Probably one of the most complicated areas of sustainable living we run into today is the planning, keeping and providing for livestock, not only now but long after this slow slide continues and becomes worse.
Many a prepper or homesteader keep livestock of some type but how many out there truly have made plans or secured the skills and resources needed to provide for that livestock self sufficiently? How many have figured out how much pasture they will need when the time comes that baled hay is no longer a phone call away for delivery? How many have the means to grow their own grain crops to sustain the livestock they own when the local feed store is no longer in business?
Not to say having more livestock now than you can permanently keep in a grid down situation is a bad thing but a Sustainer will generally know how much of that stock he or she can keep on their own and plans for dealing with the excess when the time comes.
As has been noted a few sustainer types can get around these considerations by being located near vast naturally occurring areas of animal production like oceans, lakes or rivers for fish or perhaps even extremely remote areas for hunting. Personally I wouldn't rely on hunting too much seeing how far wildlife numbers dropped in North America in the early 1900's but fish maybe a solid substitute for keeping your own stock.
Keeping livestock sustainably becomes once again a numbers game. How much grain of what type? How much hay is needed depending on the local conditions and what you can get yourself? Factor in how the local hay crop will degrade over time without liquid fertilizers. Learn to use a scythe. Have a pasture rotation system in place.
Overall these considerations become much more complicated than simply figuring out how many bean plants need to go into the ground or how many fruit trees we may need. The figures for keeping livestock sustainably will include all those calculations plus much more.
We do have one real advantage in keeping livestock after a collapse however. For the most part keeping livestock off of the roadways will not be as much of a problem as it is now which means a lot of wasted ground will become open for grazing.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!
It gets complicated real fast when you just think about what things have been bought at a farm store over the last year and how you would deal with not having access to them. I know one thing, we will be eating less meat as I don't have enough man power to provide winter feed for very many animals. A pedal power grain cleaner and thresher would be needed for making chicken feed.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVcOOJXKjYw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQxDc1ey0Mw
I experimented this year and have been feeding wheat to steers and chickens without this equipment but to store the grain it needs to be processed. Of course a small mill if you want to make flour. I am thinking that an acre of grain would be a good experiment if you have that much land to devote. Dogs can run loose and eat the animals that eat crops so not much dog food will be needed.
Sf - Yes I have been giving some thought to that as well. Most of the grain does need a little processing. As for dogs and cats fending for themselves I wonder if that will work as well as we think though and if it might place stock like chickens in more danger.
DeleteThe sea is a wonderful resource, however I would be leery of eating out of the Pacific for some time. A few days after it became apparent that Fukishima was toast; I took the family out for all you can eat seafood, since it had been shipped before the disaster. The only fish we have had since is fish we caught ourselves in ponds and lakes. I'd probably eat out of the Atlantic but not the Pacific and unless you catch it there is no certainty to origin. I'm no expert but I would think Strontium-90 is the big concern. It is atomicly similar to Calcium and your body will probably treat it as Calcium. Not good. Also on fish see this:
ReplyDeletehttp://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/The-US-Fears-the-World-will-Discover-its-Big-Nuclear-Secret.html
Best,
Dan
Dan - Of course you are right there. I was assuming the resources were not tainted and unable to be used.
DeleteI plan to feed my chickens from the copious amounts of corn I will grow...... or get from others here if I have to, since corn is everywhere.
ReplyDeleteHarry - Don't forget you will need to crack it before it can be fed :)
DeleteNo worries. I have a grain mill. We've made chicken feed before by buying whole corn and cracking in the mill. I wouldn't want to do it often though because it's hard on the leg muscles. My mill has provisions for hooking it up to a bike, I should go ahead and get that set up.
DeleteThat appears to be a bit of a myth... if you are clipping their beaks like the large concentrated feeding operations, absolutely, the corn needs cracked. But I've read other homesteaders have no problems with uncracked corn, and I haven't in the week or so since I switched. Indeed, they seem to prefer it.
DeleteHowever, their all-time favorite is a compost pile that has cooled down enough for bugs to get into. Mine love to tear those apart.
I just bought hay and ivomec. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteSoinner - LOL. Well at least you have some stored and on hand :)
DeleteWhat did people feed chickens before farm stores? What did they feed cattle? I am curious. Could we just end up with leaner production animals? Only raising what you can eat in a year I would guess
ReplyDeleteLongtime Wife - Well they used to feed all kinds of stuff we don't automatically think of as feed today. The grain you grow yourself in many ways will also need to be processed a bit to use as feed. Like I mentioned though the real advantage is that without all these cars and trucks zooming around you can use a lot more land to graze on we can't use now.
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