Food Prices, Shortages & Inflation - The Trash Index

[Wifezilla]

now is not the time to acquire livestock as we soon won't be able to afford to feed them

Not exactly. It will get too expensive to feed them pre-packaged grains. But how did farmers feed their animals BEFORE Purina and other companies came out with bagged feed?

I think people will have to be smarter about what kinds of animals they raise. Chickens and ducks can live off of a lot of what you have as leftovers. Pigs are efficient users of kitchen scraps too. Put aside some of your growing space for crops the animals can eat and they will not only survive but thrive. Quinoa, amaranth, clover, etc... are all doable.

Look for local natural sources for feed. Switch from prebagged stuff to whole grains. Supplement with bugs and weeds. That is what chickens and ducks eat in the wild anyway. I grew duckweed and rosy minnows to supplement the ducks feed in a preformed pond I got at a garage sale. The minnows live on bug larvae so I never even had to feed them. They naturally reproduced and the ducks got the excess. I also grew duckweed. One small baggie of it from a local pond and I was able to grow a bunch and keep feeding it to the ducks through the summer.

Instead of keeping a large number of animals through the winter, you get back more to butchering in fall and only keeping good breeders or layers.

There was someone on byc who was lamenting that because of the economy she would have to get rid of her chickens. A lot of us pointed out that if the prices go up more and more, how else is she going to afford meat and eggs without having her own chickens?

I consider the animals I have to be an important part of my plan to ride out economic hardship. I can't afford NOT to have them!

 

[KevsFarm]

Makes sense to me Wifezilla, pioneers and settlers didn't have a local feed store!

 

[framing fowl]

Instead of keeping a large number of animals through the winter, you get back more to butchering in fall and only keeping good breeders or layers.

Sounds very reasonable and will probably do many livestock breeds some good, getting back to the traits of thrift and hardiness.

 

[BarredBuff]

When winter is over Im changing the way the ducks and chickens get fed, they wont have freechoice. It will be in a trough every evening with grains in it and some ration mixed in. If I take feed away they will adapt to not having it...

 

[Marianne]

Holy cow! Do you have any idea how long it takes to read 40 pages of posts? And welcome, Team Chaos!

I'm getting prepared, but I'm not too fanatical about it. I have already adjusted my buying habits and know pretty much what I 'might' have to do if the sky falls.

Now, I'm not trying to insult anyone here, but FOR MYSELF, I don't care what any talk show personality says about the economy or what the next shortage is going to be or whatever his topic of the day is. The guy/gal doesn't even know me, much less give a rat's a** about my opinion or what I'm doing here. I listen to and trust YOU guys on this forum.

Trust me here, don't bother with emails to the Feds. Our oldest son had an internship with the State Dept in Washington DC a few years back. He said the first thing they did every morning was delete all the emails. There are some that are caught by certain keywords to be looked at, but my well composed email went poof. He left after two months and said it was a total waste of time.

FOR ME, I have a list of what grows wild around here that I can graze on. We have already decided that we'd have pretty much a vegetarian lifestyle. Same son has lived in India and taught me to to make some of their cheapo meals. I'm lucky, we have about 4-1/2 acres and I'd rather grow food and medicinal herbs for us instead of critters. I have cows, wheat fields and wildlife for my closest neighbors. Bartering isn't going to be a problem. Oh, I could go on and on, but you get the drift, and that's probably better suited on another thread.

I don't really stock up too much (like for a year or anything), but there are the basic foods you need to make other foods, and that's pretty much all I buy. I don't care if canned soup is on sale, because I make my own, etc etc. I try to grow a years worth of veggies every growing season, including tons of tomatoes for ketchup, tomato sauce, chili sauce, etc etc. and eat seasonally.

OH! If there is an Indian market by any of you, go there to buy your spices. I have a small butter tub size of allspice that was only $1.98!! Check Asian markets, too. I love Jasmine rice - the last time I bought a 25# bag, it was around $17. And get your food storage buckets from the deli and bakery sections of your market.

 

[Dunkopf]

Makes sense to me Wifezilla, pioneers and settlers didn't have a local feed store!

I have to disagree. Little Joe was always going to the feed store.

 

[BarredBuff]

Makes sense to me Wifezilla, pioneers and settlers didn't have a local feed store!

I have to disagree. Little Joe was always going to the feed store.

 

[Dunkopf]

Actually it all depends on where you live. In Iowa you could probably keep a bred dairy cow going and get meat from the calves on an acre or two and put some hay up for the winter. Here in Colorado you would need 35 acres to do the same and you would have to prep the land for a couple years to do it. If you have a decent spring you can get 3 cuttings. Of course you can raise poultry and a garden anywhere the local ordinances permit.

We are expanding our garden this year from 50 x 70 to 70 x 150. DW just got a bunch of potato seeds for cheap along with a lot of other stuff that will last us at least 5 years or so.


It's time to get to work. Now that I lost weight I can bend over for more than 1 minute at a time without getting dizzy and not able to breath. My stomach used to push on my lungs when I bent over. Hopefully we'll be able to keep ahead of the weeds and keep the deer away.

 

[freemotion]

This is why I keep goats instead of a cow, although my first true love would be a lovely little Jersey cow. Oh, the butter! The cheeses!!!! The beef from any bull calves!!!

But I can keep a small herd of dairy/meat goats on a small amount of land, and supplement them with foraging, and make hay. If you don't feed them grain, they won't give as much milk, but they will do fine. I also am sorting out my herd over the next few years to have better homestead goats....decent dairy production (nothing that would interest a commercial dairy or a goat show) but with some meat on their bones. Two of my four main does are looking good as the possible foundation does. Willingness to eat poorer rations is also a must, and the ability to do reasonably well on them.

Yup, the tradition was to put as many of the critters in the freezer in late fall as possible, or cure/smoke/can it up, so less critters to feed all winter.

Anyone can keep a few hens in a suburban setting, but yes, larger livestock need a bit more room. Someone with less room than I have could cross the meat-type pygmy goats with the dairy-type Nigerian Dwarf goats to do the same thing I'm doing.

Then again, if you hunt and fish, you don't really need livestock unless you have a need for milk. Or want the security of having your food readily available to you in the backyard.

Congrats on the weight loss, Dunkopf!

 

[freemotion]

Oh, yeah, did I tell ya I just got Gene Logsdon's book on raising grains from the library? I think I need to buy it. I have an overpowering urge to underline and notate it, and there are far too many gems in it to copy them all out of the book.

He makes it seem possible to grow your own grains in a small space. I plan on starting the learning curve this year, but won't do it on a bigger scale until I can get my pasture completely cross-fenced. Then I can devote a section to grain. Meanwhile, I'll use grains to rotate my veg gardens. This year, it will be just a few wide beds to learn the processes involved in growing, harvesting, threshing, drying, etc.