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Want to eat well today and hedge for the apocolypse? Try a family milk cow!
I want to be clear on one point. I am not really a survivalist. I am a thrivalist. What is that? For me, being a thrivalist is a combination of several factors. First, I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand...today...right now...here on Earth...not at some unknown post-apocalyptic point in the future. Second, philosophically and politically, I am very Libertarian with a strong Epicurean streak. For me, these two views are well summarized in the following quotes (and you will soon read why this is germane to the topic):
Life Is a Gift from God.
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This
gift is life -- physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and
perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a
collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety
of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural
resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is
necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God
precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
-Bastiat
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
-Epicurus
So, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorow we may die fighting to defend our person, liberty, and property? Well...kinda, sorta, yes.
Personally, I am a self-made professional and an equestrian-by-marriage. Most important to this post, I am not a prepper focused on some unpredictable future event (thank you Nassim Taleb), but rather a man focused on living well today, and God willing tomorrow, with an eye to practicing disintermediation wherever and whenever possible.
So, where is this leading, and what does it have to do with cows? Well, yesterday, I was asked by Meat Hammer:
This was my response:
A clear mind, a fit body, a few people you trust, a quality blade, a rifle
you know, and a good mare, everything else is superfluous.
I am happy with that response, as those are truly the
ESSENTIAL Shit-Hits-The-Fan items for me.
I have posted a much longer and more detailed TEOTWAWKI article
on ZeroHedge before, with a much broader and more general audience in
mind. However, I think Meat Hammer is
looking for something less general, and a little more personal, specifically
dealing with what some people call homesteading, but I like to think of simply as
thriving. At the top of that list is a
small bit of pastureland proximate to one's home, then closely followed on my
list by the family milk cow, which is really the focus of this article.
Do have a cow, specifically a triple-purpose heritage-breed cow such as a
Milking Shorthorn! She provides milk,
meat, and when trained as an ox she can pull a load.
A cow is a proven way to convert sunlight, water, and
pasture into a usable surplus of protein, fat, calories, leather, and
horsepower. I believe that in many ways
having a family milk cow is both easier and more reliable than raising crops,
although it is pretty darn easy to grow potatoes or yams.
In The Princes of Ireland, one of Edward Rutherfurd's
historical-fiction novels set in Ireland, it is illustrated how cattle have
been the most significant store of wealth for centuries of Irish history, and
how political power and stealing said wealth (by cattle rustling) were often
intertwined. For me, as someone who has
enjoyed historical Wyoming from both horseback and an easy chair, The Johnson
County War came to mind. But I digress.
Let us get to what Meat Hammer really wants to read, which I believe is hedgeless_horseman's
list of things you will need for your SHTF family milk cow. Please understand that neither I, nor
mrs_horseman, were raised on a farm, nor did we study agriculture in school,
nor were we in FFA. However, we both
have had horses most of our lives, kept at a stable or a neighbor's when we
were young, and later at our home for our entire married life. After having a family milk cow for more than
five years, I will say that cattle are much easier, and infinitely more
productive than horses.
First, you need pasture-with some source of water. A spring-fed pond is best, but anything from
a garden hose and a metal tank to a windmill and stock tank will work. How much pasture is entirely dependent on
your local climate. In the South we can
keep a dairy cow and her calf year-round, without hay, on just a few
acres. In the West you need to have many
acres and/or feed hay. In the North you probably
also need a barn and hay storage, or a small silo, to get through the winters,
but we have no experience with this situation.
Your county Ag Extension office is a great resource for these
calculations, testing the soil, etc. If
you are in Wisconsin, ask a Cheese Head.
Second, you must have time, man-power, and passion 365 days
per year, often twice a day. On our
little farm, this comes primarily in the form of the dynamo known as
mrs_horseman, with assistance from the lil_horsemen, yours truly, and our
friend and neighbor, juan_caballero. It
is important to convey that being a female equestrian, mrs_horseman is blessed
with super-human endurance and strength, as well as a burning desire to spend
vast amounts of time in the barn...bordering on insanity...aka horse crazy. If it is not already obvious to you, animals
need to be attended to every morning and every evening. If a cow does not have a calf and needs to be
milked, and is not milked, it is very bad.
Having a hand like juan_caballero to fill in for us several times a
month is absolutely critical, and surprisingly easy to arrange, when one
realizes how valuable fresh-raw milk is in today's world. However, please understand, the time
commitment is a very good thing, as it teaches us real responsibility (especially
important for kids), which leads to huge amounts of self-esteem (important for
stay-at-home mothers), eventually gratitude (important for happiness), and periodically
when taking care of the animals we can even experience complete bliss. It goes right back to the Bastiat and Epicurus
quotes, above.
