Let’s Hear it for Amelia B. Edwards!

Heritage Key has an interesting blog entry about the fascinating Victorian novelist, travel writer, and Egyptologist, Amelia B. Edwards.

Nice to see I’m not the only one who’s fallen under Amelia’s spell. I liked her book, A Thousand Miles up the Nile so much that I republished it! This book chronicles her trip up the Nile on a sailboat (a dahabeeya) in the 1870s, with beautifully written and fascinating accounts of the people and antiquities she found there. It makes wonderful reading even today, which is not surprising, because Edwards was a highly successful travel writer and novelist, and became so fascinated by Egyptology that she founded the Egypt Exploration Fund.

To make things even better, Amelia’s quirky personality and turn of phrase were clearly used by Elizabeth Peters as a model for Amelia P. Emerson in her series of Victorian murder mysteries, where the main characters are Egyptologists!

So check out the article above and A Thousand Miles up the Nile. You won’t be disappointed.

Feed Quality: Who Cares Enough to Pay For It?

Is quality everything? Not to everyone. In his massive and invaluable “Poultry Nutrition” (now long out of print) W. Ray Ewing had this to say about quality in livestock feed:

First, let us look into the necessary quality levels. A feed is no good unless it can be sold and it cannot be sold unless it fits the community in which it is offered for sale. Therefore, we will have to study the community first.

If you go into any part of the country where feed is used, you will find that a small percentage of the feed users and prospective feed users have very high ideals with regard to feed quality. Possibly from 2 to 5 percent of the people in the community will say that they want a feed that is of absolutely top quality and that will produce the best results in growth and production of milk, eggs or meat that is possible, regardless of the price of the feed necessary to do such a job. You will find only a small number of people who have this ideal and are willing to back it up by buying such a high quality feed. Quite often those people have the idea that there is such a thing as one “best” feed and they want that “best” feed, but there are several of such high quality feeds possible, one or more of which may produce superior results, depending on the conditions under which they are used. Even when this viewpoint is understood, there are still people who want the best that can be made, with price no object.

At the other extreme we will find a varying percentage — anywhere from 10 to 30 percent or so, of people who look at a bag of feed from the standpoint of price as their first consideration. Then in the second place they ask, “How much for a bag of this feed?” In the third place they want to know how many pound of feed they can buy for a dollar. In other words, they have just one criterion for judging quality, and that is the price per pound, or per hundred pounds. Naturally, it also turns out that they are never a real customer of any feed dealer, because they buy only where the price is lowest and the man who is out with the lowest price at the moment gets the business — if you can call it business.

Incidentally, such people are not steady feed buyers for a considerable length of time, because they lack the sense to know that feed must produce good results in order to be worth anything and as a consequence, they fail in their feeding operations. A high quality community has relatively few of these folks.

In between these two extremes we have the great majority of feed buyers. They are people who want a dollar’s worth of results for each dollar they spend. As a matter of fact, they should have more than a dollar’s worth of results for each dollar expended. They are the sort of people who know what it costs to feed their livestock and they know the results they are getting. All of them may not know these things to the exact fraction of a cent, but at least they have more than a very general idea with respect of what is going on. To be sure, some of these people have rather high quality ideals — they approach those who want the best possible results regardless of price. On the other hand, we will find some who take at least two looks at the price before they concern themselves with results-producing ability. Success lies in sizing up the people in this general classification, particularly with regard to their relative quality ideals…

These considerations result in most feed manufacturers making more than one grade of feed. The manufacturer makes his first grade of feed to fit the quality ideals of the majority of the people in the community he serves. Then he makes a second grade where the price factor enters into the consideration more extensively. Some manufacturers also make a third grade of feed. Quite often these feed grades are “price” feeds only…

The first grade feed of a feed manufacturer must be quite complete from the nutritional standpoint. At least, the feed must be good enough that it will compete for animals under the more adverse conditions of feeding.

The second grade of feed is usually fairly correct from the nutritional standpoint. In making poultry mash feeds, the second grade of feed usually contains more wheat by-products and less of the high quality protein sources, such as milk and fish meal. The use of increased amounts of mill feeds may make the second grade of feed somewhat less palatable, but it is not always possible to attain as good palatability with the cheaper feeds. As a general rule, the second grade feeds possess a fair degree of nutritional excellence only, but the relative quality also varies with various manufacturers…

The third grade of feeds are practically always a price proposition. Nutritional ideas and ideals have been pretty well discarded. The feeds are often put together from the standpoint of meeting necessary legal guarantees only. When applied to poultry feeds, such feed mixtures are not worth what they cost, even though they cost very little. The poultryman must have results. Low feed intake and low feed cost never produced eggs or meat at a low unit production cost.

Robert’s Conclusions on Quality and Purchases

Note that the premium, “I want the best feed” market is only 2%-5% of purchasers, while the cheapskate, “I want the cheapest feed, no matter how bad it is” market is 10%-30% of purchasers. I have no data, but I’ll bet this pattern it true in just about everything, not just feed. You can guess that 2%-5% of people want the best socks, cars, or tax accountant that they can find, while 10%-30% look at the price without ever really noticing the actual product.

