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LFG

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Everything posted by LFG

  1. Most of mine have been laying really well, too. How's the color in your Marans' eggs?
  2. 50% reduction in intake of a certain waste stream. $150-200K/ month reduction in revenue That material still has to go somewhere, and whoever will take it will be able to charge more per ton because disposal sites are becoming limited. I'm referencing one facility, and this reduction is taking place in... let's just say more than 2... There's a lot of money there for the taking. Someone will take it. It's time for someone to look at the generators, look at how this stuff is solidified, and make the generators dry it out. Class 3 landfills are the best place we have to dispose of this stuff, but they don't have the equipment or the material to change the composition of it. Landfills are the destination, they accept and contain the waste. There has to be some kind of consistent regulation to require the generators to make this material safe for a landfill. They aren't purposely creating a material that is this hazardous, it just meets the current criteria, passes the current tests required to enter a landfill. The problem is there is more of it than ever before, and as more and more municipalities push recycling, there is less MSW to mix with it. The percentage of wet waste to MSW continues to climb, and that is what makes a landfill dangerous. If it were solidified a different way, with a more porous material that made it drier and facilitated drainage, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. When landfills slide, or you have a catastrophic event like Greentree, everyone looks at the landfill. Mistakes were made, no doubt, but if that material was dry in the first place maybe that wouldn't have happened.
  3. There have been massive changes where I work this year, and no one will say it, but I know it is a direct result of what happened in Pennsylvania. Good has come of it
  4. SHOOT THAT DADGUM POSSUM!!! I hate those dang things, they will rip chickens apart if they can get to them. I'm sure they probably heard it, it may have tried to dig under to get to them and that's what got them wound up. Coons and possums are my two biggest threats, I keep traps set. Yes, that could have made them stop for a day, or they could have just all skipped at the same time. My girls do that a good bit
  5. mr.d.... Do you have any idea how many cartons of eggs I load and unload in any given week? These eggs are valuable, they pay for food, and haphazardly slinging eggs to and fro with no thought of balance is just pure insanity. Unless you are placing or removing 12 eggs at a time, you always work your way from the outside in, taking equal numbers of eggs from each side of the carton with each removal. Your beloved spouse wants a 3 egg omelette? Sorry toots, it don't work that way. You get a 2 egg omelette or a 4 egg omelette, and you'll like it
  6. Speaking of YouTube For anyone curious to know what a SC accent sounds like...
  7. It has to catch the attention of someone outside of the landfills. These giant national waste companies are built around the trucks, the landfills are the destination no one thinks about. Its all waste, it all makes money. We get paid to pick it up and dump it. Unless you are in the landfill, you don't see what we are actually dumping, and landfill employees are less than 10% of the company's employees. The bonus structure is flawed, because it rewards 90% of the employees for punishing 10%. It's not even that they are doing it on purpose, most of them don't even know. I will say that my company is pushing hard towards much more strict limits on what we can take, but not without pushback. It's also a voluntary move, so if we don't take it, that means it has to go somewhere. Someone will take that revenue, and the current laws regarding solidification aren't sustainable. I'm a conservative, I don't like a lot of regulation, but it's time for something to be done. This waste has to be disposed of. Class 3 landfills are the best place to dispose of it. Instead of relying solely on engineers and "wet waste studies", start getting the opinions of the blue collar guys that have actually been touching this stuff in the field for 20-30 years. Find out what makes good sludge good, what makes bad sludge bad. Standardize a method of solidification that makes this material safe in a landfill. Set limits on how much a landfill can take, and spread it out among all landfills. Heres another thing that hurts certain landfills, and I bet it applies to your area. Say you're a huge company that owns numerous landfills. You have two large landfills within 90 miles of each other, but one is in a town with a population of 1 million people and is right in the middle of town, surrounded by subdivisions, schools, churches, etc... It's the flagship of your company. Your other landfill is the same size, but it's at the end of a lonely road in the middle of nowhere, in a town with a population of 10,000. Which landfill are you going to send all the nasty, sticky, smelly sludge to? Little hint: one landfill is getting 5% sludge, the other is getting 30%. There needs to be some regulation
