Notes from JWR:

There is some interesting commentary by David Von Drehle in the recent Time magazine article titled Gold Fated. BTW, the article briefly quotes yours truly.

—

Today we present another entry for Round 28 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com. (A $275 value.), and D.) A 500 round case of Federal 5.56mm XM193 55 Grain FMJ ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo. This is a $199 value, and includes free UPS shipping.

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 28 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Four Great Preparedness Myths, by Dan B.

I subscribe to the RSS feeds of a number of blogs about survival, including Rawles’ (top of the line!), and I subscribe to numerous firearms-related blogs and message boards. I also periodically meet people who are interested in survival issues in my non-electronic life. All preppers are trying to prepare for a particular situation, and their preparations reflect their beliefs about what that situation will be like. Unfortunately, many of those beliefs are false, and those false beliefs seem to be brought about by four myths, which I thought I would describe. The strange thing about these myths is that they seem to be largely taken for granted and rarely discussed – preppers will debate endlessly the right rifle to have for a survival situation but rarely talk about the big picture. I hope to dispel these myths, but at the very least, I hope to start an interesting conversation.

Myth #1: You can defend yourself against the horde.

Most of the beginning and intermediate preppers I’ve met believe that they will be defending their property against a horde of starving or otherwise malicious people, and prep accordingly. It’s important to note that no one who has actually tried to defend themselves against a large group of determined assailants actually thinks it can be done. The math is pretty simple: the horde has numbers on its side, time on its side, and its determination probably matches yours. If a large group of people decide that you’ve got something they want, that’s all there is to it. You can take a stand, but sooner or later, you’re going to run out of manpower, firepower, or sleep (or all three), and it’s all over. These aren’t slow-moving, unarmed, clumsy movie zombies who want to eat your brains – these are determined, smart people who are just trying to preserve their own lives, who can scale fences, create strategies, or simply overwhelm you with sheer numbers. This is why experienced preppers either live in the middle of nowhere or conceal that they are preppers. (By the way, the concealment strategy is a pretty limited one – how long do you think you can living in a community and conceal that you’re not starving while everyone else is starving? At that point, you can go right back to the horde problem.)

Myth #2: Stock up on the ammo you’ll need to defend yourself with.

Once again, the math just doesn’t add up on this one. There is only one scenario where you think you’ll be be using a lot of ammunition, and it is the horde scenario. You won’t – the horde scenario will be over in a few minutes to a few hours, with you the loser, and your stored ammo with go to the winners. Don’t get me wrong – you need guns and ammo, but the idea that you’re going to expend thousands of rounds is just a reflection of people’s erroneous beliefs about what kind of shooting situations they’ll be in. If you’re determined to buy ammo, don’t buy them for [just] your guns – buy them for everybody else’s, and you’ll actually own a valuable commodity. Better yet, use the money to buy food, which leads us to myth #3.

Myth #3: I only need X number of days of food.

I was motivated to write this article by a thread I saw on a message board where people were comparing the contents of their bugout bags. Seven people in a row described having less than two day’s worth of food. What is the point of having survival gear if you are so debilitated by hunger that you can’t use it? Some people who’ve never been without food for a couple of days will point out correctly that the human body can go for weeks without food, but I suggest that you fast for just four days and then try to engage in any kind of real physical activity – it’s a nonstarter. The body can keep itself alive without food, but that’s about all it can do. In a real survival situation, you won’t be sitting behind a desk typing e-mails; you’ll be running, walking, digging, and fighting, plus any other actions that a machine used to do for you. All that requires energy – lots of it. You’re going to have to supply that energy – all of it. Now multiply that obligation by the number of people in your group, and the number of days you’ll have to go without a resupply of food. The result is a mountain of food, much more than what casual preppers sock away. The problem isn’t just food – what are you going to drink? How are you going to sanitize that water supply? How are you going to cook all that food? However much food you store, you’ll need an equivalent source of energy to cook it, since most long-term survival foods, like grains and legumes, all need to be cooked. The myth I’m describing is perhaps more a tendency than a myth – preppers focus on weapons and defensive equipment (some out of fear and some because those are the things they like using anyway), when they should be focusing on food. You can buy an awful lot of wheat for the price of a single gun.

