He has 7 acres, approximately 1 acre is enough for a cow (depending on breed, and if memory serves) to produce 5 gallons of milk a day! If a cow dies, the amount of meat you can harvest from it, while limited, is quite significant - depending on the size of your family could feed you for quite a while. A whole cow is roughly 450lbs of meat! Ideally, you'd have more than a few cows. You can grow corn and/or raise crickets to supplement the chickens diet. You can trade with other farmers in your area for feed as well. Community is important as
roydamnmercer
said.
FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY
this good information!!!He has 7 acres, approximately 1 acre is enough for a cow (depending on breed, and if memory serves) to produce 5 gallons of milk a day! If a cow dies, the amount of meat you can harvest from it, while limited, is quite significant - depending on the size of your family could feed you for quite a while. A whole cow is roughly 450lbs of meat! Ideally, you'd have more than a few cows. You can grow corn and/or raise crickets to supplement the chickens diet. You can trade with other farmers in your area for feed as well. Community is important as
Obviously, you should build a secure chicken coup to control when your chickens are ranging and when they are not, so you're not pulling guard duty 24/7, there are plenty of methods for this.
A simple fence is enough to keep your animals where you want them. There are all kinds of simple perimeter alarms/booby traps you can make that don't require electricity or any special equipment, to provide an early warning if something crosses the perimeter you've set. At that point you simply stop what you're doing and respond to the threat, with whatever force is required. Wandering house pets are not gonna be as big a problem as you may think if people are starving - look at historical examples of famine and you'll the house pet is usually the last meal when there's no food left.
Yes, farming requires an investment of time and labor (what doesn't?) but, after you get it going it doesn't require as much as you'd think - not as much as digging a pond in your yard but, it's not a bad idea, if you want to go ahead but, leaving your homestead to go to a lake is a bad idea. All the other starving and, unprepared will be visiting those same bodies of water with the same idea. Speaking of predators, look at any nature show - where does the predator stalk his prey? The watering hole! It's an open area where they know their prey must go - the perfect location for an ambush!
That's a lot of risk and potentially spent time and energy (if you're walking) to go to a high danger area for an inferior food source - fish are a low fat, low calorie food, high in heavy metals and other toxins as mentioned (and possibly even more toxic after a societal breakdown, because of more pollution), and while you might survive on fish alone, you'd be under-performing to say the least - when you could have a superior food source at home, without having to leave YOUR comparatively safe area, that YOU have control over.
Of course, there are a lot of what ifs in any given SHTF scenario and, while you can what if it to death all day long, OP's question was specific to building on what he already has, and "General preparedness, skills to have, renewable resources to focus on", which is a smart and realistic way to look at it.
While fishing my be enjoyable to some, it's not the best way to get food for the reasons I mentioned. Most of our ancestors were farmers, not fishermen, for a reason. Farming is a good skill to have regardless of what SHTF scenario you can dream up because it's a good skill to have right now - just look at the price and availability of eggs, milk, butter, cheese, cream, etc. - farming will help you save money right now on those items without having to set foot in a store, and if you have a surplus of those items, you can help your neighbors save money buy selling to them NOW, simultaneously building community while things are relatively stable. Trying to build community after people are at each other's throats is not going to work nearly as well.
If you want to focus on general preparedness look at what your needs are in daily life and work towards having the skills and abilities needed to consistently meet those needs sustainably (that means as many skills related to food production/preservation as possible), for not only yourself and your family but, also your community. Work towards making yourself valuable, not just a burden and people will not only want to kill you a lot less, they might even want to help you.
Just another reason why community is so important. That's what community and alarms are for, if the enemy is already on your doorstep, you've failed. It's about securing your whole community, first and foremost. Not everyone will be a fighter but, everyone no matter how young or old, can be a watcher and a source of information. Add radios to the list for that reason. Comms are another important part of early warning - example, "hey, we have reports of hood rats in the area", send out a recon/ambush patrol, etc! I assume OP being airborne infantry doesn't need any clarification on that.
That’s a great answer but I’ll add this…effective comms without an electrical supply should be considered too. I’ve got something everyone in the community can hear and if and when that scenario happens, they would know what to do when they hear the Methhead Detector 3000 activated
I like it!That’s a great answer but I’ll add this…effective comms without an electrical supply should be considered too. I’ve got something everyone in the community can hear and if and when that scenario happens, they would know what to do when they hear the Methhead Detector 3000 activated
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