You will need to have fencing. If you have horses that share pasture, like
we do, then three-board rail fences work just fine, as long as you don't have a
bull on one side and a cow on the other.
You do not need barbed wire or hot wire.
Our cows have always been very domesticated, the never jump the fence,
and are not prone to damaging the fence, especially relative to horses.
You may need to feed hay.
Horse hay and cow hay are two different things. Horse hay needs to be kept dry. Cattle hay is found sitting out in the rain,
and is much cheaper. You can have a big
round bale loaded into the back of a pickup truck, and roll it out into the
pasture. Buy one of the roundbale hay feeders. You
lift it over the round bale to keep the cow from shitting, pissing, and
standing in her food, and this dramatically cuts your feed cost. We can pick up a round bale today for $65 and
it would last our cow about a month.
When you buy your family milk cow, get her just before she
calves, or just days after she calves.
It needs to be her first or second calf.
She and the calf will probably cost you as much as $2,000. At first, the calf keeps you from having too
much milk for your family, and you can separate them at night, and thus only
need to milk once in the morning. If you
have a dual-purpose breed of cow, and mate her to a beef bull, then when the
calf eventually goes off to freezer camp it will provide your family all the grass-fed
hormone-free beef it needs for a year.
About once a year you will need to either artificially
inseminate your cow, have someone AI her for you, or take her to visit a bull. NEWSFLASH: Cows only produce milk after they
give birth. The trick is determining
when she is in heat. If she is trying to
mount her calf, the dog, or you, then she is in heat. If she is mooing all night long, then she is
in heat. It is that simple.
You need a stainless steel bucket for milking, a plastic
bucket or a stool to sit on, and a place to tie her. It helps if you feed her a little treat at
milking time. Our cow gets the ends and
tops of vegetables, fruit rinds, banana peels, etc. Remember the lesson from Napoleon
Dynamite...no onions or garlic. Hamby
Dairy Supply has everything you need such as teat wipes, teat dip, strip cup,
stainless filter and paper filters, cleaning brushes, and soap.
You may eventually decide to build a stanchion for your milking parlor like I did...
Your hands will get stronger milking by hand, and it is faster because there iss less clean up. A Surge Bucket Milker with vacuum pump, like
the modern conveniences of a refrigerator and chest freezer, are not absolutely
necessary, but very convenient and very expensive. They do work incredibly well.
Order two dozen one-gallon glass jugs and metal lids at
Specialty Bottle's website. They can be
cleaned and sterilized with a normal cycle in your kitchen dishwasher.
When the milk sits in the refrigerator for a day the cream
will rise to the top. Use a stainless
ladle to skim it. Fresh, real, heavy
cream in a cup of french-press coffee is heavenly. Whipped it is absolutely sinful. This is more of that epicurean stuff.
For making butter you will need a butter churn like this one available at
Lehmans (we cheat and use our MagiMix), a wire-mesh wood-rim sieve, and a
wooden butter paddle. Ceramic butter
crocks and molds are nice to have, but you can also just wrap the butter in wax
paper and put it in the freezer.
For making cheese, it is important to use only stainless
steel pots and utensils. You will be
able to purchase all the recipe books, cheesecloth, rennet, molds, presses, wax,
etc. from Ricki at New England Cheese Making Supply.
If you want to do it all yourselves, butchering equipment
and supplies include a cold place to hang the carcass, gun, hoist, spreader,
hanging hooks, skinning knife, butcher knife, sharpening stone, steel hone, shovel
and garden for the offal, butcher saw, meat grinder, several large plastic
buckets, butcher paper, freezer tape, and a marking pen. Alternatively, load the heifer or steer in the
trailer and driver to the butchers. Your meat will be correctly aged, butchered, and ready in a few weeks.
If you have read this far, then you may also be interested
in my article on killing fascists by raising rabbits.
Happy New Year, and peace be with you!
»
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Hmmm
My wife is fed up with mY inner farmer dragging her to see properties 2 hours away in the hills
Thx for thoughts Mike and hh
Hedgeless, I am doubly impressed. I always guessed you were a few year older than me. Now the larger question is which farm to put the cow on.
I am in my mid forties and do not plan on retiring from my day job for at least another 5-15 years.
You can do it too.
That's pretty bad ass you just went balls out and really did it. At 52 I feel like a slacker!
