Category: Livestock, Feed, & Fencing

Finding Community, by Jim Fry

Here at the farm we had the first of a series of free and open classes on disaster preparedness on February 1st. One of the things I intend to talk about at the upcoming meetings are various options for joining a community. When discussing disaster preparations, the first thing to decide is what you think is most likely to happen. If you think the world is a friendly place where snow means skiing and flowers always bloom, then a disaster is the electricity going out for a couple days if a tree happens to fall. You’ll need a case of …


Preparing Your Church Congregation, by JSX in Virginia

My preparedness background started as a youth.  My father took us camping often and had an amazing gun collection; I’ve been able to teach my kids what he taught me – great memories both then and now!  In the 1970s, my mom and step-dad bought a little 2-acre farm in the middle of nowhere.  We kept a dozen or so chickens, had a few garden spots (that seemed to grow and multiply with each new season), homemade soap, homemade root beer (an acquired taste!) a “sewing room”, a small orchard, solar heating, our own 250-gallon fuel tank, and a year …


Barriers – Berries – and Bounty All Hidden in Plain Sight, by The Prudent Gardener

It seems a part of preparing for extremely hard times is acquiring knowledge and honing skills to maximize resources. SurvivalBlog has been tremendously helpful in developing exhaustive lists of needs, supplies, strategies and defenses. In addition, provision is made for faith, charity and quality of life to improve a healthy mental state. As a landscape contractor for 32 years, I am now seeing more potential for self-reliance that most property owners could develop with some planning and a better awareness of the resources they may already possess. This form of preparation could substantially improve our situation both short and long …


Letter Re: Clothing and Shoes, Post-TEOTWAWKI

James, Okay, a year or three goes by, [after TEOTWAWKI]. My wife can sew, but where do you get cloth and thread? I love Goretex (since I live in Western Oregon), but where do I replace those great Hi-Tec boots? No one seems to be discussing what happens when a shoelace brakes after Schumer is in session. You can hardly find them now. Cloth – one will make a spinning wheel and loom after “the fan” has become clogged! All that I can recall is an anecdote about the early Oregon Trail, when the newly arrived – skinny and starving …


A Preparedness Plan for a Single Woman With Children

I’ve been reading SurvivalBlog for almost a year.  I am thankful for the advice that I receive each day.  I have had a “be prepared” attitude for about 30 years, although the past two years have thrown several speed bumps and roadblocks my way.  Two years ago my son and his family were in a life threatening accident.  I spent almost every penny I had saved toward retirement to help my daughter-in-law recover.  This year I fought for and won custody of three of my grandchildren from my daughter.  So now, instead of planning for TEOTWAWKI for just myself, a …


Letter Re: The Bosnian Experience, Part 2

Sir: The next thing that I would like to cover is mode of transportation. When the society collapses more likely you will have to leave your home. Having a 4×4 vehicle that is equipped with everything that you need to survive would be everyone’s choice for travel but that sometimes might not be possible. In the broken society there is no law. Everyone and everybody is a target. Traveling in the vehicle on the road or off the road is extremely risky. First, vehicles make noise and everyone can hear you. Second, vehicles are big and they can be seen. …


Letter Re: The Bosnian Experience

Mr. Rawles, I want to thank you for having this site and presenting people with opportunity two obtain useful information that could save their lives one day. I have been dedicated reader of your blogs for some time and now think that is my time to contribute some information instead of just reading it. I have survived through collapse of former Yugoslavia and the years of war that followed after. I will try to cover as much of different topics that pertain to every day survival. No matter on how much the person is prepared, it might not be enough. …


Letter Re: Raising Meat Rabbits

Dear Editor: Pam N. wrote an excellent addition to the blog that was posted on December 24th. Their is a couple of points I’d like to add. Be careful keeping rabbits in an area without a lot of ventilation. Rabbit urine puts off an ammonia type smell that evidently can damage their health. We regularly get freezing weather in the winter and then as high as 110 in the summer and our rabbits stay outside all year round. While it’s made very clear on the package not to use it on anything other than cattle, Ivomectrin is very helpful in …


Raising Meat Rabbits, by Pam N.

Planning for our extended family’s provision in the event of TEOTWAWKI turned out to require much more time and thoughtfulness than a few trips to the big box store. Although we had laid in a good volume of stored food supplies, we were concerned about sustainable sources of food possibly necessary for extended periods of time. During the planning stages, it became clear that the kind of protein we preferred (meat) was the most expensive to purchase and trickiest to preserve and store. After much research and thought we decided to begin raising rabbits. Our reasoning went along these lines: …


Letter Re: Goats for Thrifty Livestock Feeding

I love the Christmas season, and it is not for all the time and money wasted watching kids rip open boxes with toys or gadgets that they will forget about in a month. I can really reduce my hay bill for January even in the worst winters. Round about December 21st, I post small notices at the library, banks, and other places that will let me that advertise; “Tree Removal – $5 Mountain/Clean Trees or $10 all others” Costs me less than an hour of my time to make and post the notices and nets me between 50-100 trees a …


Planning Ahead for Your Family Pets, by Margaret

Many of the very informative articles that have been written, talk about Getting Out Of Dodge (G.O.O.D.), plotting alternative routes, allowing for problems along the way, practising packing the vehicle and having fuel and supplies at en route stop-over points. May I suggest that another plan that needs to be thought out ahead of time is for the family pets? When people go away for the weekend or go on holidays, quite often a neighbour or family member comes in to feed and check up on the pets and this works out fine. Alternatively an ice-cream container of dry food …


Letter Re: A Tip on Egg Organization

Good Day JWR, My prayers continue daily for you, and for your son’s hearts healing at the loss of Memsahib. May you find some fraction of reciprocal solace and warmth from the Thanksgiving Blessings from God for the many hundreds of thousands of lives that you have enriched with your blog and books. Thanksgivings to you JWR for what you have done and do so very well, by providing this valuable multi-national information highway of connectedness on survival and preparedness! Here is my organizational tip of the week I would like to share. We have free range poultry and very …


Lessons Leaned from a Wildfire Evacuation, by Daniel in Montana

It was a gorgeous Saturday night, Sept. in Montana’s mountains the weather was hanging onto summer’s 70 degree temperatures, warm and dry. Working all day at the hospital and finishing some of my home preparedness projects gave me a satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Time to relax, I sat down, put my feet up and was sipping my week’s end treat, a cold beer. I phoned my friend, “Brett” to finalize our plans to butcher a few of his farm animals tomorrow. He was finishing a Bible reading with his boys and was putting them to bed, and would call …


Seven Letters Re: How Can I Make and Store Dog Food?

Mr. Rawles, My husband’s grandmother often told about her busy days during the depression, raising seven kids with almost nothing. At the end of her busy day, while cooking supper for her family, she had to make two or three pans of cornbread to feed her husband’s hunting dogs. The dogs were valuable because they helped her husband bring in rabbits and squirrel which sometimes were the only meat the family ate. I’ve always figured if I could no longer afford dog food, I would try Grandma’s cornbread solution. – S. in Indiana Sir, One way to feed your dogs …


Letter Re: How Can I Make and Store Dog Food?

James, I read the blog regularly and have noticed people mentioning the value of having a large dog on a property–for protection, extra set of ears, etc. Having recently purchased a German Shepherd puppy and seeing the costs of dog food rising, plus the looming dangers of hyperinflation and disruptions of supply chains, I’m wondering if anyone out there can share the recipe for a nutritious food for a large breed puppy/dog–especially a food that can be made from common items and stored. Otherwise, when the storm hits I may have a great dog, and no suitable food for her. …