So we got a dog about 3 weeks ago. She is awesome and we are having a blast. But as any good doomer I am looking down the road. I have got probably 6 months or so of food on hand but what after that? My chickens can forage for most of their food or we can grow it but what about the pup? Chipmunks and other small furry creatures are only going to last so long. I don't envision much game lasting too long either. What are other people doing/ planning?
FARM Dog food in a grid down situation
- Thread starter mecoastie
- Start date
Martinhouse
Deceased
I keep at least a breeding pair of rabbits at all times, just in case dog food is no longer available. I would start breeding them when the stored dog food was down to a certain level that provided some overlap of foods. I figure with letting the dog eat an entire young rabbit along with eggs from my hens for extra fats, I'd have the best possible nutrition for him in my situation. Here in Arkansas I could probably forage food for the rabbits all year round, since their pellets would also no longer be available.
If you planned something like this, it would be a good idea to accustom your new pup ahead of time to at least a partly raw food diet.
If you planned something like this, it would be a good idea to accustom your new pup ahead of time to at least a partly raw food diet.
bobby.knight
Senior Member
I have a small dog 8lbs and I order from chewy.com, I usually order 4 boxes of 24 meals, plus a 36 box from Sams. I reorder when he is half way thru, that means about 4 months on the order and about 40-45 meals still remaining. The plan is to cut the wet meals in half and go for more dry food or off my table. As for flea collars I have kept the old ones and will soak them in white vinegar and rotate about every 10-14 days. He is my best alert system, & my best friend.
BadMedicine
Would *I* Lie???
In any kind of situation I'm envisioning where all logistics are down and it is too dangerous/ impossible to go anywhere that sells dogfood...
...dog food will be delivering themselves!!
...dog food will be delivering themselves!!
Wise Owl
Deceased
The dogs are fed raw now plus a taste of our dinner. So, they will be eating what we eat. I have quite a store of salmon and such put back and we do have critters running around. Deer, moose, rabbits, squirrels, partridge, etc. If we eat, they eat.
Since they have been raw fed since puppyhood, it's not a big deal.
Since they have been raw fed since puppyhood, it's not a big deal.
Martinhouse
Deceased
I also figured I might be able to trap things in my live traps that I could use for pet food and even extra protein for the chickens.
Snaring woodchucks, feeding raw meaty bones from livestock we'll be butchering anyway, extra cheese, eggs, and have stored extra rice to "stretch" the good stuff in emergency situations/lean times. Our English Shepherd hunts mice and rats for herself now...
Summerthyme
Summerthyme
medic38572
TB Fanatic
Fish almost all the people in alaska fish for salmon to feed their dogs most of the winter, they fish during seasons with fish wheels as I would call them that spin and catch passing fish as they swim by. They can put up tonnes of fish this way. They basically gut them and hang them for winter and feed them them. Some boil the fish in water and pass it to the dogs as a soup others feed the frozen fish to the dogs.
RT 9 minutes
Wolfcreek Farm
Wolfcreek
Somewhere along the way...potatoes come into the picture as dog food.....lots of people would find they could grow quite a few in a small area...our dogs readily eat them....................I am planning on building box traps for rabbits (cheaper than using a rifle)..... traps like I used in the 1950s...trapped them for the PA Game Commission so they could be taken outside of town and released. You might find that ground hogs would suit you taste..rather than using them all for your dogs....I know one family that ate at least 80 of them every year. What about cooked wheat or speltz? What about a trap line to catch raccoons and possums?......................anyway....just some thoughts
Do what Grandma did. Dogs eat the same stuff as humans. Granted, Grandma also had a good supply of whey and other dairy by-products to dispose of every day (to chickens, pigs, cats and dogs) but I remember so often the dogs getting taters, rice or leftover bread with pan-gravy, soup, cooked down bone broth, eggs, (all the cracked ones for sure), leftover vegetables and meat scraps. Dogs are omnivores - over the past 10,000 years or so, evolved from strict carnivores - and became domesticated by living around the fringes of human encampment. "Dump dogs" and very often scavengers of human garbage. Sure, if you have scrap meat, rough fish etc. all the better to plump out the diet.
Added: I also remember getting my hand slapped as a kid for lifting the lid on something that smelled good cooking on the stove and being informed that it was dog food!
Added: I also remember getting my hand slapped as a kid for lifting the lid on something that smelled good cooking on the stove and being informed that it was dog food!
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My dogs eat every thing we do except raw onions.
Also what do you all do with the juice you dump out of tuna or salmon cans, well I put it in a bowl and give to the dogs, also fry a burger or bake a roast what do you do with the grease I give it to the dogs.