  8. Issues that I believe led to that disaster are a hot topic in the industry right now, and I specifically mention that example, along with others, multiple times per week. It's a hard issue to get around because so much money is involved, but that's another reason I wished this story had gotten national attention. The onus shouldn't lie completely with the landfills, the generators should bear the responsibility as well. Certain generators do, are very conscientious of what materials are used to solidify their liquids and the sustainability of those materials in a landfill. A certain national convenience store chain, for example, won't do business with generators that solidify with the polymers I hate. They will spend the extra money to go to a generator that uses materials that behave more like cement. If all generators felt that way, or were regulated to work that way, then landfills would be safer. No doubt that mistakes are made on both sides, but as long as a blind eye is turned, nothing will change, and it will just be a matter of time until the next one
  9. The biggest benefit to me in shipping is people like you. The longer I have to keep chicks, the more I have to feed them. It takes me about 6 weeks to be able to sex Marans 100%. I can charge more for girls, but they also take up room, so after I have chicks in both of my grow out pens I have to stop incubating for a while until the girls sell locally. After those girls are sold, then I have about 3 weeks where I have no chicks at all. I can sell girls as fast as I advertise them, but straight run chicks are a little harder to sell. It takes someone that understands that these aren't just run of the mill chickens, someone that understands the benefit of having multiple young cockerels to choose from. If I can box them up and ship them out as soon as they hatch, I can keep paying for feed with chick money. Breaking even has always been the goal, and I've never quite made it. I came close last year, but still wound up a few hundred dollars out of pocket. I figure if I can just have a self sustaining hobby, I win
  10. 10 for warmth. Some places say 15-20, but I'm comfortable at 10. I won't start shipping until it warms up a little, though. Even with the license, it's just too cold right now
  11. Yep, it's about time to do my Spring cleaning, too. I finally got my NPIP inspection set up, it's this Thursday, so once that's over I'll start getting all the coops ready for the new season. I lined the inspection up for now because it's the least amount of chickens I ever have. Every bird is tested for pullorum (salmonella) and avian influenza, so it's easiest to do when there are no chicks and juveniles around. It's a lot easier to test 70 birds than 130-150 Once this testing is complete and the results are back I will be NPIP certified, which means I can tart shipping live chicks across state lines
  12. Here is my new leading man for this season, I just moved him to his own pen with 5 girls last weekend. He is my best rooster of last year, and has the best shape and color of any 8 month old I've ever bred. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he throws this year The color in his saddle and shoulders will keep coming in, he's still young. His shoulders will eventually be a deep copper, with only a black triangle at the tips of his wings, and those copper feathers coming in behind his saddle will get long, draping down over his haunches. He has a long, broad back, wide shoulders, and the most full breast of any rooster I've had yet. He's a beefy boy, and what I have been breeding for. I've been using heavy bodied hens to get a larger rooster, and I'm so proud of this one. I think your daughter's Captain is very similar. I'm very happy wiith the direction the genetics are heading, and I'm hoping that they produce many more of these larger birds this year. I'm looking forward to a great season at the farm. My waiting list for chicks is already booked through March 20th
  13. That is ideal Petee, thank you. That is about the same design as my nest boxes, same sixe, but the floors are flat. It would be easy to go back and retrofit those elevated floors, but I was debating on the design. That gives me some great ideas. Man that guy has a nice table saw
  14. It's driving me nuts in the blue pen. Not only do I have customers begging me for blue chicks, but that rooster is my only blue. I'm one chicken away from extinction of the color. I never like having only one rooster of anything. I planned on having a dozen or so for myself by now, these egg eaters are setting me back a month. Egg production is picking up, and they will be in full swing by mid-February. I've got 2 incubators that need to be running full time, and I'm about to order a third. Having a pen that's not giving any eggs ruins the whole plan. Roll out nest boxes are really expensive, but I saw some DIY builds online. The way my coops are built, there is a row of 5 nest boxes along one wall sitting about six inches away from the wall. I have a long hinged door with a latch that I open from the outside to retrieve the eggs. I think what I'm going to do this weekend is elevate the floors of those boxes with about a 3 inch slope from front to back, then raise the slat at the back of the nests where the eggs can roll all the way to the wall. I've seen they line those nests with artificial grass rather than shavings to let the eggs roll, so you could pull it out and wash it when it gets soiled. I'll let you know how it works.