Finally, the king – the big kahuna of survival myths:

Myth #4: TEOTWAWKI will be fun!

A rarely-discussed but obvious undercurrent in survival circles is the general idea that somehow a serious survival situation will be great for those who have prepared adequately, and likely good for the world in general. A number of justifications are given for this view: It will have a cleansing effect, it will be a neat little “reset” button for society, people’s priorities will improve by necessity, etc. Although this issue is not discussed often, there is an obvious hoping-it-will-happen theme to the attitudes of many survivalists, because for those who have prepared, somehow things will be better than they were before SHTF. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The bottom line is that if you survive a worldwide collapse, you haven’t earned immortality – you’ve just earned the opportunity to die a later death that will likely be violent but will almost be guaranteed to be painful and lingering. And it isn’t just your death that will be slow and painful – you’ll also have the experience of watching your friends and family go the same way. Culturally, we are now so many generations removed from primitive medical care that we’ve almost completely forgotten what life will be like without a professionally-staffed, well-equipped, electrified, sanitized, and heated hospital to go to when we have any sort of illness. You think appendicitis is bad with anesthesia, antibiotics, and a trained surgeon? It sure is – but now try it without any of those things. It doesn’t stop at medical care – in our culture, we have come to take for granted general security, food availability, reliable utilities, sanitation, the rule of law, human rights, access to information, and on and on. By definition, none of these things will be available in TEOTWAWKI. And if you think living in a world where none of these things exist is going to be anything other than misery, you haven’t thought very hard about what it will be like. Thomas Hobbes wrote in the 17th century that life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” We’ve come a long way since then, but that description will fit a TEOTWAWKI situation perfectly. It’s pretty obvious to me that many in the prepper world hope that there preparations weren’t for nothing, and to them I’d say: be careful what you wish for.

Three Letters Re: Some Tips and Tricks on Raising Meat Rabbits

Christine W. wrote a very nice article about raising rabbits for meat. As a rabbit raiser myself, I’d like to add a few suggestions:

I have never had problems using straw in nest boxes, but prefer to use hay, or better yet, long dry grass. The does like to arrange their nests, and they get a good snack as well. You can add more bedding material if a doe gets piggy and eats all the bedding.

I used to raise fryers commercially, and rigged up a great way to stack cages but eliminate the expensive trays that are time consuming to clean. Each layer of cages had a “drop board” underneath, which was a sheet of painted plywood suspended about four inches below the back of the cages and 6 inches below the front. (You can hang these boards, or build frames for the cages and boards)

This was enough room to use a squeegee to pull the droppings forward, letting the fall to the floor. I used cedar tow on the floor in front of the cages to soak up urine. All I had to do was sweep the aisle (I had 280 cages in four layers on both sides of a 12×36 area in the barn) to keep the droppings contained. A quick sprinkle of lime on the row of swept tow and droppings kept the smell to a minimum. Once a week I swept the rows of tow/droppings/urine out and shoveled it into sacks for selling to customers, into my garden, or into someone’s truck. Then I would spray the drop boards with a wonderful product “Nature’s Miracle” which completely eliminates ammonia with enzymes. Many, many times I had customers exclaim “How do you keep so many rabbits with no smell!”

Another way to do this that works best on single layers of cages as it takes up more space: Hang a strip of tarp or heavy plastic under the cages, one end a little lower than the other. Cut a hole about 6 inches in diameter near one end. Put a bucket under this. You can them flush with a hose! Everything goes in the bucket, and is easy to put where you need it. If you look in the Bass Equipment catalog or web site, you will see where I got this idea. And I did it for very little cost!

Wheat germ oil added to the does feed during the last week of pregnancy really helps them build up fat and milk. This is especially important if you are breeding in winter.