I want out of this deathtrap called Santa Monica so bad I can't see straight. I need to find a way to live rural/semi rural and still be able to make a living in Visual Effects, which pays well if you know your shit
I don't understand nor have a clue why you rub some cunts the wrong way, but I've appreciated your posts mate. I should have said so years ago.
It's not good to do this, but I envy your life choices. Well done and keep on sharing. I think a true epicurean would appreciate some fermented beverages to go with the fine food. My dear boy, milk just won't do. :)
second that, I too enjoy hedgeless horseman's posts, and have no clue why so much scoffing is done here by others. ok, I could nibble at
"First, I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand...today...right now...here on Earth...not at some unknown post-apocalyptic point in the future."
and point out that faiths and beliefs in "the End is Near!" are endemic and yet scarce and sparse, on this planet
or that the Zombie Apocalypse is a very American collective nightmare and cultural item
so since hedgeless is too a fan of Taleb, one of his aphorism is that the longer a something is around, the longer it's probable it will continue to be around
but who knows? Happy New Year
hedgeless plays his role on zh as the i have nice food pictures on my little homestead guy.
most people on zh live in cities, or suburbs of them with little land to show for it.
in the modern world, there is always the dynamic of urban versus rural, the very core of indutrialization is the marginalization of the latter lifestyle , in order to force people off land into people farms we call cities.
we are living in interesting centuries/times. hedgelss is myopically perceived by disgruntled zh'res as 'tooting his own horn' when they well know they won't have his lot. land and cows cost money most urban dwellers under 35yoa simply don't have.
'THRIVALIST!' indeed: cheers hedgless. don't let the jealous bring you down, i'm pretty sure you don't care.
Jesus Christ! Have you met some of us? Have you ever walked through a Walmart here? Zombie Apocalypse is a very descriptive term of what we're currently experiencing!
well, here our cultural nightmares involve everybody in uniform under a steel helmet having a very faint idea of why, really, except that "they" deserve to die, or so we were told
no. it's a long time I have not been in America. there was no Internet, then. my worst experience about that visit is how badly my English was understood and how long I had to queue for the passport control. of course this makes me a very bad reader of American issues, something that is regularly pointed to me, here. have a great new year, too
US passport control hasn't improved- I could use the lunar calendar on one of my nice watches that I never wear to track line speed, and I have a US passport. 20 years ago it was a 10 minute wait, 30 years ago it was a five minute wait. The grocery stores and ski resorts aren't much better- the second hands on my daily wear watches are completely useless.
As to the "Walmartization" of the US population, I'd say about 1/3 of them or 100 million would fit right in on Oxford Street in London anytime during the past decade.
The zombie apocalypse is here:
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
Spend 15 or 20 minutes on that website and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Dear Ghordius, I must say I have truly enjoyed your posts over the years. There was one where I believe nmewn accused you of being absorbed in the Borg collective and akak said " I truly hate you and your disingenuous bullshit". After all the poo flinging was said and done, commonality and consideration was reached on many points. I was entranced! Damn, I've got to join this group.
Thanks for being you and providing thoughtful counterpoint. My world was shaken numerous times and that is always a good experience. Otherwise, one becomes too comfortable, arrests their development and ultimately becomes judgmental to others who fail to embrace their world view.
Happy New Year
Miffed
the borg collective thanks you and wishes you a happy new year!
Happy New Year Ghordius. It's highly amusing to me to learn that many of the chaps I regularly read (That includes you!) often have the same books in their library. I may bicker and argue at times but I count myself very fortunate to be acquainted with kindred spirits like you and many others at ZH.
good books are like friends, and if people share friends... have a great new year
Thanks, hh. Don't forget all that manure she'll give you. You'll need it for the garden. :)
Cow manure stays in the pastures, and the horse and rabbit shit go in the garden.
Hedgeless:,
Nice insight. As a fellow "thrivist" ( a brilliant term I intend to hijack, thank you very much) I myself prefer goats over a cow (though I have a coupla beeves):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3YFV72Jb9w
Several small goats over one big cow means I'm 'diversified'. Diversification means that I don't have "all my eggs in one basket" so to speak. I can always have a goat or two in milk while others are in the dry phase before kidding (birthing). If an illness or injury takes the life of one goat, I have others as backup. Also, I can butcher the offspring quicker as they mature (within eight months or so) so that I always have meat; and with the meat quantities smaller but more frequent, I have a reduced logistical issue to tackle wrt butchering and freezing. And goat meat is really good!
Your rabbit tractor is cool. I have a conventional rabbitry. I have been wanting to try tractoring, but was a little leery about jail breaks as a result of digging. Has this been a problem for you?
