by careinke » Sun 02 Mar 2014, 15:43:56
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'S')haved Monkey, once we lived in a tiny farm town, 20 houses, 16 house-trailers and a small commercial pig sty. It was a one-acre paddock by a stream. It must have been nice for the pigs to wallow, especially in the summer. But the stank filled the entire town on some days. (They were a lot of pigs.) And my sister-in-law back in PA bred piglets for the 4-H, but that didn't smell apparently. Must of kept it clean. I never saw pigs in a normal situation, like we are talking about, just for family food. Thanks for the info. I'll probably check in to it more.
I've raised three sets of pigs. They were a lot of fun, and I made sure they only had one bad day. Pretty smart too. If I do another set, I may train them to kneel down in front of me when I bring the 22 out. I can already visualize the PETA Fatwa going out on my ass.
Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)
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by Loki » Sun 02 Mar 2014, 19:22:26
Pigs are herd animals, a single pig would be very lonely. They're also not going to get much of their feed from clearing blackberries etc., especially from an area that small, you will need to feed them proper ration.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'I')f I do another set, I may train them to kneel down in front of me when I bring the 22 out. I can already visualize the PETA Fatwa going out on my ass.
With an attitude like that towards your livestock, maybe you should stick with growing plants.
A garden will make your rations go further.
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by careinke » Sun 02 Mar 2014, 23:06:23
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'P')igs are herd animals, a single pig would be very lonely. They're also not going to get much of their feed from clearing blackberries etc., especially from an area that small, you will need to feed them proper ration.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'I')f I do another set, I may train them to kneel down in front of me when I bring the 22 out. I can already visualize the PETA Fatwa going out on my ass.
With an attitude like that towards your livestock, maybe you should stick with growing plants.
Why? I'm going to kill them anyway, this would be a lot less stress on them, plus I shoot them right where they need to be for dressing out. BTW, when you kill several pigs at the same time it does not seem to faze them when they see their sibling killed. My pigs always lived a much better life than the crap you buy in the store.
I agree you definitely need to raise more than one at a time. Same goes for goats, cats (rodent control, not eating), chickens, and cows. Two or more is always easier than one. Breeding age rabbits is another story, they need to be kept separate or they will kill each other.
Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)
by Shaved Monkey » Mon 03 Mar 2014, 08:03:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'P')igs are herd animals, a single pig would be very lonely. They're also not going to get much of their feed from clearing blackberries etc., especially from an area that small, you will need to feed them proper ration.
Agree but this was an example of someone living a very simple subsistence lifestyle.
They only had the resources and need to fatten one pig for the family to last for the whole year.
Surprisingly they chose male pigs because they get fatter quicker.
Were most pigs raised now days are female because the meat is sweeter.
Size, speed of growth and fat and survival was more important than taste
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by Narz » Mon 03 Mar 2014, 20:17:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I')'m nowhere near self-sufficient but I am far less dependent that the average city mouse
City, rural, suburban, we're all equally dependent for the most part & cities are far easier to maintain & more ecologically viable than far-flung rural areas. For example heating a large apartment building is much easier than heating 100 separate houses, transporting food to a central urban location easier than to 100 separate grocery stores in the boonies, etc.
If NYC falls the whole world will far (except maybe some uncontacted Brazilian tribe off in the bush somewhere).
“Seek simplicity but distrust it”
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by Narz » Mon 03 Mar 2014, 20:18:56
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'W')hile total self sufficiency is a hard and perhaps needless goal to obtain it is worthwhile to try to be self sufficient at something. To be able to grow or raise some of your own food lets you be free of total dependency on the market, whether super or farmers. If you can produce "some food" today if push came to shove you could ramp it up if needed tomorrow. If you have never weeded a garden or hilled up a row of potatoes your going to stave if the shelves at the market go bare.
Perhaps gardening isn't your thing, then you need some other skill that you can swap for food from the local gardening buff. Can you do your own carpentry? Plumbing? wiring? Or maybe your just good at cutting and delivering firewood to the houses of people that can swap you their skill or produce for it. Doctors ,nurses and dentists will always have something in demand as well as that pretty thing down by the lamp post , buy what is your plan?
I agree, being free from others in certain ways is very satisfying.
“Seek simplicity but distrust it”
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by Newfie » Mon 03 Mar 2014, 23:35:33
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I')'m nowhere near self-sufficient but I am far less dependent that the average city mouse
City, rural, suburban, we're all equally dependent for the most part & cities are far easier to maintain & more ecologically viable than far-flung rural areas. For example heating a large apartment building is much easier than heating 100 separate houses, transporting food to a central urban location easier than to 100 separate grocery stores in the boonies, etc.
If NYC falls the whole world will far (except maybe some uncontacted Brazilian tribe off in the bush somewhere).
I'm probably not up to making this argument but I think this is only true through a trickery of accounting. Yes IF You assume that city and rural both live off prepared food sources and do desk work. City food MUST be transported but the small rural farmer can grow his own. IIRC ( from the Omnivores Dilemma) a city garden salad of 100 cal requires 1,200 cal of energy to produce and deliver to your plate. The rural farmer can do it for far less.