The biggest reason new mothers kill their young, (or simply neglect them to the point of death) is [the stress of having] strangers in the area, whether human or critter. When raising fryer rabbits, I always bred does on Tuesdays so that they would kindle over the weekend. I would then be around to be sure no one wandered into the barn.

Aas CW mentioned, another trick for keeping rabbits cool is to put frozen 2 liter water bottles in the cages. Rabbits will lay up against them!

I raise my fryers from weaning to butcher in outside cages on the ground. We live in a high predator area, so the cage must be tight. I use 2×4 utility wire for a “floor” which keeps the rabbits from digging out, and allows me to move the cages to clean ground every day without removing the rabbits. One tip though: Don’t make the mistake I did! I have a 4×8 cage, which is wonderful until it’s full of 20+ rabbits at 5-6 pounds each. Then it’s tough to move by myself! (grin) This year I will be building two smaller cages.

Another idea in regards to outside cages: Build them in a size that fits in the rows of your garden! Then the rabbits can eat the weeds and grass and fertilize right where you need it. You can do this with chickens as well.

A couple of excellent sources for rabbit supplies: Bass Equipment and Morton Jones.

Regards, – WarMare in Southwestern Washington

 

Mr. Editor:

I second the motion on using 2-liter pop bottles full of water (frozen solid) for preventing rabbit heat distress crashes. Another plus, by the by, is that those frozen bottles help keep your freezer full, which makes it operate the most efficiently. (Each time you open your freezer, it lets in warm air, so a full freezer is an efficient freezer–especially for an upright design, where the cold air “spills out”.) Also, of course those bottles represent a small reserve of stored emergency water. So storing its a total “win-win.” Cheers, – Pat N.

Dear James,

For conventional Rabbit raising, if you will be able to provide the required ice, or other methods of cooling we have done this for several years.

Our basic Rabbitry has consisted of a Geodesic dome made from 2X4s and a set of “Star Plates” available from Stromberg’s Chicks, Gamebirds and Poultry Supplies these little metal plates allow you to build an amazing number of farm/retreat utility buildings, with very little in the way of carpentry skills. Using a enclosed Rabbitry will increase your OPSEC since the animals will be out of sight 99% of the time. The next thing for our basic rabbit unit is to build a bench high rack system for the cages. As I mentioned before the cages should be all wire and set, or suspended so that wastes can simply fall through to the ground.
To do this build a wood frame as though you were building a work bench against a wall. Rather than putting a solid work top on the frame I cover it with 2×4 welded wire anchored at the front and back of the frame. I then just set my cages on this “top”. This way the rabbit waste never contacts anything but the ground, or a catch basin. Once a year I take cages out and use a propane torch to flame off the build up of hair, and those few bits of waste that may have built up. I never have had an ammonia problem so long as I keep the Bunny Barn well ventilated. I can step in and scoop up a shovel full of dropping anytime I need to top dress, or amend a bed, or I can fill a garden cart for mixing with top soil when starting a new garden bed.

As for First Time Mothers, I don’t actively support a new mother or use litter, beyond setting up a good nesting box. For the most part I don’t use litter at all, except in the kindling box. We use all wire cages, with a standing pad, so that the Rabbits can rest their feet from standing on wire all the time, and so that they have a place to sleep. In the past we keep all our cages in a well ventilated, but draft free structure, so no bedding box was needed except for a kindling mother. With the cages set on wire topped frames all the rabbit waste fall through the cage floor to the ground or into a catch tray, which is sometimes used to collect up the droppings for use in the garden. (Rabbit droppings are Mother Natures time released fertilizer, no composting needed.)

Our Kindling boxes are lined first with cardboard, then with newspaper, then topped with fine pine shavings. We have had no problems with kit’s eyes, or with respiratory problems. Mom’s still line this with belly fur just before delivery.

