Thursday, February 17, 2022

Odds and ends

Hershey Chocolate fired employees who were not vaccinated. Can anybody recommend chocolate that is manufactured by a company that did not fire people who made their own, personal medical decisions? We tend to favor dark chocolate here at Casa ERJ.

Can anybody recommend a way to compress oiy-tube videos? I know that commercial productions frequently compress video to make room for more commercials. They use digital compression so the speakers do not sound like they were breathing helium. There is so much great stuff on oink-tube but it takes so danged long to watch a video.

I am looking for a thermostat that goes up to 105 F for an electrical resistance heating application. It looks like chickens will be in short supply. Many of my neighbors have small flocks. Many of them have roosters and produce fertile eggs. Rather than spend $2.50 a chick I want to try to hatch eggs. Given the spread of bird flu, chickens might be in short supply by next spring. It would be good to be able to produce my own.

The picture in my head is a beer cooler with a false floor to hold the heating element (strings of incandescent Christmas lights). Humidity provided by damp towels on top of the egg cartons. Rather than turn eggs I can tip the entire cooler on its sides. I can fit a boatload of eggs in a beer cooler. 

12 comments:

  1. https://www.amazon.com/Miller-Manufacturing-Company-9300-Incubator/dp/B00KKRDQAE/ref=sr_1_12?crid=1305W8RUAO7IZ&keywords=little+giant+incubator&qid=1645147873&sprefix=Little+giant+inc%2Caps%2C1634&sr=8-12

    I have had good results with that one.

    You need to gently roll eggs daily at least or twice daily for best yield, but the time saved not diddling around with consistent heat source is worth it to me.

    You can buy a mechanical wiggler that sort of emulates the hen rolling them, but i did not have success with that

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've had my best success keeping a few broody hens and let them handle it. Breeds like Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds do a great job of that. ---ken

    ReplyDelete
  3. We bought chicks two years ago and got a rooster last year but we've not seen any hens going broody yet. I'm hoping that it's due to short days and that they start going broody soon. My wife is concerned that the brooding instinct has been bred out of the commercial chickens. Waiting and watching...

    ReplyDelete
  4. For youtube speed, it is built in to Youtube. Click the little gear at the bottom right of the playing video, one of the things you can modify is playback speed. 1.25 is still clear, and 1.5 is typically still usable.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Icelandic Chocolate ERJ. I believe it comes in dark chocolate as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Always the mad scientist trying to improve on a product industry (and mother hens) have down pat, LOL.

    If you're truly concerned about the bird coof (yes, I too though 'how conveeeenient'), a professional quality incubator or stream of broody type hens would be your best bet. I've been looking at our little bantam Roo and wondering if I shouldn't swap him out.

    If you have an Aldi store nearby, I can recommend most of their private label products. Chocolates are produced in Germany, and frankly far superior to anything coming out of Pennsyltucky.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. https://www.amazon.com/Century-Thermostat-Controller-Germination-40-108%C3%82%C2%B0F/dp/B01I15S6OM/ref=psdc_2619534011_t3_B0813CQ4C9

    ReplyDelete
  9. If you want to get rid of the commercials on screwtube you can download AdBlockPlus. It's free and does a passable job. Still get the beginning ones that you can skip after 5 seconds. Seems to block the rest of them. Doesn't seem to cause any problems with anything else on the 'puter.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ERJ, my Lovely Melis introduced me to Scharffen Berger chocolate some years ago. We purchase it in bulk directly from Schaffen Berger (12 bars to a box, 2 boxes at a time). Specifically their 62% Semi-sweet dark chocolate. They were owned by Hershey, but went private again in late 2020. I do not know their jab policy.

    Here's a link to the bars we purchase. Dang good chocolate.

    https://www.scharffenberger.com/collections/chocolate-bars/products/62-semisweet-dark-chocolate-bar

    ReplyDelete
  11. what BC said abt speed on video replay.
    I can;t stand alllll the blah blah blah so many videos feel the need to expostulate to get to the point!
    so yah- I run most everything at 1.5 and sounds normal enough.
    also- go slow on important images- can go .5 etc.
    Also yes- Adblock plus is big help with pre-ad crap on dutube.

    Also- rarely comment- but daily reader for ever... Your clarity of thought on (AS YOU KNOW) LOT of things internal and external, is VALUED. Hope you can always find the time to share.
    Carry on and God Bless!Thanx!
    @~JO:)

    ReplyDelete

Readers who are willing to comment make this a better blog. Civil dialog is a valuable thing.