{"id":300,"date":"2009-11-13T17:25:12","date_gmt":"2009-11-14T00:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=300"},"modified":"2010-03-13T20:02:54","modified_gmt":"2010-03-14T03:02:54","slug":"take-every-gain-without-showing-remorse-about-missed-profits-because-an-eel-may-escape-sooner-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"“Take every gain without showing remorse about missed profits, because an eel may escape sooner than you think.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I don’t know what that means.\u00a0 It is a quote by Lope de Vega, a playmaker in the Spanish Golden Age.\u00a0 But I like it because it so clearly captures the emotional essence of making a profit.\u00a0 Your books keep showing you in the red, but your mind keeps telling you that you did just fine.\u00a0 Or at least better than anyone else could have.\u00a0 Or maybe that you should just be happy with what you did earn.\u00a0 Or that it was an important life lesson to be learned and who can place a value on that? \u00a0 Or that it was worth it because nobody’s eel got loose.\u00a0 Right?<\/p>\n

For example, this year whole deer corn came onto the market at $7.00 per 50 pound bag in August.\u00a0 Excellent!\u00a0 This is a much better price than the $10.48 per 50 pound bag of scratch which includes cracked corn and grain that I have been feeding since spring.\u00a0 Of course, only adult ducks can eat whole corn so I”ll still have to buy some scratch for ducklings.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, I’ll need another trash can to hold the deer corn separate from the cracked corn, which costs $18.72 at Home Depot.\u00a0 But this miscellaneous expense pays for itself after just, um, well, a certain number of bags that could be obtained by subtracting something from something and dividing it into, um, well, let’s just say it pays for itself in the long run.<\/p>\n

While buying deer corn from the farm next door helps pad that guy’s\u00a0 accounts, the loss to the local feed mill where I used to purchase eight bags of scratch each week is a bit of drag.\u00a0 Especially since I’m always in the feed mill asking amateur farm questions which they listen to patiently, answer to the best of their ability, and never laugh until I am too far away to see them in my rear view mirror.\u00a0 Unfortunately, loss of that support must be considered an incidental damage and included in my profit calculations.\u00a0 In my accounting books I note it as “Too embarrassed to ask feed mill if I should switch from dairy ration to sweet feed for the goats because he knows I’m buying my corn for the ducks from somewhere else.”\u00a0 It doesn’t fit well in the column.<\/p>\n

After only a few weeks of enjoying the lower operating expenses, I discover that whole corn can contain mycotoxins that can drop poultry and waterfowl almost instantly.\u00a0 Feed mills screen corn for mycotoxins but, obviously, local farms selling it out of the silo do nothing other than a visual check for mold.\u00a0 Conventional farming holds that a simple black light can indicate the development of these toxins while the Cooperative Extension claims that technique to be inappropriate and ineffective.\u00a0 So, I jot down the cost of a black light and extension cord as well as the the value of the time spent screening bags of corn after purchase and the time spent worrying that the screening is inappropriate and ineffective and will result in dead ducks anyway.\u00a0 Figure the economic risk of not screening the corn and hoping no ducks get sick and die.\u00a0 Consider the extra cost of scratch from feed mill\u00a0 as opposed to added value of feed safety.\u00a0 Then I snap pencils, tear up the accounting book, and put my head down on table until children ask if we are having cereal for dinner again.<\/p>\n

Lucky for me, the cost of whole deer corn jumped to $12 per bag at the beginning of hunting season in November.\u00a0 Good ol’ supply and demand.\u00a0 So I’m free to return to the local feed mill, purchase scratch, feed it to all ducks and sleep well at night.\u00a0 And for a few months I actually improved my profit margins.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 At least, my eel never escaped.<\/p>\n

\u00a9<\/span> Stevie Taylor 2010. All Rights Reserved.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know what that means.\u00a0 It is a quote by Lope de Vega, a playmaker in the Spanish Golden Age.\u00a0 But I like it because it so clearly captures the emotional essence of making a profit.\u00a0 Your books keep showing you in the red, but your mind keeps telling you that you did just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dollars-and-nonsense","tag-ducks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}