I always give a Doe three litters to figure it out; if a mother can’t get at least half of her third litter weaned all by herself then I cull her. Some will consider this a harsh attitude on my part, but in all honesty, I just don’t have the time to teach a doe how to do her job. Once the bottom falls out, and you are actively depending on your gardens, goats, chickens, and rabbits to feed you; you will find that you have even less time for such things. Select now for naturally good does, then you don’t have to work so hard later. The same culling process applies to any buck problems; if they can’t do their jobs without special handling or housing, cull them now, and select for animals that will take the least amount of effort on your part.

C.W. is absolutely right about heat issues. While a rabbit will survive -30F temps with a minimum of protection; Heat will wipe out your herd in just a couple of days of 100+ degree weather. The biggest problem with Rabbits in a grid down scenario is that the production of ice will be very energy intensive, and therefore expensive. What is needed is a way to raise your rabbits in a temperate climate where temperatures can reach into the triple digits, without ice, or artificial cooling.

What is the answer? Well do you live in an area that has wild rabbits? How do you think they survive the summers? Answer: In underground dens.

Based on some research I found from FAO (part of the UN. Hey, I’ll take good ideas from the enemy.) I have started to experiment with artificial dens, made from 55 gallon drums set on their sides, and buried with an artificial tunnel to a standard wire cage. At this time I am not willing to venture an opinion on how well this will work out, as results are still pending. [JWR Adds: In my experience, rabbits kept in “colony” pens on the ground will soon begin to excavate their own tunnels. Just be advised that they can be prodigious tunnelers, so your pen fence should be constructed by first digging a trench that is two feet deep, and extending the fence wire mesh below the grade, to prevent escapes! It is best to create a “starter” hole” in the center of your colony pen, for them to expand. ]

What I can tell you is that it takes a lot of work to build good permanent housing, and especially the artificial dens, but once done they should provide you with years of service, with a minimum of effort later.

That is after all at the core of preparing now for the tough times ahead. Now the resources are available, now we have the time to build, and learn, now we have the luxury of getting by on specialized skills. We do things now so that we will have the systems, and resources in place later to make life possible, or maybe, easier. Just My Two Cents, – Fanderal

Economics and Investing:

The latest Friday Follies–Four More US Banks Bite the Dust: Midwest Bank & Trust Company, Elmwood Park, Illinois; Southwest Community Bank, Springfield, Missouri; New Liberty Bank, Plymouth, Michigan;
Satilla Community Bank, St. Marys, Georgia.

Banks seized a record 92,000 homes last month. (Thank to Brian B. for the link.)

Axel Merk explains what is behind the gold and global credit market shakeup: Europe’s Bazooka

Clive Maund has some interesting observations on the gold and silver markets.

Reader “T556” liked this commentary by Dave DeGraw: High Frequency Financial Terrorism, Wall Street Bankster’s Maintain Death Grip on United States

Items from The Economatrix:

Housing Optimists Are “Not Paying Attention” Says Dean Baker

Stocks Recover From Recent Slide Over Debt Fears

Senate Passes Curb on Bank Card Fees

Spain Faces Unrest as New Austerity Plan is Announced

Germans Face Big Budget Cuts as Cost of EU Bailouts

IMF Predicts More Pain for Greece

US Banks “May Have Misled” Rating Agencies

Euro at Lowest Level Since Lehman Collapse

US Retail Sales, Industrial Output Rise

Wall Street Spooked by Bank Probe and Greece Blast

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I believe that the physical gold rush we have seen in Europe is proof that the bailout was an epic failure. Of course propaganda will be used all over the place from the emotionally captured mainstream media to the stock market, which as I have said for over a year now is largely used as a political weapon because the uneducated masses actually believe the stock market going up means things are getting better. All we have to do is look at the stellar performance of the Zimbabwean stock market during the hyperinflation to know this is complete nonsense.” – Michael Krieger, as quoted by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 28 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com. (A $275 value.), and D.) A 500 round case of Federal 5.56mm XM193 55 Grain FMJ ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo. This is a $199 value, and includes free UPS shipping.

