Video HERE scrolled ahead to the important discussion regarding why post-SHTF Belorus homesteads are almost devoid of livestock.
The woman who is talking has a vlog and she lives in Belorus. NOBODY visited her site until the current unpleasantness and then suddenly she was getting thousands of hits a day based keywords "Ukraine, Russia, Belorus"
In an earlier video she commented that the rural homesteads that used to have many kinds of livestock have essentially be depopulated of those animals.
Many viewers sent in comments asking "Why?".
I want to elaborate on her answer.
The youngest livestock, week-old calves, colts and young pigs require human-quality food to survive. A very young calf does not have a fully developed rumen and cannot digest grass.
A fully weaned calf is expensive and it is tempting to buy a new-born calf. In many cases the owner of the cow is happy to sell because that leaves him/her more milk to turn into cheese or sell.
The calf has the instinct to try to eat grass. It looks like it is eating grass but its digestive system has not developed to the point where it can extract enough nutrients from the grass to survive. BAM! Seven days later it is too weak to stand up.
Other factors might involve diseases, parasites and lack of micronutrients. Fifty pound blocks of trace-mineralized salt-blocks will not be highest on the list of items to distribute if the economy implodes.
Additionally, facilities fall down. Barns and chicken pens do not last forever. Skills are lost.
Smaller livestock does still exist on Belorus homesteads but not in previous numbers. For one reason, those chickens, turkeys, duck and geese used to tear apart cow flops looking for undigested grain and for insect larvae. The nutrition that escaped the cow on the first pass through becomes nutrition for the poultry. The fancy name for the phenomena is "trophic cascade".
ERJ, 150 years ago or so, this would have been relatively common knowledge, at least or at least one generation removed. We are now in a place where we believe biologic systems to be the equivalent of the mechanical and electronic systems we currently have: we just put in a new component, right?
ReplyDeleteRe Predators: In the US we are pretty spoiled in that feral dogs are, at least to my limited knowledge, not a problem (yet). Depending on where you are, other predators can be. Again, unfortunately, modern media has informed us that the wild kingdom is much like Zootopia or Ice Age: animals all sensible and getting along together in rational thought. In reality - as the ever pity late Gene Logsdon put it - "Mother Nature could just as well be called Old B(*!% Nature".
In the Carter years my family had a ranch in eastern Washington. It became normal to keep night watch with a rifle due to predations of feral pet dogs, dropped off in the country as so the nice farmers could feed "Fluffy".
ReplyDeleteThey were far more dangerous than the coyotes as they had NO FEAR of humans and would do the distraction thing with one cute doggie while the pack jumped you from behind. I still have a scar on my calf from such an event. I still hate rabies shots.
That day I found a tube fed semi-auto Sears 22 wasn't enough to stop them all. Glad my Aunt showed up with a pump shotgun to help.
And America is under leadership described by Isaiah chapter 3.
Michael - Thank you for the information on feral dogs. Totally makes sense (I know this from other bloggers that have cats dumped in the same manner). At my parent's place it is local dogs that owners will not keep on their property that tends to be the problem.
DeleteNot to mention that most commercial breeds don't do well without commercial feed. We try to get livestock that are smaller and can survive and thrive on low quality feed for those days when the feed store might not exist.
ReplyDeleteArthur - We have had a loss of genetic diversity and low input livestock (e.g., what are now considered "rare breeds). There is a book from the 1990's of the same name which chronicles breeds of all kinds of livestock (cattle, sheep, pigs, fowl) from the UK that were considered livestock and endangered. These are often the sort of breeds that do well regionally but not necessarily globally or were considered more marginal products (but perfect for low inputs).
DeleteI suspect that adding anything post SHTF will be difficult, not just livestock. As alluded to, we are more likely to be losing assets and facilities than gaining them...
ReplyDeletesomething slightly related, not livestock but shtf
ReplyDeleteshort version - research e-bikes and solar panels
longer version - Management and I had a two day daytrip to Berlin OH, heart of the Amish country
we drove backroads, as expected but still interesting to see roads with *no* utility poles, lines, even buried copper
but multiple houses with solar panels
what skewed my reality was e-bikes. They. Were. Everywhere. two wheels, two wheels with panniers, three wheels, some towing little cargo carriers.
did not see a 'normal' bike at all
I was in the area some 5-7 years ago and bikes were human powered then. so this was a relatively fast sea-change
Amish got their own thing goin' but I never expected e-bikes
Toird beat me to it. This is what happens when 'real world knowledge' is lost in the mists of time and 'assumptions' are made based on current knowledge... sigh
ReplyDeleteSalt in general seems to be an undervalued resource. When I was growing up I'd hear people say another day in the salt mines. Since where I grew up was kind of thought of as coal country, this tended to confuse me. It bothers my wife that whenever I make a grocery run I always return with a large container of one kind of salt or another. I tell her its insurance. She just thinks it's another sign of me being nuts.
ReplyDeleteWe're adding them now. Shoulda done chickens this spring.
ReplyDeleteWaiting until everything has gone to hell in a handbasket to start raising livestock is a recipe for failure. It's a complicated endeavor....one best learned BEFORE it's needed for survival. And best learned from an old fart who has been raising livestock for decades. Not all the important facts can be found in books.
ReplyDelete