One-hand-washes-the-other, impact velocities, splitting wood and etc.

Stock trailers

One of the roadblocks I ran into in getting livestock to graze our pasture is the lack of access to a stock trailer.

I reached out to some of the people I know who are effective at networking and one of them got back to me. They have a neighbor who has a trailer and they would consider renting it out but the last horse that it had hauled had broken one of the rotted-out floor-boards.

After learning what time the neighbor was usually home from work, I went over and introduced myself. Indeed, they thought very highly of my contact and any friend of hers was a friend of theirs. The only problem was the flooring.

I suggested that I was retired and perhaps to cement-the-deal, that I take it upon myself to repair the floor.

$86 later, I had knocked out six 2"-by-10", 5' pieces and replaced them with new. 

My investment in this trailer is quite literally a "stock option". 

Brass prep proceeds apace

A 69gr, Sierra .224" Tipped GameKing launched at 2600fps will arrive 200 yards downrange at 2100fps and it will have a mid-range apogee of 2.4" if sighted in for 200 yards.

Those velocities are very comfortably within the range of impact velocities that a modern cup-and-core bullet will A.) Expand and B.) Hold together.

Is a .223 Remington the greatest deer cartridge in the world? Nope. But with the right projectile and a patient hunter, it is far from the worst.

For future reference, a 55gr, Hornady  .224" softpoint launched at 2800fps will also arrive 200 yards downrange at 2100fps with a mid-range apogee of 2.2".

Splitting wood

I started splitting wood by hand this morning. It felt good to be doing it. That is why you didn't get a mid-day update.

Lifting notes

I went through the warm-up. Everything was fine.

I did the first set of 205 pounds. Everything was fine.

I did the first lift of the second set and something felt off. I did the second rep and something wasn't right.

I packed it up and went home. Some days are like that.

Physical conditioning at 67 years-old is more about avoiding injury and setbacks than pushing-through.

Feed conversion ratios

Catfish: 1:1

Broiler chickens: 1:1.8 (1.8 pounds of feed turns into 1.0 pounds of live chicken)

Tilapia 1:2.0

Grass Carp 1:2.0 

Turkeys 1:2.5

Swine 1:3.5 

A few thoughts

The weight of the feed is "dry weight" and the weight of the meat animal is "wet weight". The "dry weight" of the body is approximately 40% of the total weight. So our champion catfish, on a dry-weight basis, has a conversion ratio of 1:2.5 and all of the other alternatives also suffer.

Typically, much of the weight of the animal is lost to processing...hide, guts, fluids dripping on the floor, bones. I don't have a conversion ratio for eggs, but the low processing losses are in its favor. Points in favor of modern, industrial meat-processing is that almost none of the animal goes to waste; even the feathers and hair can be hydrolyzed in HCl and used to provide umami flavoring for ramen noodles!

Traditional small-holdings didn't feed animals large amounts of high-quality feed. They might have fed some grain for energy and garden-and-kitchen waste, but the animals were also expected to forage for some of their own vittles. The traditional method of raising animals used them as one more net to capture human-quality nutrients before waste was returned to the soil.