when your food runs out

[bigpaul]

(31 August 2013, 21:10)Sunna Wrote: when your food runs out what you going to do ??

can you milk a cow/goat

can you hunt / kill /gut /skin

can you farm / grow / plant / store your crops in winter

can you fish / gut / bate

when your food runs out and others too looking to feed their folk

what will you do ???

Forget any Dairy cattle, they wont be around long after TSHTF if their not milked, they'll die in the fields. Goats are OK, they'll eat mostly anything but their also great escape artists so your fences need to be good. anyone can gut, skin, clean and cook its just a matter of practise, start now on some roadkill, its already dead you cant do it any more damage! fishing is good if your near the sea or river, if your near the sea i'd concentrate on the rock pools at low tide, river-put in a fish trap. hunting is good if you have the time to spare but i'd be inclined to put in a trap/snare line and check then daily.

[Tartar Horde]

(1 September 2013, 06:21)Kenneth Eames Wrote: I think that hidden gardens are my main hope, combined with fish traps. I do not think that hunting would be very successful for an old git. Maybe a few traps could be set but that would be all I could manage. Kenneth Eames.

Good sense as always. Far too much emphasis is put on "hunting" as a way to procure food and a good dose of common sense is needed to make people understand that Hunting is the least effective method of getting meat. The image of our Palaeolithic ancestors constantly chasing game with spears and bows is simply rubbish and has more to do with Hollywood than fact. Trapping and netting is far more productive than hunting and fishing and work 24 hours a day leaving you valuable time to do other things. Spending days trying to catch a fish with a rod, or hunting that Rabbit is just wasted time. Anyone who thinks they can survive by hunting alone post SHTF is going to die.

[bigpaul]

(1 September 2013, 13:19)Tartar Horde Wrote: Anyone who thinks they can survive by hunting alone post SHTF is going to die.

I couldn't agree more, anyone who thinks they can survive just doing one thing is bound to fail, we will have to be proficient in many things, "jack of all trades" springs to mind.

[Highlander]

(1 September 2013, 06:21)Kenneth Eames Wrote: I think that hidden gardens are my main hope, combined with fish traps. I do not think that hunting would be very successful for an old git. Maybe a few traps could be set but that would be all I could manage. Kenneth Eames.

This is also the safest and most covert way to gather food, even for the better hunters amongst us we should all be setting traps and growing things

(1 September 2013, 15:26)bigpaul Wrote:

(1 September 2013, 13:19)Tartar Horde Wrote: Anyone who thinks they can survive by hunting alone post SHTF is going to die.

Even when man first roamed the land, they had their bad days, the chances are you would go hungry more times than you fed,.. the best chance for anyone hunting with a bow would be from ambush,... stalking is for the films

[bigpaul]

depending on WHAT and WHERE you are hunting I would have thought some kind of hide would be in order.

[Mortblanc]

Just a thought;

I have secured more food this year while protecting my plantings and chickens than in the actual pursuit of game!

Use the garden and the livestock as bait. Eat the game that harasses you stock and ruins your garden.

While the term "foraging" is used in GB as searching for plants in hedgerows, in the U.S. it is defined as taking targets of opportunity for the stew pot as well as greens/mushrooms/fruit of the countryside.

Each and every trip out the door should be a harvest effort with the eyes constantly open and a weapon in hand for targets of opportunity.

[bigpaul]

(1 September 2013, 19:21)Mortblanc Wrote: Each and every trip out the door should be a harvest effort with the eyes constantly open.

every trip out the door should be used to spot an opportunity(dosent have to be meat/food....anything useful.)

[Sunna]

hope you dont mind ,iv bumped this thread after s13 thread regarding gaps in your prepping.

[Scythe13]

Good bit of bumping there Sunna. This is a good thread that'll help a lot of newer members.

To be fair, I plan on my prepped food, the tins, bottles, and the rest, being viewed as being a 'last resort' kind of thing. Same as my primitive bushcraft living skills. Last resort...or close enough.

We plan on getting our preps, e.g. garden, aquaponics, and the alike, all sorted before TSHTF. Our idea is to be completely off the grid, or capable of being so.

So, when all our tins run out...it means we're probably dead.

I can milk a cow, but think that milking a goat would be more practical....on my to learn list.

Planting and crops...my dad was an avid gardener, and I follow in his footsteps.

Hunting, killing, gutting, skinning, yes for a few breeds, but still got other kinds of animals to learn about. Most are easy enough to transfer the skills to.

Fishing...yes, but never tried gutting a fish....so I've got a gap there.

For the vast majority of circumstances, I think we're pretty squared away. But there's always so much more to do!

[Sunna]

i think bp,s idea about learning to gut/skin on roadkill is very good ,iv seen plenty but not yet got the bottle.