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 28 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Self-Storage Spaces as Caches, by Ryan in British Columbia

Many self-storage caching ideas have been put forward by readers of SurvivalBlog. Generally, most people in the preparedness community do not approve of using a self-storage unit as a cache, but I think it has some great advantages. As with anything, you must properly plan and weigh your options. There are many considerations you must make, but if you find a self-storage place under the right conditions, it can be very helpful.  A main concern is that it should be walking distance from your home. Also make sure the place has rodent and insect control. Some pros and cons are listed below:

Pros:

  • It is located away from your home (your eggs not “all in one basket”.)
  • It is very secure while the grid is up. Semi-secure during grid-down.
  • Almost nobody stores food there, so raiders will mostly be looking for tools, clothing and things to burn [for fuel] like boxes, paper and furniture (won’t be immediately raided.)
  • If your wife / family / roommates are not on board, it’s private.
  • If you are low on space at home (apartment), it’s great for reducing clutter.
  • Nobody gets suspicious when you move 20 large containers in and out whenever you want.
  • Fire is of little concern as four-hour firewalls are common in these places, and most new storage buildings are constructed out of concrete.

Cons:

  • Expensive rental fees.
  • Will eventually be raided for equipment and burnable materials.
  • May not be located close enough to your home.
  • In Canada, you cannot store firearms in these facilities, as they must be in your home.
  • These storage businesses usually have a clause in their rental contracts saying you can’t store food or flammable goods. Just make sure the boxes aren’t labeled as food, ammo, etc.
  • If you are caught breaking the contract before a collapse, you may be liable for damage or injuries.
  • Storing fuel is a BIG “no-no” in these places, so be careful. At best you’ll get one warning, and then be kicked out.

Security:
Of course you want security, but not too much security. In a grid-down collapse, you want to be able to get inside the property with some bolt-cutters and access your goods. Most of these places have chain-link fences with barbed-wire. This is perfect, because in a pinch, you can easily cut a hole in the fence. Also make sure you can access your storage unit from outside. In some of these places, you have to walk into a warehouse and go up an elevator. In a grid-down collapse, these units will be unavailable because the exterior doors to the warehouse will be locked. These places are pretty secure so good luck getting through those heavy metal doors.

While it may be nice to have a heated indoor storage unit for your cache, lack of access is simply too big a risk. Get a unit with direct access from outside, preferably heated for food and water storage. You don’t want your food and water going through many freeze-thaw cycles.

Get a good lock! You are going to be spending $1,000 to $4,000 a year on rental fees anyway, so you might as well buy the thickest, highest quality padlock you can afford. Often, these storage places provide you with a padlock of their own. Do not use it! They have their own master key, and it will be a cheap lock that they bought in bulk. A raider could easily cut those locks.

It is my opinion that these facilities won’t be raided immediately in a TEOTWAWKI event. Grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, and food storage warehouses will be first. Apartment buildings will be second, then suburban homes, and lastly rural homesteads. In my opinion, storage places won’t be picked clean until all the food, water and fuel has been secured by whoever is in charge at the time.

Camouflage:
If possible, store your goods among a pile of the worthless things that nobody would steal. Namely, make sure it can’t be traded, worn, eaten, or burned [as fuel]. Scrap metal is one idea. It is heavy, and has no immediate value in terms of day-to-day survival. Who is going to steal a rusted 200-pound boat anchor? Nobody will, at least not at first. 

I am currently working on a self-storage cache and have been collecting scrap metal. Among the dirty, rusted heap of garbage I plan to put together, I’ll have a couple very large boxes with large labels such as “House Furnace, 1986”. Inside these boxes will be my cached items. These boxes will be at the back of the storage unit, and thieves will have to walk over piles of twisted metal and rusty nails just have a peek in the dusty old beat up boxes. Hopefully raiders will simply move on before that. Well actually, I hope I’ve emptied the cache before they raid the place!

What you should store has been constantly discussed on SurvivalBlog so I won’t go into much detail. We all know what to put into a cache… Beans, Bullets and Band-Aids!