My dogs are very happy and very healthy.
My big dog hunts mice/squirrels/rabbits/birds/moles, she loves them, she even in the summer when the flying grass hoppers come out will hunt and eat them.
The big one also loves watermelon/and cherry tomatoes, she is funny about the tomatoes she will not go in the garden and get them but when I pick some and offer them to her she gobbles them up.
Also what do you all do with the juice you dump out of tuna or salmon cans, well I put it in a bowl and give to the dogs, also fry a burger or bake a roast what do you do with the grease I give it to the dogs.
My dogs are very happy and very healthy.
My big dog hunts mice/squirrels/rabbits/birds/moles, she loves them, she even in the summer when the flying grass hoppers come out will hunt and eat them.
The big one also loves watermelon/and cherry tomatoes, she is funny about the tomatoes she will not go in the garden and get them but when I pick some and offer them to her she gobbles them up.
mecoastie, you've been here a long time. Please allow me to clarify a few things for you, in order that you don't blow a gasket:
If the grid is down 6 months, it's TEOTWAWKI. You will probably not survive. Hell, if the grid went down nationally for ONE month, it would be TEOTWAWKI. Historically, those of us on TB prepped for 6-12 months of disruption MAX, and that was in the runup to Y2K, which had the potential to actually bring about TEOTWAWKI. Nothing since has had that potential. Citywide disruptions? Sure. Statewide? Perhaps. Nationwide. Nope.
If the grid is down 6 months, it's TEOTWAWKI. You will probably not survive. Hell, if the grid went down nationally for ONE month, it would be TEOTWAWKI. Historically, those of us on TB prepped for 6-12 months of disruption MAX, and that was in the runup to Y2K, which had the potential to actually bring about TEOTWAWKI. Nothing since has had that potential. Citywide disruptions? Sure. Statewide? Perhaps. Nationwide. Nope.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
Rice and cooked chicken is what I have fed our furballs when they get bad sick. SHTF they will get what we eat, minus onions and chocolate. People had dogs during the Great Depression. Most likely those dogs were actively employed keeping families safe, herding, hunting food for families and keeping vermin out of gardens and off livestock.
Martinhouse
Deceased
Yes. The cat would get rabbit same as the dog does. Maybe not eggs so much, since a cat is more likely to eat the whole rabbit than the dog is.
My cat is old but she still eats any rabbit she catches. Birds and lizards, too. Don't know why she won't eat the squirrels, she just leaves them on the sidewalk. As far as storing food for her, I already do that, but I don't think she'll be around all that much longer.
My cat is old but she still eats any rabbit she catches. Birds and lizards, too. Don't know why she won't eat the squirrels, she just leaves them on the sidewalk. As far as storing food for her, I already do that, but I don't think she'll be around all that much longer.
Does she bring the squirrels near the house and leave them on the sidewalk where you're sure to see them? If so, she's bringing you some "food" by way of love and respect. That's how kittehs show it.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
Not exactly. Cats are carnivores not omnivores like dogs. They require more protein. There are egg laying chickens here and a near by stream with fish. That's my cat prep.
Freeholder
This too shall pass.
You have to have a permit in order to use a fish wheel in Alaska, or know someone who does and get permission to use their wheel. They aren't available to just anyone who wants to use them. I've fished at Chitina, the location in the picture, (dip-netting, which also requires a permit) a long time ago. One reason the fish wheels work is because the water is full of glacial silt, so the baskets on the wheel (or our chicken-wire nets, when we were dip-netting) aren't visible to the fish. The other reason the wheels work is because the salmon are running upstream, and they prefer to swim near the river-banks because the current isn't quite so strong there so they can save a bit of energy. So the wheel baskets, or the dip-nets, are set in such a way that the fish swimming upstream run right into them and are caught and lifted out of the water before they have a chance to back away. (This is why the dip nets use chicken wire for the net -- string nets would flow downstream with the current, leaving the net opening facing upstream, where it would catch no fish.) I don't know if the fish wheels would work in other types of situations where you had clearer water and didn't have a massive run of fish heading upstream. Fish traps or set-lines might be better choices in those situations.
Kathleen
Martinhouse
Deceased
Dennis, my cat leaves all of her kills at the door. After I see them and thank her, she usually eats all of them, although a rabbit might take her two or three days. The squirrels she left one at the door and the other, down the sidewalk about 20'. She totally ignored them and I eventually scooped them up and toss them out into the field.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
In clear water a fish weir has been traditionally used.
