Saybian Morgan wrote:unfortunately there is no diy trick to it, I mulled and mulled and bit the bullet and bought a small scale hammer and pellet mill. The recipes and the artistry of pellet making is something else all together.
I'm only soso self sustaining animal feed from last season but that has more to do with my failings than what can be produced in the space.
What I found about drying forage, milling it down and packaging it into food units was the astonishing amount of forage I could include. So many things that the ducks don't have the bill for, or the rabbit's can't get there nibblers through.
The first shocker was the ducks can eat the entire Jerusalem artichoke plant and the rabbit's will eat the entire blackberry plant. Now normally each would only take the leaf but the stem would be ignored, due to thorns or shape unless it was really green and soft.
After that everything else I could find in the yard fell in line, all of the nasturtium plant, pea vines, radish stems, squash vine, sweet potato vine, mustard plant, lemon balm plant, all mint family vines, bindweed, weeds, dandelion, plantain, buttercups, maple leaves. On and on the only real ingredient that shades the mix towards rabbits is the amount of alfalfa and mint, they really go for it, the ducks aren't mammals so buttercups don't poison there mouth.
All I can get my hands on is mixed with what I can't at the moment, wheat, barley, oats, corn, pea seeds, black sunflower, flax, canola meal. After that it's just rock dust, copper sulfate, flowers of sulfur, powdered eggshell, kelp powder, apple cider vinegar, molasses, non chlorinated water and whey to wet down the dried greens to the right moisture content. As the season's gone on the recipe's change based on what I have available or at this time of year have to buy in, so I don't make the best pellets yet and i've learned my lesson about seal containers vs paper bags. If it's too most the pellet can start to bokashi because of the yeasts and lacto b. It still can be fed out as more of a silage but it becomes that layer mash stuff for the ducks, and the rabbit's revolt and shake it all out of there trays.
In the summer they get what they get fresh when we can give it, but I don't trust us when it comes to being habitual with attention. One clutch of egg's get's hacked and we fuss and toss green's twice a day by the 3rd clutch where too busy digging a swale or something. I don't think it's ethical to keep animals and not provide them the highest degree of optimal conditions one has within their capability. If i had known more when i first started they would be able to freerange 90% of their diet. Maybe this year but I don't know, so for me I chose pellets as my best way to serve them, hopefully they will use them less and less over time but at 28% protein for sunchoke stems vs buying corn, i'm giving my ducklings the best start by giving them pellets and bugs.
This season i'll do allot better in production and therefor in self reliance of feed. The hardest part so far was building a rocket stove dehydrating room on the front of the house, without drying there would be no storage, and the time it takes to dry vs how long the feed last says i'm going to have to build a hayloft of sort's to store bagged greens over the entire season. I feed around 18 ducks for about 6 weeks with 1 day of pellet making but it takes 3-4 days to gather and process the goods. So I've got to process more so i'm at around 5 days work to 8 weeks of duck and rabbit food. Hopefully my bunnies will be an edible weight before they really start chomping into the adult food.
Saybian Morgan wrote:Yay Heritage Breeds, I'm also with Dave on the Giant Chinchilla scene thanks to dave.
Dave one side note I finally did get my rabbits to breed and they turned out to be great moms with no help from me. But my bunnies are only 3 at most 4 weeks old, and they've been chomping into hay for over a week and I caught a guy a the pellet tray two days ago. I don't think these guys are going to drink milk for 3 months, do you have any pictures of what size they appear to be when you harvest? I herd there digestion wont go for fresh forage even if though it can handle hay so Im keeping it to my homemade pellets n hay for the moment. Is fresh forage what you meant by when to harvest?
It appears giant chin's are the 7th most rare breed, at one point does one try to shift to spreading the breed via pet sales rather than rearing the breed for destructive purposes. I can say I raise giant chin's but i can go from having 20 rabbits back down to 3 parents in 1 processing day. Where if I was able to sell rabbits at 50 dollars a bunny i could theoretically get more for the rabbit and not have to eat it. I didn't know rabbit lovers where specific about the rabbits they keep so I figured nobody would care that G. Chin's are rare when theres so many rescued rabbits out there that need homes.
What are the keys to successful reddit submission? Paul, I have tried to submit links to your stuff 5-6 times for every time I have been successful. Any tips?
Ok, my wife and two kids and I live in a traditional frame home. Last year we spent $587.19 on natural gas and $1,338.60 on electricity. My total energy bill was lower than the $1,000 per adult per year benchmark but my electric bill was way over the limit for non-electric heat due to cooling costs. Summer thermostat setting is 80 winter is 60 day 55 night. How does this all fit in?
Thanks for the reply Eric! I enjoyed the podcast you did with Paul! I plan on doing a radiant barrier this year under the roof deck this spring. In the 10+ year plan we will get out of the city. We are making progress on the energy standpoint but we are not quite eco level 1 on Paul's scale.
So, is AC out of the question for someone who wants to be at any eco level? It was 120 F here in Oklahoma last summer. We don't hit level one due to summer cooling costs. Winter can be hard here too, but not this year. Is there no regional allowance in the eco scale or are those that live in Alaska held to the exact same consumption scale as those in south Texas?
I download them through iCatcher directly to my phone. It shows 99 podcasts. I'm not sure how the backend of it works. I have listened to all at least once and several two or more times. Thank you for makng them.
You could follow Paul's book link to Amazon.com and get them for about the same price. From here in the US with free shipping, and Paul would get a kickback so he can continue to provide this wonderful forum. Just one other option.
