Stock Raising

First, this bit that's also on my patreon:

Elephants

There exists contention that the Indian elephant is necessarily more sagacious or tractible than the African variety. Those animals first encountered by Alexander were no doubt the former—but we can assure that the elephants led by Hannibal and Jugurtha were undoubtedly African. The failure of the elephant’s popularity in the west, and its lack of effectiveness in war, more likely comes from an inexperienced and deficient training of African elephants, compare with the proficient tradition that existed in Asia, especially Thailand, for thousands of years. In any case, the details given below are for Indian elephants.

Domesticated elephants are not raised from infancy, as they become unmanageable in the intervening years before adulthood, a period that’s better managed by the herd rather than by trainers. It’s best to capture a young adult elephant from the wild, when it’s about the age of 8 to 12. It weighs about 3½ tons, between 8 and 9 ft. at the shoulder and 10 ft. at the back. As it matures to an age of 35 to 40, it can grow to be as much as a full fifth larger.

A quick run-down of where I am.  So far, about 15,000 words written on various animals, most of which have been referenced on past days on patreon.  As can be seen from the above, I'm making an effort to be all inclusive ... and just in case anyone wonders, I am including information on some unreal domesticated animals, specifically dire wolves, worgs, hippogriffs and oliphaunts.  I know, I know, I said that I wouldn't be including magic in the book, but these things won't be treated magically.  They'll be treated just as though they are real animals, with real problems in their training and maintenance.  I trust the reader is surprised at the depth and breadth of the subject material, far surpassing anything I've seen on these subjects.  Even at that, there are huge swaths of material I could add, that I'm not for the sake of space.

The pages also include 80+ things that can be bought, none of which are wools, hair, meats, skins, hides, bones, bristles, ivory and whatnot.  These are pushed to other parts of the book, where they can be compared and addressed according to another setting.  The products I've included thus far are specifically those that can be bought in a stockyard or a kennel.  There are 11 kinds of horse and 5 kinds of dog, to give an idea what I'm going for.

I apologise for being a one-trick pony at the moment.  Juggling the book and my job over the weekend was taxing; I'm finally back to a normal balance and it's likely to stay that way for a while (but there are always surprises).  The book continues to be on schedule nonetheless, with 31 eight-by-eleven two-column pages written in 31 days.  It's first draft of course and needs editing, though I've glanced over it and in general the work is about the same level as the previews I've provided (which were also first draft).  Nothing would please me better than to have the principle writing done by mid-July.  Though, to be honest, that seems hard to conceive.

If you find I've skipped a day putting up a patreon snippet, it's because I didn't write that day.  Anything I do put up will be something I did write that day, so you can see how far I'm going.  To finish animals, I just have the war elephant, oliphaunt and hippogriff to do ... and then it's fish before getting started on foodstuffs.

Lots and lots of fish.  But I need prices for fish before I can figure out prices for fish stores and dishes, as well as fish oil, just as I need prices for animals before I can calculate meat, leather and so on.

I'm here, I'm working, I'm showing that I'm working ... it's all I can do.  There'll be five more preview pages for those who donate $10 to my patreon each month.

Incidentally, I'm identified that there are 8 people who contribute that much every month who aren't included in the $10 tier list.  There must be something that has to be clicked on patreon for it to recognise you as a tier lister.  I don't know what that is, but you might be sure you're on that list.  I still don't know why some contributors have no problem while others cannot access material.