"A fishing weir, fish weir, fishgarth[1] or kiddle is an obstruction placed in tidal waters, or wholly or partially across a river, to direct the passage of, or trap fish. A weir may be used to trap marine fish in the intertidal zone as the tide recedes, fish such as salmon as they attempt to swim upstream to breed in a river, or eels as they migrate downstream. Alternatively, fish weirs can be used to channel fish to a particular location, such as to a fish ladder. Weirs were traditionally built from wood or stones. The use of fishing weirs as fish traps probably dates back prior to the emergence of modern humans, and have since been used by many societies across the world."
Pictures and more fish weir info at link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_weir
Freeholder
This too shall pass.
Yes, those would work. Not legal under current regulations, but it would be good for people to know how to make them, as well as fish traps.
Rabbits have already been mentioned; they are easy to care for and can be fed on weeds and brush, though in colder areas you'd need storage space for winter feed for them. For quite a few years, I fed my dogs mostly on rolled oats soaked in raw goat milk, with occasional eggs or kitchen scraps, and they did great on that. Adding some meat and offal to that diet would keep most dogs in excellent health.
Kathleen
I've advised more than a few people with 'old' stocks of prep food, be it buckets or MRE's, that they were
thinking about disposing of it all, to check and see if fit for any of their animals, to keep it around longer
for them if ever in a bind. Last resort, if/when no longer palatable, add to compost pile or till into garden.
- Shane
thinking about disposing of it all, to check and see if fit for any of their animals, to keep it around longer
for them if ever in a bind. Last resort, if/when no longer palatable, add to compost pile or till into garden.
- Shane
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
I think it was in one of the Little House on the Prairie books, Pa made a big box out of twigs or saplings and put it under the water fall to catch fish moving down stream. Probably not legal now but, probably how they did it back in the day.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
If you know where to look and what to look for, it is possible to find stone fish weirs originally built by the first nations or what ever the PC term is now a days. They are out there. Few alive now know what they are looking at when they see one. Just don't think these can only be found on little creaks or streams. These were used to feed whole villages and later towns when the shad or salmon were running. Next time you take a stroll along a river bank, look in the wide shallow places for what looks like a submerged, mortarless fallen stone fence, in the form of a "V" pointing upstream. It will have an opening at the top of the small part of the "V" where a wooden platform allowed people to stand to scoop the fish out of the wooden box the fish were funneled into. The wood is long gone but the stone is still there, if you can find it.
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intothatgoodnight
. . .
In any kind of situation I'm envisioning where all logistics are down and it is too dangerous/ impossible to go anywhere that sells dogfood...
...dog food will be delivering themselves!!
Or, it could work the other way around - "man's best friend" can be dog-gone tasty, too . . . keep a close eye on the "roamings" of your pet.
intothegoodnight
nomifyle
TB Fanatic
When I had three dogs I worried about food for them, they've been gone for awhile. Recently we adopted a throw away that people had been shooting at. I can't lift 50 pound bags anymore so I go for about half that size, costs a little more, but there is only the one dog to feed. I keep about two bags, all these years I worried about it and we don't keep rabbits any more, the climate just didn't seem to be good for them. I'm too old to worry about it anymore. My pantry is exploding so there will be food for a good while. Age changes one attitude about things.
Judy
Judy
biere
Veteran Member
If you read up on what folks fix for dogs a whole lot of folks use rice and meat and whatever else for their dogs.
Cats are a bit different as mentioned but lots of folks make cat food as well.
I readily admit to being lazy and getting bags of dog food but during bad times I would wind up fixing stuff for the dogs.
Some folks say it is cheaper to fix their own dog food, certainly can be healthier depending on what sort of dog food you buy.
I also agree that longterm would be an issue. I plan to ride along for as long as I can but I also realize that it is easy as heck to have a serious issue that kills you early on or later on or whatever.
I tend to try to stretch trips to the store, or big orders of stuff, so storing some on hand is common. If I felt the next order could not be made, I would mix in the new whatever with some of the old whatever and change em over.
Cats are a bit different as mentioned but lots of folks make cat food as well.
I readily admit to being lazy and getting bags of dog food but during bad times I would wind up fixing stuff for the dogs.
Some folks say it is cheaper to fix their own dog food, certainly can be healthier depending on what sort of dog food you buy.
I also agree that longterm would be an issue. I plan to ride along for as long as I can but I also realize that it is easy as heck to have a serious issue that kills you early on or later on or whatever.
I tend to try to stretch trips to the store, or big orders of stuff, so storing some on hand is common. If I felt the next order could not be made, I would mix in the new whatever with some of the old whatever and change em over.
