The Struggle for Meat After TEOTWAWKI

9223 Views 36 Replies 20 Participants Last post by ldsparamedic, Mar 29, 2011

DigitalSherpa

Discussion Starter · Mar 27, 2011

This is, perhaps, the best article I've read about procuring your own meat post-SHTF. The author goes into a brief overview of each of the critters he raises, their output and his thoughts on what would be required to sustain them without outside resources. It's a short article, approx 5-10 minutes to read.

http://www.survivalblog.com/2011/03/the_struggle_for_meat_after_te.html

Of particular interest is the bit about predators. It's easy to imagine that a bit of bad luck one night could easily spell disaster for your long term sustenance.

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Bavarian Raven

· #2 · Mar 27, 2011

interesting link, thanks for posting it.
i still say the best short term strategy will be to avoid meat (unless u can fish/hunt it), and live a vegan lifestyle until things "settle down" again. but to each their own. then once things are "calmer" return to a partial meat based diet.

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zayder06

· #3 · Mar 27, 2011

Check into raising rabbits for meat .....supposed to be more efficient than chickens

FarmerJohn

· #4 · Mar 27, 2011

honestly we eat alot more meat in our diets than we really need while mats provide protien and some neesesary amino acids you could cut it back to once a week if you had to

and if you want a abundant supply of meat plant some pecan trees you will have more squirrels than you know what to do with just stay stocked in 22lr

Reactions: 3

AncientBrit

· #5 · Mar 27, 2011

zayder06 said:
Check into raising rabbits for meat .....supposed to be more efficient than chickens

If you live off of rabbit meat then you will also need to find a source of fat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

liebrecht

· #6 · Mar 27, 2011

FWIW. Dexters usually produce 1-3 gallons of milk per day. Good milking lines can get up to 3-5. Their milk is very high in butterfat, approx. 4%. They are gentle cows, even the bulls. I do not even have a stanchion for mine, just a halter, lead and tie them to milk them. They were bred to produce meat for the family, enough milk for the calf and a surplus for the household. They stocking rate is 1/2-1 acre per, much much les than most dairy breeds. Dexter meat is usually lean and lower in cholesterol than other usual beef. The steaks are small tho<smile>. Basically a fantastic all around homestead cow.

Liebrecht

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DigitalSherpa

Discussion Starter · #7 · Mar 27, 2011

I was most impressed by how much work it would be to keep this effort up. Maintaining his small "farm" is a full time + job. In a SHTF scenario, he'd also have to deal with looters which would be a second full time job. And what happens when he needs to leave his property to travel, go to town, etc.? To top it all off, a pack of wild dogs could come in the night and wipe out everything you've worked for.

Are there other solutions that might take the place of this?

superdeluxe

· #8 · Mar 27, 2011

DigitalSherpa said:
I was most impressed by how much work it would be to keep this effort up. Maintaining his small "farm" is a full time + job. In a SHTF scenario, he'd also have to deal with looters which would be a second full time job. And what happens when he needs to leave his property to travel, go to town, etc.? To top it all off, a pack of wild dogs could come in the night and wipe out everything you've worked for.

Are there other solutions that might take the place of this?

Get a Bull llama. I've read that you put one llama with your goats/chickens/sheep whatever, and they have been known to kill coyotes that come to close.

Hick Industries

· #9 · Mar 27, 2011

Great article, but missing something.

DigitalSherpa said:
This is, perhaps, the best article I've read about procuring your own meat post-SHTF. The author goes into a brief overview of each of the critters he raises, their output and his thoughts on what would be required to sustain them without outside resources. It's a short article, approx 5-10 minutes to read.

http://www.survivalblog.com/2011/03/the_struggle_for_meat_after_te.html

Of particular interest is the bit about predators. It's easy to imagine that a bit of bad luck one night could easily spell disaster for your long term sustenance.

The time tested solution to protecting your livestock is confinement using well built fences, corrals, buildings, and large walled courtyards. Large grazing stock must be moved to pasture and watched all day, every day, then returned to the fenced area. Small stock is kept in fenced areas all day, every day.

I've seen the larged courtyards of some original Spanish missions built here in California. These buildings encompassed at least a full acre of land with gardens and orchards and a central well inside the walls. Livestock such as cattle and sheep were penned up inside at night. Chickens and turkeys were allowed to forage in the orchard, but not outside the walls.

