An apocolypse herd/flock

[centrarchid]

Squishy, your train of thought is like that of a biologist with common sense. I have had similar discussions with my students trying to impress upon them that many breeds kept to day are higher maintenance and lack the ability to thrive on lower quality forages of their ancestors, even though sometimes breeds appear to be the same. Another key concern how many acres is required per animal. This varies with season, locality and often with management system employed. What type of grazing system and what kind of protection from elements are also factors influencing forage abundance and nutritional requirments. All said and done, one needs to estimate much lower production levels than typical with importations (to farm) of feeds, fertilizers and energy today.

 

[dawnwinds58]

perchie.girl :

Quote:
it is a form of food preservation by allowing it to ferment or "sour" under controlled conditions. Traditional Sauerkraut is an example.

Salting and pickling are definately forms of preservation. Look at KimChee, Sauerkraut... Sauerkraut is very interesting stuff. Its only made with salt. As well as Fermentation. Cheese making is a way to preserve milk. And Many cultures ferment milk to make an alcaholic drink.

FWIW The second step in fermentation is Vinegar. The first step is alcahol. Both purified (distilled) can be used as antescepic. Many of us know the value of Vinegar its something that should be on that list of need to knows in a post apocolypic world. both can be used as preservatives both can be used to "clean" things.... Vinegar is actually alot better because its an acid that PH is excellent for killing microorganisms and molds. Alcahol not as much.

The other thing to use for preserving food and or making food edible is alkali. Native americans discovered that corn soaked in water made from the ashes of their fires was more nutritios. Those ash soaked corn kernals turn blue. Wood ash water distilled down becomes Lye. Lye and animal fat can be used to make soap. Dont know how much of each. I believe it also has applications in tanninng leather but Id have to do some digging to be sure.

Lye can be used to Turn Olives edible Dad and I could strip one Olive tree in about two hours and get eighty gallons of olives With the use of lye to remove the bitterness and finally Vinegar to nutralize the lye. Believe it or not after we were done we had to beat our friends and family off for a Jar of olives. (once the vinegar has done its job these olives are only mildly acidic).

Its also used for reconstituting dried corn to an edible kernel.... Homony. Very very interesting process Most of us are familiar with Grits. Grits that are made from homony... are different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominy​

I raise Hopi Blue corn for cornmeal and you can't beat my grandkids off the blue cornbread. Red Bloody Butcher is my popcorn, also a Native American Heritage seed. Old Hickory King white is for the stock, 8 ft stalks and all, think it maybe 17-1800s somewhere, but hard to catch in milk stage for roasting ears. It will make meal and grits in a pinch though.

Please use caution with lye, it can burn, blind, and eat flesh!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Hence my original statement sometime back. You shouldnt keep what you cant feed without supplementation. Here in the desert I would probably have a difficult time keeping Poultry at all. Except maybe Guineas. The only Equid that thrives in this country is in the Ass family. There are a few places up here that have perminent pasture but those are already in use.

 

[KristyHall]

perchie.girl :

Quote:
Hence my original statement sometime back. You shouldnt keep what you cant feed without supplementation. Here in the desert I would probably have a difficult time keeping Poultry at all. Except maybe Guineas. The only Equid that thrives in this country is in the Ass family. There are a few places up here that have perminent pasture but those are already in use.

agreed. It is why I am carefully researching what cattle and sheep i want before buying. I had though zebu but I want them to be able to forage in winter and zebu need to be protected from the cold, so I am looking at the Guinea Florida Cracker cow. It is a great forager, and being in Alabama, it will be suited for my area better.

I am looking for lines of sheep that are being bred to perform without constant worming. Even the hardier katahdin often need to be wormed to thrive.

I do not shoe my horses, and they rarely need their hooves trimmed. They forage well in the forest while maintaining good weight and health, almost never need worming, and have given me a great respect for good hardy horse lines that are not bred to rely purely on hay and grain.​

 

[centrarchid]

In respect to parasite resistance, one of my co-workers will be developing a line of goats with increased parasite (barber worm I think) resistance as a way to reduce need for worming. If understanding correct, then efforts will be founded at least impart using a New Zealand breed of some sort.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

perchie.girl :

Quote:
Hence my original statement sometime back. You shouldnt keep what you cant feed without supplementation. Here in the desert I would probably have a difficult time keeping Poultry at all. Except maybe Guineas. The only Equid that thrives in this country is in the Ass family. There are a few places up here that have perminent pasture but those are already in use.