If you’re in the quality-product business, as I am with free-range chicken and eggs, then the quality obsessed 2%-5% are your best friends. The 10%-30% who are cheapskates are total write-offs. I’ve started posting my prices in bigger numbers so they won’t even approach my farmer’s market booth. No point attracting them when my prices are three times as much as what they’re willing to pay. The majority that’s sort-of price conscious is a mixed bag. Probably going after the quality-conscious folks is Job One, since it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but if you can reach the majority without going broke, it’s worth a shot because there are so many more of them. An attractive farmer’s market booth, sales or coupons or free samples to get people to try your product, and other techniques can tempt people who would otherwise balk at the price.

On the farming side, it should be clear that buying cheapskate feed is bad for you livestock and is also a stupid business move. Be suspicious of feed with the word “Country” in the title — that’s a code word for “cheapskate” in the feed biz. Any name that implies thriftiness is a warning not to buy.

If you ask around, most people know who has the best local feed mill, and you should buy from them. In alternative farming circles, some folks are obsessed with custom feed for some reason, but it’s the the competence and quality of the manufacturer, not the use of a special recipe, that makes all the difference.

Tasting the feed is a good quick test. Blandness is okay, off-flavors and off-smells disqualify the feed. It never hurts to use your senses for their intended purpose!

Don’t Get Too Fancy: Basics Always Matter

From World Poultry:

Poultry and pig producers who don’t test the new corn crop before feeding it are taking a risk this year, said Purdue University experts. Due to wet harvest conditions mould in corn is present in much of the Midwest crop.

This reminds me of something that I’ve seen over and over in the alternative foods movement: people take basics like moisture control for granted, and obsess instead over concerns that are trendier but less important.

You can make your livestock a lot sicker with moldy corn than GMO corn, and no doubt plenty of people are doing this right now. Poorly handled grain is bad news, regardless of how good it looks on paper.

I like to run my hands through grain, given the chance. You’d be surprised how much it varies. Some grain is moldy, some smells terrible, some is runty and full of straw and other contaminants, and some is pretty as a picture.

All of this means that your feed recipe means a lot less than you’d think. Whether the feed mill will take your top-notch recipe and turn out good feed or a travesty depends on their competence and good will, which vary all over the map.

In general, my experience is that organically certified grain makes a poorer showing when you do this than conventional grain. Less competition means that suppliers can get away with sloppiness and sharp practices, so they do. And a lot of buyers put more faith in certification than in the evidence of their own senses, so they don’t notice.

With mixed feed, I like to smell and taste it. Feed should not taste bad. It’s okay for it to be bland, but off-tastes are a flashing “do not buy” sign. Same goes for pet food, by the way.

We should all be careful to descend from the realm of theory and put our senses to work. Farming is a full-body experience, especially for our livestock!

Aube Thermostats: Save Money With Supplemental Wood Heat

How can you mix wood heat and electric heat to save money and increase comfort?

Like everyone else in Oregon, I have a wood stove. I have an endless supply of free wood, too, thanks to Starker Forests’ good neighbor policy (they adjoin my farm on two sides). I also have old electric baseboard heaters, installed by a previous owner.

So I have wood heat supplemented by electric heat (or maybe the other way around). How does one go about getting the most mileage out of this?

Use a Digital Thermostat for the Electric Heater

Digital thermostats have much better temperature regulation that mechanical ones. This is important for two reasons:

The house will be a lot more comfortable. It’s worth replacing your thermostats for this reason alone.
The heaters will back off sooner when the wood stove is being used, and comes back sooner when the fire dies down. This prevents the house from getting too hot or too cold and eliminates energy waste, which are the big problems with supplemental heat.

There are lots of digital/electronic thermostats on the market, but few of them had the additional features I wanted…

Use a Programmable Setback Thermostat

A setback thermostat saves you money by maintaining a lower temperature when you’re away or asleep. It also has a psychological advantage: When you come home to a cold house, you tend to start a fire in the wood stove rather than wait for the electric heaters to bring the house up to temperature. (This is especially true if your heaters are undersized, because you don’t want to wait that long!) So a setback thermostat is the bee’s knees when mixing wood and electric heat.

Here in Oregon, I find that a fire first thing in the morning is often all I need. The fire keeps the electric heaters from coming on, and, once warm, the house stays warm through the evening without electric heat or another fire. As things cool off in the evening, the set-back thermostat lowers the heat, keeping the heaters off all night in spite of the cooling house. So I can maintain a very comfortable house with just one fire a day and hardly any electricity in mild weather.