The only thing you raised out side of your walled enclosure was pasture grass, forage for hay, nut trees, firewood, grains, and field crops.

Building a fence to keep out predators such as dogs and coyotes is not hard. Build it out of heavy woven fence, about 8 feet high, with barbed wire top and bottom. Dogs will inevitably try and dig when confronted with this barrier. Dig a trench and burry about a 2 foot of the wire under ground. Throw large rocks into the trench as you fill it, the result is a dog proof fence.

Keeping feral hogs, large cats (cougars), raccoons, and skunks is harder. I advise folks to trap out the local population of these critters.

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Meat Guy

· #10 · Mar 27, 2011

Electric fence and guard animals can help prevent losses from 4 legged predators.

Doginit

· #11 · Mar 27, 2011

Meat Guy said:
Electric fence and guard animals can help prevent losses from 4 legged predators.

Good idea Meat Guy. Consider deer fencing. It is 8' high and a single wire running underground that I have seen keep hogs out...for a while.
In fact, never even seen a full grown bull go through this type fencing...very strong.

The type fencing I use has the larger squares at the top and reduce down to very small squares at the bottom that keep even small varmits out.
Just do a search on deer fencing for pictures.

Doginit

Diddy

· #12 · Mar 27, 2011

Interesting and good article. Although there are some debatable notions in it...

The basic premise is correct. Putting the same amount of meat on your table will be virtually impossible. But at the same time we Americans eat far too much meat in our daily diets. It is not healthy and it's expensive. I started to reduce the amount of meat in my diet about a year ago. It's not been an easy thing for me to do. I use to be someone that would have meat as part of nearly every single meal I ate. I have cut back substantially and I'm healthier and leaner because of it.

I really agree with the article on having eggs. They are just to good not to have around and are fairly easy to have. But if you want to ensure your protein then it is best to stock it now. Canned meat, fish and sauces with meat are good ways along with nuts and beans of course. There are also enough squirrels around to be able to get a weekly supply of protein/meat in your diet. Just add it to some beans and rice and let it simmer.

We do not need meat to live. It's yummy and all but not necessary.

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nicktide

· #13 · Mar 27, 2011

superdeluxe said:
Get a Bull llama. I've read that you put one llama with your goats/chickens/sheep whatever, and they have been known to kill coyotes that come to close.

Donkeys are supposed to be a good guardien animal as well, but llike llamas you ar ebest keeping just one so they bond with the sheep and such.

The author also talks about a goose. They are great alarms like he says, and hawks tend to stay away from the chickens when their are larger animals around. Guinea hens will sound the alarm as well, my birds are currently at my neighbors, and I can sneak past the dogs if they are in their dog houses, but I cant get near the geese or guineas without a ruckus. I would recommend geese over dogs since they are less likely to give away your position to someone miles away. Also, geese never seem to sleep. The rooster and hens will let you grab them right off their perch if its dark out, but the geese will let everyone know that someone is there.

As for feeding the animals, look into comfrey and sunchoke (jurusalem artichoke). I just got my comfrey last year and my sunchoke hasnt arrived yet but I have read amazing things about both plants. The sunchoke is actually a perennial sunflower that has a high protien content. the tubers are eaten like potatoes and the stalks make great hay. Research them both if this interests you. Geese can live off of good pasture with a little supplimenting in winter. Wheat seems to be the best here. Rabbits can live off of grass clipping. Notice I said live, not multiply and give you meat. adding some clovers or alfalfa hay to their diet is key. Adding grain would be good as well. I have taken my rabbits almost completely off of pellets. They are expensive, and it is too much alfalfa in it for year round consumption. They had so much calcium from the pellets that their trays were coated in calcium from their urine. I also started moving them off of pellets so that when shtf, I wont have to wean them off of it. Right now their feed is about 1/3 pellets and their hay is seperate. Some rabbits eat majority of their diet in timothy hay, that means their pellet intake is very low. Sorry so winded, but I have researched this subject a lot.

