When it happens, don't forget your pets.

If one extra person died going back to get their cats or dogs, it wouldn't be worth it, IMO.



edit

I just thought about "I am Legend" though..

Ok, Ok, You're allowed to go back for your animal if it's a German Shephard

i have 2 great dogs and love them dearly

i once pondered, however, in a horrible scenario...where food was basically gone........do you wait till the dogs are skinny and emaciated, or eat em fat n early.

I honestly think i'd rather starve to death

I would certainly try to keep my little dogs alive... but in a situation where maybe I had to hide, they would have to die because they come at strangers like cujo! All the shhhh'ïng in the world won't shut em'up if they don't know someone!

Humm,

I have thought about this issue as well. I am retired Soldier and have chosen a semi-off the grid lifestyle in NW Missouri. I have a small herd of dairy cows and goats along with a bunch of laying hens, ducks, geese and several horses. Of course along with that I have 4 dogs and many barn cats.

Horses would be the first thing I got rid of excess – I have 4 rescues who do nothing but eat which is fine for now but if I had to manage feed they are a drain. All are older retirees like me who worked hard and needed a nice place to go out to pasture. The older gelding and my daughter’s 25 year old pony she can’t ride anymore would be first to go as a geldings they can’t even breed. 3 of the older rescues can at least be broodmares if necessary they are 15+ but I think they can still reproduce if I kept them and fodder wasn’t an issue.

I suppose when the SHTF I would have to pare back my stock to what I can actually hand milk daily which would keep me in beef for a while if I did it in a stepped manner doing most of the harvesting in early winter so I could hang the meat in the cold cellar.

I think I could raise them on all grass with limited results – they now get grain and alfalfa hay which just makes their production higher and their milk richer in milk-fat.

I think I could still get two cuts of hay if I barter a percentage with the Amish who have a horse drawn hay cutter. They don’t bail theirs I suppose I could do the same though I’d have to clear one of the older barns for storage. I think I can feed about half of my stock through an average winter on that – they might lose weight of course but so will I so that’s fair.

Goats are great; I have dairy does for milk which full size but my wife raises pygmies for a hobby – we’d probably end up harvesting all the dairy ones except a couple – trade them away for things we needed with the Amish who are my current main customers for goat milk anyways.

The ducks/geese I raise for their eggs and meat I process about 15 a year – I could trade them off or kill a few if I thought they were not getting enough forage. Really though they are pretty resourceful and I only supplement their foraging in the coldest three months when they can’t get to the grass.

Chickens might be an issue – I manipulate their laying cycle with light so they lay peak number of eggs year round. Without light I think that would reduce my winter production from 24-30 eggs a day to 12-15. I would have to kill some of them off or trade them away – probably could trade them off for more than they are worth now. I’d also have to figure out how to brood them – I currently just buy more from the farm store rather than hatch my own.

As for inside pets my wife has two spoiled house cats who we’ve had for several years prior to farm life. They do keep the mice in the house to a minimum. If you’ve ever lived in an old farmhouse there is no way to totally get rid of the mice without poison and I have too many pets to risk that. I think we could support these two for a long time on the sweet meats and scraps of the beef, chickens and ducks and such.

We buy all our food in bulk since we can get wholesale prices from the Farmer’s COOP so depending on the time the SHTF I might have anywhere from 60-90 days of dry food for them anyway.

I think there will be plenty of leftovers for the dogs as well – two of our dogs are working dogs; big mixed types 100lbs or more. They mostly guard the place and chase off foxes, coons and skunks. My wife has a couple ankle biters as well. They actually do really well for themselves eating mice, moles and squirrels. The two bigger dogs hardly ever catch anything – they got a turkey once but the two little ones are always eating something dead. I suppose if we ran low they would hunt in the woods for game of their own.

As for the barn cats – I think we have 10-15 at any one time. They kind of come and go on their own; I put out food for them of course but not a lot and they get milk spills as well. Currently, the ones I can catch I have spayed or neutered – I figure even if they run off they are not propagating more of themselves. I have paid for 12 females and 5 males since we moved in. I think people drop them off out here somewhere. I think these guys left to their own devices would find the natural equilibrium pretty quick. I wouldn’t hesitate to take them out if they started preying on my chickens and ducks!

It would be hard to put my best farm buddies (my two dogs) down but in the short time I have been in agriculture I have become very pragmatic when it comes to animal death and wouldn’t hesitate if I thought they were suffering.

Good to see that people still have the heart to think of the welfare of their pets.. Have a macaque (monkey) who climbs and gathers coconuts for me .. ( Though being typical monkey he still gets into mischief at times ) and a cormorant that helps with the fishing .. (Birds have long been trained and used for fishing here ) both are good company and do their share of work as well.

My barn cats would be on their own because they are great mousers.The three outside dogs are great watch dogs....besides, Murphy the pit, doesn't like anyone messin' with his people LOL!.

I can't say a pet wouldn't get on the menu if you were TRULY starving but I have took great pains and spent quite a bit of money over the last 20 years to make sure my family don't reach that point.

My Black Lab / Australian Sheppard mix is worth far more to me as security and a weapon to get rid of her.

reply to post by jessejamesxx


yeah, i can't even watch that part of the movie anymore, once was enough...

how about a miniature shepherd?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/dc90a8e2f84a.jpg[/atsimg]

... she is part german, and part australian, and i have had 2 vets tell me she has the bone structure of a fox, so more than likely one of her great grandparents was a type of fox... anyways, she would take on a zombie, or a nuke, or whatever if it meant i got to feed her one more day

reply to post by Greenize


This is where I'm at.

I have a 12 lb. Mini Schnauzer. She's not worth anything and would be a horrible liability in a Sit X scenario because she would bark and bark with no bite.

Sucks that I love her (sometimes...).

Maybe love is too strong of a word.

While my dogs would likely be a liability (I have 4 chihuahuas), I'd like to think I'd have a good chance of hunkering down or leaving with them. My cats are already towards the end of their lives, and are outdoor cats already, so I know they'll be ok.

I won't be carting cans of dog food though. They'll have to eat my scraps. If hunkering down, I'll have some pet food stashed though.

Currently though, I only keep about an extra week's worth of supplies in the house for all household members (including pets) (mostly for hurricane season, and I cycle them to keep a fresh stock). I know I've got a lot of work to do to actually prepare for any kind of event...

I remember my father telling me that he never saw a dog in Germany at the end of WW2, very few if an elsewhere from North Africa across Europe and in England.... I asked him why thinking that people may have had to be eating them to survive, he said that when there is very little for people to eat there isn't enough to feed dogs...Hitler knew this as did people that bred and raised pure breeds so many sent their breeding dogs to other countries to insure that the breeds would survive to keep from having them put down and to preserve the bloodlines lines of the breeds... friend that was the squad leader of mortars with A company 5Th Marines at Hue City during the enemy assault there during Tet of 1968 was issued a M79 grenade launcher to use to kill dogs that were scavenging the bodies of civilians killed by the NVA to keep diseases from being spread by them.... Unless your animals are beneficial to human survival chances are very great that they won't be around long.... There was a staff NCO in an infantry company I was attached to that carried a kitten in his flak jacket pocket that grew, sat on his shoulder and followed him everywhere onto helicopters, through the jungle and every else he went while I was there.... He always managed to feed that cat even when we had gone days without food.