Use a Thermostat With a Power Indicator and Proportional Heat

This is THE big secret. Some thermostats use proportional heat control, meaning that they analyze the heating patterns in the room and make a decision on the order of, “To keep the room at the right temperature, the heater needs to be set to 60% of full power.” It can display this result on the LCD display on the thermostat itself, giving you an indication of how much money you’re spending on heat at the moment.

For example, my thermostats have a five-bar power indicator, with one bar meaning “barely on” and five bars meaning “full power.” Whenever I see five bars, it’s time to build a fire in the wood stove! It’s as simple as that. If the thermostat is positioned where it’s easy to see, you can quickly get into the habit of looking at it once in a while. This can save you a ton of money.

Proportional control also means that your house is more comfortable, because the heat is better controlled. Some thermostats have a 15-second cycle time, where, for example, the heater might be turned on for three seconds out of every fifteen to achieve a 20% power level. It’s much more comfortable to be in a room where the heater is putting out just the right amount of heat all the time, rather than cycling between being stone cold and red hot.

The Winner: The Aube TH106 Programmable Line-Voltage Thermostat

I know of only one manufacturer who makes thermostats that live up to all these requirements: Honeywell, with their Aube line.

I’m using electric baseboards, and the right thermostat for this job is the Aube TH106 programmable line-voltage thermostat. This is a very good thermostat. I’ve installed three of them. It has the power bar, proportional control, and programmable setback.

The TH106 thermostat is as easy to install as any other thermostat. Ideally, it should be installed across the room from the actual heater. It’s a line-voltage thermostat, which means that the current for the heater runs through the thermostat, which is how baseboard thermostats usually work. It uses an electronic triac switch rather than a relay, so it’s silent.

Maybe your thermostats are already installed away from your baseboards, and you can just replace them. If you have on-baseboard thermostats, you’ll want to add across-the-room thermostats. If you aren’t comfortable doing house wiring, your friendly local electrician can do this for you. Believe me, it’s worth it!

The thermostat will work with just about any electric heater. It has two basic modes, a fifteen-second cycle for use with baseboards and other fanless electric heaters, and a longer cycle for heaters with fans (fans don’t like being turned on and off rapidly). Use the short cycle if you can.

I looked around and found that Amazon.com had the best deal. In the end I bought three Aube TH106 thermostats from them.

Aren’t using electric heaters? Aube makes thermostats for everything. You can get all the same advantages for your gas or oil heater, heat pump, whatever.

My house is more comfortable than it has ever been, and yet I expect I’ll spend less on electricity than I did last year. So run right out and give this a try. You’ll thank me.

Chicken Predators Return, For a While

Yipe! Starting a couple of weeks ago, something was killing my chickens, as many as five per night. This is not only heartbreaking, it’s the sort of thing that can leave you with no chickens at all in very short order.

The dead chickens were in various places, but always on the fenced pasture, or so I supposed. A strong predator like a bobcat can leap a fence with a dead chicken in its mouth, leaving nothing behind but a splash of feathers where the kill took place. Coyotes are much the same. Hawks and owls eat the chickens without moving them, and raccoons will go either way, sometimes dragging the dead chicken long distances, sometimes not moving them at all.

I searched the perimeter of the fence and found no obvious game trails leading onto my chicken pasture, which made me wonder if I didn’t have a problem with owls. I readjusted the electric fence to make sure there were no high or low spots where a raccoon could squeeze through. Making a truly raccoon-proof fence is difficult, because, unlike other animals, they have no fear and probe the fence for weak spots. I found one trail leading to where a chicken had been killed outside the fence. Otherwise, nothing.

Next, I pulled out my snares. I don’t like using snares except on a well-defined game trail that’s leading straight to my chickens, since I have no quarrel with critters that are leaving my chickens alone. I started with the one trail leading to a chicken kill, and put a couple more in likely spots. After several nights I had caught two raccoons, and the predation ceased.

I’d lost many more chickens than could possibly be eaten by two raccoons. This doesn’t mean that there were lots more chicken-eating predators: it means that the raccoons killed far more than they could eat. Nature is neither nice nor efficient!

I used to rely on the federal trapper for this sort of thing, but Benton County has become very stingy on supplying matching funds to the wildlife control program, and this has taken a toll on everyone’s livestock. So I learned how to do trapping myself. Snares are particularly easy to use, and if you do it right, cause no collateral damage. As I said, you want to find a trail that’s used exclusively by predators who are commuting to what they imagine is a 24-hour chicken buffet. I learned most of my techniques from the works of Hal Sullivan. His snaring book and video are unpretentious but good. I recommend that you buy both, and his snaring starter kit, if you have a predator problem. This is the sort of activity where you want to exercise due care from the start.

I don’t like snares very much, but it’s a lot better than having all your chickens killed. I’m responsible for the well-being of my chickens, while the predators are quite literally crossing the line to get at them: they have to brave an electric fence.

Staying up all night and shooting the predators is an option if you can manage it: I can’t pull all-nighters anymore. Some people have excellent luck with livestock guardian dogs, which intimidate predators. But fencing alone generally isn’t enough.