Tom Digerness

I am new to chickens, today is day 12 raising chicks.  I am using one of the brooder heat plates that they run under to warm up.  So far it has been super easy.  The heat is gentle enough that the chicks can press up against it.   I reckon the biggest cons would be cost and ambient temperature becomes more important because there is no waste heat, heating the entire brooder.  If going the heat plate approach, I would strongly suggest one of the models with a pitched cover to discourage roosting on it.

I am new to the chicken world.  I have roughly 4 months in a cold climate with a single rooster.  Yes, my chicken adventure has been completely backwards.  I have been running deep litter in his coop which is about 5 foot by 3 foot.  So far it has worked like a dream in the sense that its dry and odor free.  I don't think it has composted anything over the winter, granted the coop was built right as winter was setting it, so the biology never had a chance to start rolling.  I kept all food and water out of the coop, so the only moisture source was him.  I am looking forward to testing the deep litter with a full flock.

Without question, my favorite is Stinging Nettle... I use my freeze drier as a cheat code to have a year around supply.

I am on the side heavy use.  Rust is my trigger for a start over.

on a tangent note.  Coffee filters are a lint free paper that doesn't leave a trail like paper towels.

My first thought was using my freeze dryer as a vacuum chamber, then remembered why it's programming takes it down to temperature before kicking on the pump. And a giant evaporation tower at a soda ash plant I walked down.  They pulled a vacuum on it to reduce the energy required to boil away the water.

My mind is still running.  I bet one can bypass any special equipment (in an area with tall mountains) by prepping the tinctures in the high country using a sealed jar and then aging it in the lowlands.

I am kind of an industrial process guy and a vacuum tincture sounded intriguing, but had to do a quick search because my first bit of skepticism was how I can boil a glass of water under a vacuum right until the point it freezes all at room temperature.

I found this site that talks about the process and attached a screenshot of my bit of skepticism getting squashed and confirmed.

https://healthy-food-near-me.com/the-technology-of-making-tinctures-in-a-vacuum/

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Neat idea! But how will you deal with the waste? Every refinery and chemical plant I have seen produces waste byproducts. A plastic refinery is surely not exempt. These things cannot simply be dumped down the drain. Many things are hypothetically possible, but the devil is in always in the pissy details.

Very well said! There is never a free lunch.

The 3 products would be the un-condensible gas witch would be recycled and flared off into the heating process. The liquids which are the target. And then the mysterious solids which is essentially carbon black.  In theory the heavy metals would be left in the petroleum coke from the original refinement. Wish I had my own independent lab to figure out what exactly is left over.  Can think of a ton of industrial uses which are far from back yard capable. Press briquettes?

I had a recent wash out. This was an undercut that I knocked down then rocked. Failures will happen (especially when all one has is round rocks) but that's why you keep it at one rock status and play the numbers game.  If it cuts around the side the embed is cut for the next time one wanders up the wash.  Happy accidents?

Proud to say that all the other washes were washed out by the time the water reached the bottom of mine.

I have been thinking about making a backyard refinery using plastics as the feed stock. Diesel is easier to refine and old diesel engines are the most forgiving when it comes to imperfect fuels.

(Extremely small scale mainly for the learning process just incase SHTF and I NEED to scale up)