Tracy, I am trying to find the link but can't locate it. I think it was a chapter from a very old book, when everyone had chickens. I just followed the instructions and built one like it said but modified the height of the opening a little by shortening the leg length. If you want measurements, I will have to get those tomorrow, but roughly 2x3 feet and maybe a foot and a half tall. The article called it a chicken hover as I recall. You could use it in any small pen. We just used it in a cage which had a wire bottom, but we put a piece of thin plywood on the wire so air didn't come up through into the area we had the hover. The plywood we laid in the cage was five or six inches larger than the box on all sides, which looked like it had a wrap-around porch. The hover is basicly a plywood box turned upside down. I used 1x2 in the corners and left them longer than the plywood sides. This created legs (on the open side of the box) for the birds to come and go as they pleased. We bought two of the cheapest kind of light sockets for a couple of bucks and mounted them on the ends of the box a few inches from the solid top as not to be a fire hazard. We wired in one light, then ran the cord across the top of the box on the outside and over to the other end. I don't even think we bought new wiring and a plug to run from the box, but instead used one from a lamp or something we were discarding. The lights created an amazing amount of heat in that box but since the sides were open all around they could move in or out as they wanted to. Some would be just under the edge so part of their body was under, but not all which is why we used a bigger piece under the cage. Almost all of the time, one bulb was plenty and we just unscrewed the other one. If we had a lot of wind, then we just placed a board on the side with the wind and left the other three sides open. They quickly learned to move in and out based on how much heat they wanted. Since I had scraps of plywood and 1x2 (or maybe 2x2) and screws, the only thing I had to buy were the cheap light sockets and Al wired it. I bought the plain ones, but you could use the one with a pull chain and not have to unscrew the bulb. The most critical measurements were the height of the legs so the chicks could walk under, and the height of the box so the bulb wasn't too close to the top but high enough that a chick couldn't touch it. You want the bulbs mounted on the end pieces, not the top. I made mine with legs shorter for the tiny quail, but I could use the same box for chickens, by lengthing the legs. I was going to make a drop down side or curtain to block wind, but my DH thought I was complicating it to much. Actually a piece of 1x4 on it's edge worked just fine. I just left it in the cage and moved it back and forth as needed. I know it probably sounds really redneck but it didn't look bad at all. A little paint would have made it look even better. I am probably a little off on the measurements but it had to be narrow enough that we could move it through the cage door. We didn't lose birds after we built it even when the weather didn't cooperate. It was one of those simple things that worked great. Since you are starting yours in the summer in Arizona your problem is probably too much heat instead of not enough. Spring and Fall are so unpredictable here but with the hover they could go inside when they wanted heat and go out into the wire bottom cage when they didn't. The quail would just stretch out flat under the heat and look like they were dead. Then they would jump up and move around, eat and drink, and go back under the light.

Dehydrators without temp control generally dry at the food safe temp of 140F or higher. Manufactures can't assume you'll only be drying herbs, fruit, peppers etc. They design them to be safe for doing Jerky. It could be the Sultan is set for a high temp. If you have one, put a wired remote oven roast thermometer in it and see what temp it reaches.

Jasdip, depending on how heavily salted the water is, I'd be careful using it to proof the yeast. Doesn't salt damage yeast action? I'm not sure. (Oh Grainlady!) But yes, use potato water in your bread. Use it and powdered milk instead of milk and you'll add nutrition too. If you have a dehydrator, you can let the starch settle to the bottom and dehydrate it. Potato starch is expensive to buy and with the paranoia these days over corn starch it's a good substitute. Drain the water off and dehydrate the starch is time consuming but easy to do. (Mrs Volfie makes makes her own potato starch video) I get a kick out of a lot of her videos. Other uses for potato water: • Use it in pancakes, biscuits, breads, sweet rolls. • For people who have to water down their mashed potatoes (I want just potatoes personally, maybe a little butter), instead of draining it all and adding milk, use some of the potato water, and you can add dry milk to it. • Can use it as a broth. Add seasonings if you like and bring it to a boil, reduce it down a bit if you want, drink it or add it to recipes that need broth. FWIW, when making soups, stews, chili, I've been known to use water from cooking vegetables of most any kind. Plain old potato water... whodathunkit?

They worked fine. I ran at 125F for 8 hours in an Excalibur. Spot checking the next morning (yesterday) found a very few that were still pliable where they were lumped together. I ran it another 3 hours or so. Today, I emptied the trays. Both batches were very nice bright golden yellow, not quite as pretty as the original box I bought that gave me the idea to try to make my own. But they don't use the peels and I did. I like the peels. Well, I don't dislike them. Easier to leave them on and you retain all those nutrients. They're in 2 big ol' pretzel jars now waiting to be used. :-) Very happy with the results. For my $6 worth of potatoes, minus about 6 I kept out, plus electricity to bake, shred and dehydrate, I ended up with at least 4 times as many as the $6 worth of already dehydrated shreds I got originally. I didn't weigh them, but eyeballing them looks like 4 times as much. As for the frozen taters, I actually saw an "instructional" video online somewhere they were showing how to dehydrate shredded potatoes. They were starting with frozen shredded potatoes they bought. I don't think they even thawed them out. Just loaded the dehydrator. That was just weird to me to buy big bags of frozen potatoes to dehydrate when you get them home. Just buy them already dehydrated if you're not buying fresh raw potatoes. But if you grow your own and freeze them, then dehydrating those might not be so weird.