  15. I'm having a big problem with egg eaters in one pen, my pen with the blue rooster. Three of the older original hens are in there, and I think one or two of them are trying to run the younger girls out of the nests. It's driving me crazy, because I'm not home during the day to pull the eggs before they can eat them, I'm just coming home to wet nests and bits of shells at the end of the day. If I knew for sure which girls it was I would get rid of them, I need to be hatching those blues. I'm going to hang some oyster grit to curb the calcium craving, then I'm thinking about building some roll out nesting boxes in that coop to get the eggs away from the girls before they get a chance to crack them. Thats a nasty habit that's hard to break once it starts, and it's contagious
  16. That's interesting. Wonder how much it would cost? You know it gets passed along to the consumer
  17. Well, sludge isn't hazardous in the same way that electronics, medical wastes, and things like that are. It's classified as a "special waste", which in simple terms just means it's difficult to handle. It's not the chemical composition of it, it's the consistency. Honestly, Class 3 landfills are the best place for it, but it's the volumes some accept that make it dangerous. There are no regulations on how much you can take, and once your total waste is more than 20% sludge, it starts becoming unstable. It's like mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow. You keep adding water to get the consistency right, but add too much and it breaks. Unscrupulous companies aren't hiding a hazardous material in normal landfills, but my earlier post today outlined the personal gain to be had by taking more than reasonable amounts. I would love to tell my wife there was $9000 more in the bank today....
  18. I'm still sad that this story just disappeared, but I hope that with the DEP investigation results released at least maybe the families involved can push a little further. I'm posting today because it's been almost a year, and I'm reminded how I came to this forum in the first place. Bonuses came out today, and 60% of the bonus is dependent on making operating income budget. We didn't make budget. We reduced one specific waste stream by 20% last year because of it's hazardous nature, and the lost revenue in that one waste stream caused us to miss budget by over $1 million. I'm the lowest bonus eligible person on this particular totem pole, the only one that actually sees or cares what this waste stream does to a landfill, and it cost me personally $9000 this year. That's real money out of my pocket, not some corporate percentage of loss. I know the next 3 guys above me up the line, and they lost $17K, $29K, and $42K of their bonuses because of the lost revenue from this one waste stream. Staying in compliance, no safety violations, no EPA infractions, all of that combines for 40% of the bonus, 60% is making the op income budget. There are many more people further up the line that also lost, and you can bet much more money, and none of them understand why this waste stream was eliminated. To them trash is trash. Salespeople go out and pick up accounts for our trucks to haul, it all goes to the landfill, what's the difference? It all brings in money, we all benefit, right? I was the only one on the conference calls leading up to the decision to reduce this waste stream that was agreeing with the third party engineers that we needed to cut back. People were getting mad at me. This is the first year that I was in a bonus bracket this large, so it is the first time that I have seen that many zeroes erased from a check, but I understand why it was worth it. No one else does, and unless you spend time in one of these landfills and see what this s**t is actually doing to us, there is no way you could understand. That's why I pushed this story so hard, that's why I made so much noise about a little mountain town a thousand miles away that I didn't even know how to pronounce. There were no nefarious motives, there was an opportunity to shine a spotlight on an aspect of an industry that affects people all over the country. To the friends and family of Billy, the guys at my landfill continue to remember you in their thoughts and prayers, and to the guys still working... Be safe
  19. That's nice to hear, thank you I've been really happy with this generation. I've kept my best boy from last year, he would be a brother or cousin to yours, and he will be going in his own pen this weekend. I can't wait to see what his offspring look like this season. He's got a better frame than the rooster he came from, he's got that broad back and full breast like your daughter's Captain, and his color is excellent. I'm crossing him to the best girls from another pen, so I have high hopes for those offspring. Just because the parents are good doesn't mean the offspring will be, he's better than his parents, but he is definitely carrying some good genes. This is the fun part of breeding, tracking what works and what doesn't. It takes years, and that's why it's so hard to find good black coppers. There's so much more involved than just throwing roosters and hens together. That just goes to show you have some of the best black coppers in your neck of the woods
  20. It's the black coppers. I've been through several different breeds over the years, had upwards of 70 birds for a while now, but the marans are replacing my older birds. I'm keeping the Easter Eggers for egg color, and the Silkies just because they are fun, but the other three pens are dedicated to the black coppers now. Three pens lets you breed in a "spiral" pattern, diversifies the genetics without bringing in another line with a different set of faults
  21. I don't think it would hurt them, but don't know if they would like it. How would you feed it, as an additive to their food? I'm trying to visualize how the meal would work. Sounds interesting.
  22. When I get my NPIP license I'll be able to ship live chicks Although, the eggs are much more fun. I'm still impressed with your hatch rate in that dinosaur of an incubator your son tried to eat. A dozen of those eggs were a long shot anyway. If you do it again this year I have 3 times the layers I did last year, so I could get 2 dozen really good eggs in just a couple of days
  23. I wish you had gotten a few more girls. When I get my NPIP license and you feel like taking on a few more chicks, maybe I can sneak a few blues up your way
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