Yep! Thus my original train of thought that most of my animal protein would be coming from the local wildlife population!

I have half a mind to go out and gather up all the feral rabbit stock from local populations that I can find and ditch my fancy rabbits "heritage" meat rabbits. As far as poultry, I started out with an itch to acquire all kinds of fancy heritage dual purpose chickens, and now I'm down to collecting the hardiest, best laying barn yard crosses from established local flocks. Everything I get and keep will be selected for hardiness, thriftiness and resiliency from established and proven local populations. This is very important for any more extreme climate or situation. Without hay and grains, hoofstock won't be able to make it up here, as much as I wish that wasn't the case. Even if they did, they probably would not produce enough milk on the local fare to feed their young and me. We'd just have to go back to relying mostly on nature for meat and protein, and luckily that's not too bad here. Still lots of fish (though a good deal of it may be irradiated now!) and large and small game.

Check out this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1721584909067928384#

That's kind of my idea of what we are likely facing, in essence. Now, there's a lot of socialist and communist drift in that that I don't agree with, but the things about the rapid evolution of diet and agrarian-based economy is something I found useful and can easily see happening in the US in varying degrees within the next several years if things continue on their current path.

Anything you have that is fuel-intensive, including animals that eat food that requires mechanized farming, will become obsolete.​

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
Hence my original statement sometime back. You shouldnt keep what you cant feed without supplementation. Here in the desert I would probably have a difficult time keeping Poultry at all. Except maybe Guineas. The only Equid that thrives in this country is in the Ass family. There are a few places up here that have perminent pasture but those are already in use.

Yep! Thus my original train of thought that most of my animal protein would be coming from the local wildlife population!

I have half a mind to go out and gather up all the feral rabbit stock from local populations that I can find and ditch my fancy rabbits "heritage" meat rabbits. As far as poultry, I started out with an itch to acquire all kinds of fancy heritage dual purpose chickens, and now I'm down to collecting the hardiest, best laying barn yard crosses from established local flocks. Everything I get and keep will be selected for hardiness, thriftiness and resiliency from established and proven local populations. This is very important for any more extreme climate or situation. Without hay and grains, hoofstock won't be able to make it up here, as much as I wish that wasn't the case. Even if they did, they probably would not produce enough milk on the local fare to feed their young and me. We'd just have to go back to relying mostly on nature for meat and protein, and luckily that's not too bad here. Still lots of fish (though a good deal of it may be irradiated now!) and large and small game.

Check out this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1721584909067928384#

That's kind of my idea of what we are likely facing, in essence. Now, there's a lot of socialist and communist drift in that that I don't agree with, but the things about the rapid evolution of diet and agrarian-based economy is something I found useful and can easily see happening in the US in varying degrees within the next several years if things continue on their current path.

Anything you have that is fuel-intensive, including animals that eat food that requires mechanized farming, will become obsolete.

Wildlife would be decimated in a week or two. My area which is not all that densely populated by humans would wipe out everything bigger than a wood rate in a week. Not enough wildlife to support human population now.

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
I wish I could find a good breeder doing the same with hair sheep. I have heard rumors of some but ever lead I have looked into peters out. I am a big fan of hair sheep, and I'm crazy over lamb, sheep cheese, and just the personality of the silly things.

 

[perchie.girl]

Also another thing to remember the first year or two will be the hardest. Stored food will be the most reliable. Because a collaps will cause the human population to thin. Extensively. There will be disease.

Its estimated that if we get an EM pulse like from a major Solar Flair that all water stops pumping for the cities. Collaps of infrastructure will be devistating. The only places in the world that will go on status quo will be third world countries. Because they know how to live with a very limited infrastructure.

 

[just2rosey]

Quote:
I did some research and people who are lactose intolerant can drink raw cows milk being lactose intolerant comes from the pasteurizing process there is no real lactose in raw milk only pasteurized milk. I wish I had the study but its saved on the computer that died. I did a Google search about raw milk Maybe something for you to look into.

That is very interesting, I grew up drinking fresh cows milk, the neighbor had a couple of jersey cows. I miss fresh, real cows milk. My kids and I all developed the intolerence within a one year span. I often felt like it had something to do with either the cow's diet or the processing, as the symptoms would come and go, were very erratic. I will check into this, thanks!