The average city worker drives something like a half hour each way, consuming a few gallons of gas, with no productive output. Condo dwellers either per walk or use transit. Transit is only marginally better than a car, and very few walk. Our cities are just not set up to house the working population.
The city worker requires an office building with bathrooms, elevators, doormen, roads, transit systems, fire, water, etc. just to go to work. The farmer steps out of his house. The city worker takes land out of useful production by having an office and paving over farmland for roads, parking lots, airports, tracks, etc.
The city worker has at the end of the day created nothing tangible. No product, no good, no value added. He has run adds argued lawsuits, balanced ledgers, filled forms, checked you through security, held prisoners in jail. These are mostly make work projects to kill time and allow us to think of lives have meaning. The farmer grows food.
by Loki » Tue 04 Mar 2014, 00:18:55
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'P')igs are herd animals, a single pig would be very lonely. They're also not going to get much of their feed from clearing blackberries etc., especially from an area that small, you will need to feed them proper ration.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'I')f I do another set, I may train them to kneel down in front of me when I bring the 22 out. I can already visualize the PETA Fatwa going out on my ass.
With an attitude like that towards your livestock, maybe you should stick with growing plants.
Why? I'm going to kill them anyway, this would be a lot less stress on them, plus I shoot them right where they need to be for dressing out. BTW, when you kill several pigs at the same time it does not seem to faze them when they see their sibling killed. My pigs always lived a much better life than the crap you buy in the store.
I don't know man, that just rubbed me the wrong way. Sorry for the snarky remark.
In my experience, hogs are definitely spooked by the gunshots. I'm sure they don't know their siblings are dying and might not care, but the crack of a .22 Magnum panics them.
As for raising two cats, my cat would disagree. No one hates cats more than he does
A garden will make your rations go further.
by Shaved Monkey » Tue 04 Mar 2014, 03:10:11
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', 'I') forgot pigs
Sounds like a way to go. Just corn? Slaughter at 200 lbs? Are they kept in a pen? Pigs must be harder to handle than docile sheep/cows? And then you have to deal with the pig shit.
Ill ask next time I talk to him
Pig was kept in a pen at the back corner of the property as far away from the house as possible.
Was also fed a daily ration of bran mixed with the leftover from dinner.
The bran was a bi-product from rye,wheat and corn that they grew and had milled.
There was a water mill in town.
Rye was their main flour but they combined all three flours to make different kinds of bread.
by Pops » Tue 04 Mar 2014, 10:42:12
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I')'m nowhere near self-sufficient but I am far less dependent that the average city mouse
City, rural, suburban, we're all equally dependent for the most part & cities are far easier to maintain & more ecologically viable than far-flung rural areas.
LOL, that is a pretty funny statement, cities are more "ecologically viable"?
Where do you think all the stuff needed to maintain cities comes from? I guess if you strip-mine everywhere else and ship the goods to town then yeah. LOL
But you present a false dilemma, the point is self-sufficiency, not location. As Newf points out, if the rural person is simply a suburbanite with a longer commute and a horse instead of a plastic flamingo as a lawn ornament then yes, they are just as dependent as a city mouse in the apartment. The person in an apartment has no choice but to be completely dependent on long supply chains for his every need: food, water, heat, clothing - everything. It just isn't possible to be otherwise. He is not only dependent on the fossil fueled supply chain for his inputs, he is dependent upon the fossil fueled economy for his "output". His output - a paycheck - in most cases is 100% a manifestation of the that same FF economy. He is doubly dependent.
But while there is little possibility of being independent in an apartment, the farther one gets from the city center and the closer to the primary resource - sun/soil/water - the greater the opportunity to be independent.
I cut up some firewood from my property last week because propane prices are high, I ate canned food I grew and meat I raised and drank some water I harvested and thereby eliminated my need for that much income- I was self-sufficient in those areas. The guy in the apartment (if lucky) gor a paycheck and paid his water & gas bill and ate food flown in from out here by me or maybe from Peru. Who is more self-sufficient?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f NYC falls the whole world will far (except maybe some uncontacted Brazilian tribe off in the bush somewhere).
The question isn't whether NYC will fail, it's whether a particular New Yorker's paycheck will fail, especially if that new Yorker is me. Considering that today's cities and suburbs are completely at the mercy of fossil fuels to be "ecologically viable" in both their inputs and outputs, my choice is to be less dependent on FFs and more on elbow grease.
Narz I will concede however that we are trained by circumstance to be more and more dependent. To live in cities completely tethered to the FF economy has become quite a bit easier physically. My grandparents at my grandkid's age had infinitely greater practical knowledge simply because their world was one of physical self-reliance. My grandkids rarely leave the cocoon of the fossil fueled screen-glow, although they certainly have a better grasp of Mario Brothers.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