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DigitalSherpa

Discussion Starter · #14 · Mar 28, 2011

Hick Industries said:
Building a fence to keep out predators such as dogs and coyotes is not hard. Build it out of heavy woven fence, about 8 feet high, with barbed wire top and bottom. Dogs will inevitably try and dig when confronted with this barrier. Dig a trench and burry about a 2 foot of the wire under ground. Throw large rocks into the trench as you fill it, the result is a dog proof fence.

.

Not hard? For an acre of land that looks like a couple of weeks worth of work, minimum for one person. Digging the 660 foot trench, procuring the rocks to fill it with, procuring the lumber to build the fence, etc. would be both expensive and time consuming. If you had to do this on your own using only hand tools post-shtf it would be extremely difficult given that you'd have to juggle other tasks and responsibilities as well as find and carry all the materials.

I love the idea, but this sounds like a prep that shouldn't be put off.

Reactions: 1

Hick Industries

· #15 · Mar 28, 2011

DigitalSherpa said:
Not hard? For an acre of land that looks like a couple of weeks worth of work, minimum for one person. Digging the 660 foot trench, procuring the rocks to fill it with, procuring the lumber to build the fence, etc. would be both expensive and time consuming. If you had to do this on your own using only hand tools post-shtf it would be extremely difficult given that you'd have to juggle other tasks and responsibilities as well as find and carry all the materials.

I love the idea, but this sounds like a prep that shouldn't be put off.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Building such a fence is not hard today when I have a pto auger and front bucket on my tractor, a decent cement mixer, and I can rent a backhoe for a day. It would be a grueling two week long job to do the same work by hand.

This is equally true about many of the necessary tasks needed to build a self sufficient farm or ranch. Anyone who wants to buy land and build their piece of heaven should get busy.

Reactions: 2

kev

· #16 · Mar 28, 2011

DigitalSherpa said:
meat after shtf

Pick up the book called "Life in a medieval village" by Frances Gies, Joseph Gies. Starting on page 93 the authors discuss the diet of the average medieval peasant.

For meat - pork, duck, chicken, and fish. Its not really the "meat", but the fat. You can eat all the rabbit meat you want, and your body will be starved for fat.

If you want meat, pigs are best, as the meat is easier to preserve and their high reproduction rate. Cows are of little use - as the time it takes to preserve the meat.

Meat - pigs and goats
Milk and cheese - cows and goats

Beans, especially pinto beans fill an important roll because of their protein content.

FarmerJohn

· #17 · Mar 28, 2011

kev said:
Pick up the book called "Life in a medieval village" by Frances Gies, Joseph Gies. Starting on page 93 the authors discuss the diet of the average medieval peasant.

For meat - pork, duck, chicken, and fish. Its not really the "meat", but the fat. You can eat all the rabbit meat you want, and your body will be starved for fat.

If you want meat, pigs are best, as the meat is easier to preserve and their high reproduction rate. Cows are of little use - as the time it takes to preserve the meat.

Meat - pigs and goats
Milk and cheese - cows and goats

Beans, especially pinto beans fill an important roll because of their protein content.

YouTube - Thoughts on hunting post shtf

I would be suprised if hogs could be wiped out there tryin in alot of rural places and failing miserably lol

boiledfrog

· #18 · Mar 28, 2011

Most of the livestock we breed today have had their survival traits bread out of them. I'd love to have a herd of Milking Devons in the back pasture. I've looked online to find hardy breeds of goats and chickens, but up till now it has been about the most meat, eggs, or milk. Not about being able to survive on what they can scavenge. Ya kinda like all our kids. My 6 year old grandson can run a computer better than me, but he is terrified of the Banty roster.

Reactions: 1

andersed

· #19 · Mar 28, 2011

Maybe i read that wrong, but a calf every 18 months from each cow? Is that specific to the dexter breed? My cows get preggers every year, if they don't, they get sold.
Also, if you have a milk cow, don't wait until you have to to learn to milk, and teach the cow to milk.

kev

· #20 · Mar 28, 2011

FarmerJohn said:
I would be suprised if hogs could be wiped out there tryin in alot of rural places and failing miserably lol

Its going to be almost impossible to wipe hogs out, mainly due to them eating everything and they breed like rats.

One of the things noted in "Life in a medieval village", was that pigs could take care of themselves, while cattle needed to be tended to.

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