Category: Livestock, Feed, & Fencing

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. …


How to Capitalize on Urine, Car Batteries, Wood Ashes, Bones and Bird Schumer, by Jeff M.

Throughout the last few centuries, mankind has been building and building up, combining raw materials and energy to create… stuff. This stuff is scattered all over urban population centers, and many of it can be used for basic life-sustaining purposes. I thought I’d write in and share some information I’ve gathered over the years in my work and in my hobbies, as it relates to sustaining life if you’re trapped in an urban area. I’m enumerating the primitive uses of some very basic components for those interested, this wasn’t meant as a guide for building any of this stuff, further …


Letter Re: Getting Self-Sufficient in Wyoming

Dear Mr. Rawles, I was recently given your novel “Patriots” by a like-minded friend in Wyoming. I read it once for pleasure, then twice with a highlighter, notepad, and Google. It’s a wonderful resource, and I’m looking forward to the new book [“How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It”]. Reading “Patriots” left me proud to be an American, and revitalized something I felt I had been losing in the recent years. This is a wonderful country, and I have faith that there are still a bunch of decent God-fearing people who will stand up for …


Letter Re: Raising Sheep and Goats: Dealing with Internal Parasites

I just finished reading the linked article “Five Highly Productive, Low-Stress Animals You Can Raise at Home.” When I read articles like this I start to fume. They make it sound like all you need to do is ‘get your goat’ (or whatever) turn it out and reap the benefits. One the major issues in sheep and goat raising that can be and often is a killer is parasites (intestinal and nasal worms). Sheep and goats are subject to stomach worm. This worms basically suck the their blood and the host (sheep or goat) then dies from anemia. Most folks …


Small Breed Dogs–Nature’s Leatherman Tool, by B.C.

Allow me to begin with a request. Close your eyes and conjure up an image of a small dog into your mind. Is it snarling viciously? Straining at it’s owner’s leash pointlessly while they offer empty apologies for its behavior? Perhaps it’s groomed in a ridiculous fashion, poking its timid head out from a large handbag in an L.A. Salon. All of these things are, of course, absurd applications of an otherwise useful creature. Small dogs were bred for very specific working purposes long before they were adapted as fashion accessories, becoming the misfits of the canine world. Please keep …


Squeezing Efficiency Out of Every Second of Your Workday to Provide Quality Relaxation Time, by KAF

Yes, I actually said relaxation. Are you finding yourself overwhelmed with chores, or frazzled and just flat out fatigued trying to accomplish everything you must do in a workday on the homestead? I have recently lost my right arm support on my homestead. As all of you know who are practicing “prepper’s” of self-sufficiency, the Fall season, which by the way is my favorite, is almost equal to that of Spring in the number and intensity of the tasks and chores that must be performed in order to keep your slice of heaven on earth in sequence of the time …


Letter Re: Living in the Time After TEOTWAWKI

Dear Mr. Rawles, I think there is a blind spot in a lot of preparedness/survivalist writing that I would like to address. There are a number of sites which do a good to excellent job of getting the word out about the nuts-and-bolts of getting prepared to allow a family to get through a short term emergency, and there are sites which encourages us to get a retreat in farm country. However, I have not seen anyone talk about how we will boot strap ourselves to back towards some sort of village life and civil society[, in the event of …


Letter Re: Cattle Rustling on the Rise

James, First off, we continue to pray for your family. Whatever the Lord’s plan is, he will show you grace and mercy. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Secondly, one of my cattle buyers, corroborated by one of my truckers, has informed me of some signs-of-the-times, unconfirmed via regular news outlets so far, cattle rustling in Pennsylvania is on the rise, including something not usually seen, carcass remnants. Several barns/pastures have cattle missing, one load of which was recovered at a sale barn, and at least a half dozen reports from different farmers finding carcasses, with primals cut out, …


Letter Re: Burros for TEOTWAWKI Transport

Dear Mr. Rawles, I have a question that I have not found addressed on SurvivalBlog. I am a small-statured woman (5’5″, 130 lbs.) living in the desert southwest. I have a retreat that I am currently stocking, and am beginning to think about livestock (aside from chickens and goats, which are a given). While most of my peers keep and ride horses, I’m considering burros instead. My reasoning is that they are already adapted to an arid environment, can forage more easily, are hardier than horses, and are less expensive. They can also be used for packing or pulling equipment. …


Letter Re: Surviving 90 Miles from the US — A Cuban-American Exile’s View

A brief background of myself. I am an Telecommunications Engineer, I served three years in the Cuban army as an Engineer in several units (it was mandatory unless you were integrated with the system, in which case you will get a better civilian job). After I served my time they did not want to release me (basically no one wants to stay unless you are willing to do their bidding) so they offered 2 years to a very harsh unit that stays in the mountains for months end ready to be sent anywhere, or stay for 20 years in very …