Keeping Animals Healthy after SHTF?

[Mortblanc]

One reason some of the animals we use on the average farm are there is because they require very little direct care. Many parts of the US are now overrun with wild hogs and the American South west was once the home of millions of wild cattle. Most raised there are still nearly wild. Some are turned out in the spring and not seen again until fall gathering and sale time.

Hogs are an excellent example and will do as well in the feral state as when penned and fed prime expensive feed.

I raised cattle for many years and lost only a minimal number of adult animals. Most of my losses were still born calves and cows that died in birthing. I could count on losing one cow a year and there was little that could be done about it. I had 100 head +-, and the increase covered my losses and more. Nothing like walking out the door on a spring morning to find 50-75 new baby calves prancing and leaping about. Money in the bank!

My cattle were in open fields, partly wooded, and they reverted to almost feral, but would come up to the feed trailer when I was hauling hay during bad weather. They were never milked and were not used to constant care and attention. Many times the heard would not let you get near an injured member or a new calf.

You will also find that there are many people that are not vets that have excellent husbandry skills and almost every large farm or community has an individual that does the castrating, dehorning and most vet work right up to the major surgery stage. I am sure the same goes for sheep and I know that the local farrier is as good as most vets with horses.

"Back in the day", when my father was growing up on a dairy farm, he jokes that any animal that was past saving got eaten! If a cow had gone crippled or was severely injured you put it down and butchered it out ASAP to save as much meat as possible.

You did not spend $1000 on a vet to save a $300 cow. Nor did you spend more to save a milker than she was going to produce in the next year, especially if she might die anyway. That is modern "lap dog" thinking. You always had stock "coming up" to take the place of any losses you might suffer.

As for "putting them down humanely"????

SHTF you are going to find that the humane society disappears and that you kill what you have too any way you can. It might be simply an knife across the throat, a bullet in the brain, a sledge hammer to the head or a pithing spike at the base of the skull. Chickens will get their necks wrung and rabbits will still get the traditional whack to the back of the head with a stout stick.

The wild cattle might not decide to cooperate and you might wind up shooting them in the field and butchering them in place, or dragging them home behind a pony. Lord help you if all you have is a 30# bow and a few discount store arrows!