Good luck to you.
Also cheese really works best with milk mixed from more than a single animal of any sort, so two goats would definitely beat one cow in that regard.
But I hate goats. Especially billys. God, what a stink. They piss on their beards as a perfume to attract the ladies. They'll try to eat anything. I caught one of them chewing on my brand new Estwing hammer and have never really gotten over it.
No jail breaks if you move it frequently, such as every day or two.
We use it mostly as a place for mommy and her kits.
You needn't worry about butchering equipment, since the folks who steal your cow when the SHTF will probably have that already. But you're free to enjoy your cow up until then, after which its benefits will go to the rustlers. I'm sure they'll praise your thoughtful preparations for their futures.
I would be more worried about people who don't know how to butcher trying to steal the cow and butcher it. While I'm not the person you would want to learn how to butcher from, I could do it to an acceptable level. Field dressing, skinning, quartering, etc... I'm good at. In other words, I know enough about it to know that your average person would totally fuck it up. Most people know fuckall about where their food comes from.
Hey shit-for-brains giga:
Any astute reader would have noted (among many things) HH's previous posts. In one of them he noted some simply items in a travel bag, which included among other things something called a PS90, which is a very effective tool. Having a 50 round magazine, you could send some serious lead down range. HH likely also has the complimentary hand gun called a FN57 which uses the same ammo and is one of the more lethal handguns out there, first because that bullet leaves the handgun barrel at 1600 FPS and secondly that it has a 20 round magazine. HH has a few "friends" that also value their friendship and each other's lives as their own. I suspect they probably have some gen 3 night vision because it looks like HH has some spare change judging from his thift and other fine posts. Do you thing that HH and his "friends" have ever contemplated how to fend off shit-for-brains cow thieves? Now the lights go out and shit-for-brains comes for his cow???? As Mr. T aptly states "I pitty the fool" that comes for HH's cow (and we haven't even addressed the mental capacity and anger issues of Mrs. HH!). You may conclude much from a man's words and I would place heavy bets on HH keeping his cow and shit for brains being dead within 30 days of the lights going out. Luck also tends to favor the prepared.
HH - Top of the day to you, God bless you and Mrs HH, and the best and a very Happy New Year!
Mister HH seems to have a fixation on weapons and his "end of times" concept. Considering the US is the most protected of any nation in history, one may suspect that he is paranoid. From that platform, a tendency towards isolation and extreme self-reliance is understandable. However, the reality is that the most successful use ALL the cards one is dealt and don't turn a blind eye to the evidence around them. Question yourself, your motivations may not be as rational as you think.
Some of the cards are going to disappear. We suffer from internal rot, against which the US is not protected. Aside from the possibility of a brief but devastating nuclear exchange, foreign powers are not going to bring us down. We'll bring ourselves down. We have grown too complex, and that complexity is unsustainable. We need to scale that complexity back, but instead, we are increasing it. It is a recipe for a major economic catastrophe. When food producers are not able to get loans to stay in business, and this will happen, if you rely on the super market as your only card for food, you'll be right out there with the sheep yelling and screaming when the shelves are sparsely stocked.
Look at the number of acts considered criminal by the federal government to see just complex we have become. Congressional Research Services got to about 10,000 and then quit counting because all of the cross references between the CFR and the USC were too complex. They couldn't do it. Follow the supply chain for something simple, like blue jeans. Where did the copper in the zippers, rivits and buttons come from? How about the fabric? How about the thread? How about the dye? How about the thread for the fabric? How about the fertilizer for the cotton? The list goes on and on. That is complexity of another kind. If you want another example, you can look up the study done 10 or 15 years ago for the supply chain interactions for Swedish Catchup. IIRC, it didn't even get into the supply chain interactions for the farm equipment and the shipping vehicles for all of the raw inputs, and it was still retardedly complex.
All of these interactions have a material cost, including enforcing the laws that are so complex and numerous that nobody can now and understand them all. We live on a finite planet, and those material costs are, in large part financed with debt or debt backed fiat. We have few alternatives in place for the current system, and the fiat party is unsustainable. Our economy is predicated at growth at all costs and its very foundation ignores TANSTAAFL.
Meh, you know me and HH had a spat as I thought he came off more as a survivalist but his opening kinda makes it clear, he enjoys what he does and it isn't to put on a show or prove anything. The point about being a producer not a consumer is spot on. Frickin' wild onions grow in my yard that the grocery wants to charge me 2 bucks for a handful.
