During brooding if the pilot light is running it is producing a small amount of heat that the barn needs anyways right. Really the only time this is not true is when a person is brooding in the summer time. The person I was talking to felt that the pilot unit was more reliable than the direct spark unit over time and cost less upfront.

I talked with a customer this week who was confident they were going to start using direct spark just for the reason that it drove him nuts to see the pilot lights burning away in the summer afternoons. They manage a pretty large farm.

I guess my feeling right now is keep with direct spark not for the fuel savings but because of the time savings of not having to touch them any time during the flock. If you have a small operation with lots of time to manage the barn pilot is probably fine. 

This is my first ever blog of any kind. What I would like do is use this to talk about current events, exciting products and possibly learn things from other growers and information I have got from people I meet and from business trips we take related to Ideal Ag Supply.

For this first blog I want to dedicate it to a local grower and personal friend that recently was killed in a car accident. David was the best poultry grower in the Northwest. He was not a young man but he always strived to lead the group with constant improvements to his poultry operation. It was great for me being the local dealer for him because he would constantly do research on new products and if he thought something would work he would purchase the equipment and test it out. He would call me at least a couple times a week and tell me what was working or he liked and what he thought would make the product better. Not everything he tried worked as well as he thought but many times the growers in the area would have to upgrade themselves in order to keep up with his performance.

A great example of things he first tested in our area was the Diversified Imports DI drive unit. Years ago he bought one hung it on the wall and forgot about it except to tell me how much better it was than a linear lift system or power trak unit. Eventually many of my customers have converted over to them with our strong recommendation for this product. J&D manufacturing also offers a similar product and now I see ChoreTime has a new offering with the same concept of using a gear box instead of a screw drive. The J&D unit works well but it is a very heavy unit which adds to shipping cost but it does come at a lower price point. I don’t know anything about the ChoreTime unit except like most ChoreTime products they are a little higher in cost.

So in summary when your next screw drive actuator unit fails try one of these new gear and strap units. If you are looking for a new actuator consider the DI or J&D units and forget about all the continuous maintenance the screw drive machines require. You have more important things to do.