A milk cow would be a dream come true with fresh whole milk, cream and butter (three essential ingredients to good cooking) always at the ready. I'm going to continue on the garden and maybe one day have a cow.
That said, these articles need to be edited and formatted to fit the space so they don't look like some average Joe's blog.
With sufficient time, perhaps you will be fortunate and get an enlarged prostate. Then use that advantage with a cow. Getting up several times a night, you can shoot in multiple directions keeping discerning intruders at a distance. It would be wise to keep track of where your cow is before discharging a machine gun.
It takes lots of land to raise cattle. Land you need to protect. It's not for everyone.
True. Even Land Investment for Lumber would be difficult to protect from black market Lumbering... I can't see myself defending 5-10 Acres of Woods. But in USA we can have good neighbors like HH or others are saying.
Some property has Coal or water or animals to hunt. That would be other things to protect.
Gig, I understand where you coming from. In the end ppl will stop at nothing to survive including putting a bullet in me or my cow-s for food. Was planning on getting 10 cows this spring but dont think i could protect them in an open field, if i corral them then i would need to provide hay and water. Now chickens are a good idea, not easily caught and lay alot of eggs.
A good watch dog will give great warning against humans and critters
@ gigaweb I think you might be overlooking the fact that folks who are thoughtful enough to provide for their needs in case of an economic dislocation also include self- and collaborative defense among those needs. My bet is that hedgeless (and others) has some shootin' irons somewhere 'round the homestead.
Milk Goats are probably better...require less land, feed and water.
Farmageddon my good man, first time I heard about milking sheep....... who knew..... come to think of it though seen a lot of lactating sheep living in trailer parks that might be worth trying out....... ya know before the excess protoplasm gets too excessive....... Happy firkin new year BTW
They make great gas-less weed eaters.
A goat will climb on the hood of your car and eat the rubber off the windshield wipers.
They are entertaining though.
You bet they are, Nubian goats, 1 gallon a day of the sweetest milk you have ever had. Very people oriented and I swear they think they are part of the family. Had 5 foster kids at a time. many years ago and plenty of milk to go around. They do need a companion goat. The milk cleared up the allergies on the kids fast. No, I' m not going to eat them
You can milk anything with nipples.
Some are better than others, goats work well if you get a milking breed. Cows come in all sizes, a small acreage setup up might go with a milking Devon. http://www.livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/milking-... They are small and easy to handle. Here in the Texas panhandle a major cheese operation and several dairies moved from Cali due to high overhead and excessive regs. This spring I'm planning on buying a couple of "experienced" Jersey's that are getting too old for commercial use but I should get 6-8 years of good use from them before they meet the freezer.
You knuckledraggers are always holding out on us.
Bring it baby!
I prefer Dexter cows.
They're like having a fat relative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_cattle
I have 15 Dexters and 2 Dexter/Jerseys.
The DJ's are bottle raised and tame as.
The Dexters are like fucking ninja's. Kick you 6 times before you get a teat in your hand.
Tasty though, nice marbling on grass.
Do you breed them for sale?
Not a marital relative?
Ha!
Keep up the good work Anuso.
You don't really think it's going to be a breeze to just walk up and take this man's single cow, do you? I'll bet you take a fat ass .308 to your grill before you get his cow and he gets a pat on the back from deputy Taylor. Oh, and then your wife ends up taking your best friend's meat log.
Agreed, but I wonder how much time & effort it is to post all-night sentries to watch over the cow? It's just not feasible if you're watching the homestead also.
It takes a village.....
Anyone who thinks they're going to survive the shitstorm they imagine, and prepare for, alone, or with just their wife, is dangerously misinformed.
Indubidubly.
Patrolling is the tried and true method for interdicting intruders.
Why, one might even think to organize a neighborhood watch that regularly patrols the, uh... The neighborhood! With one's, uh... One's neighbors!
(Sheer freekin' genius...)
Barn.
That's not to say that there is no danger in a lawless society. Danger is everywhere. But the danger is the same if you have nothing or much. People won't know which one is true for you until they go through the pockets of your corpse. From a strictly historical standpoint, agricultural people do better and live longer than hunter-gatherers. Also, many country societies are, shall we say, slightly related to each other or at least friendly to their neighbors in a way that condo-dwellers may not comprehend. That isolated farm might not be such a solitary target as people think until the bullets start coming out their shirt fronts.
A couple of Chinese Geese and a few Guinea Fowl will watch for intruders and wake the soundest sleeper. Both are alert all night and can mostly care for themselves. Guineas will keep your yard free of insects.