I’ll also include tents, propane, camp stove, clothing, blankets, stabilized gas, some water, batteries, flashlights, candles, a water filter, rope, knives, chlorine powder, lighters, and a radio. I’ve also been considering whiskey for barter if space and weight don’t make it prohibitive.

A Word About Water:

It is difficult to cache enough water to survive for long, so keep more at home, along with a water filter. People can’t carry much water very far, so I will have a minimal amount of water in my caches. Without access to a replenishing water source [and a water filter, if needed], we will not survive for long, but we all know that already–thanks to Jim. Try to have access to a replenishing water source, or buy a hand-cranked reverse osmosis filter if on the coast, as I did. This avoids so much work if the SHTF, and you can concentrate on food, shelter and security.

Letter Re: Spring Location Web Page

JWR:
I came upon the Find A Spring web site the other day, thought it might be interesting.

Water being one of the most important assets in a great time of need, just maybe it is closer and better than your tap. Look up the closest natural spring to your location at Find A Spring. Bring all your water carrying gear and try it out to see how it tastes. Some of these springs mention sulphur or other tastes. You might find that it is the best water you have ever tried, best of all it is natural and typically free. In a TSHTF scenario, this could be life saving to everyone in the area and would be profitable and make it easy to take care of that most pressing of needs; clean, healthy water available from nature. If you are traveling to a safe place, it might be that you could plan your route to hit these springs along the way, saving you the hassle of carrying large amounts of water or the worry of not finding water. Best of luck, – Steve O.

Letter Re: Lessons from the Anasazi Societal Collapse

Dear James:
I recently stumbled across a book with surprising relevance to survivalists: David E. Stuart’s Anasazi America. Stuart is a professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, and Anasazi America is an overview of seventeen centuries of New Mexico prehistory, focusing on the Anasazi, builders of the Chacoan civilization, and their descendants, the Pueblo.

At their peak in the eleventh century, the Chaco Anasazi were an extremely successful society, larger than any European state of the time, having built extensive road and trade networks and huge “great houses” that were used as food distribution and ritual centres. But over a period of a few decades, they underwent what qualifies as TEOTWAWKI by anybody’s standards; increasing disparity between the ruling class and the poor, several years drought leading to famine, failure of the ruling elites to recognize and respond to the exigencies of their situation, and a multigenerational collapse which saw a rise in warfare and a sharp decline in population. Although the book was published in 2000, Stuart attempts to draw parallels between the situation of the Chaco Anasazi and what he perceives as disturbingly analogous trends in American society at the time.

While most SurvivalBlog readers won’t find much of interest in the first five chapters unless they’re amateur archaeologists, and many of them might not agree with Stuart’s prescriptions for modern-day America, I suspect that they might find the remainder of the book of interest; it’s an interesting study of collapse, and one that supports a lot of current survivalist thinking; while the ruling Chaco Anasazi elites attempted to deal with the crisis by repeating old formulas that no longer worked, the smart Anasazi bugged out to the hinterboonies early and took up more self-sufficient lifestyles as opposed to staying dependent on the centralized food storage and distribution system, followed later by a Golden Horde of sorts. Several generations of warfare and population decline ensued. Unlike many other pre-contact societies in the Americas that underwent collapses, however, the Chaco Anasazi eventually managed to rebuild a more stable and successful society.

It’s not your average survivalist read, and rather academic, but it’s still worth a read for its big-picture perspective on a well-studied case of a complex society collapsing.

Best Regards, – E.D.R. (A moderately-well prepared Canadian)

Economics and Investing:

Jonathan C. sent us this: Don’t Tell Zimbabwe: Argentina Belongs to 25% Inflation Club.

G.G. recommended this: Central banks are losing credibility.

Also from G.G.: Report: 11.2 Million U.S. Properties with Negative Equity in First Quarter.

World Health Organization Moving Ahead on Billions in Internet and Other Taxes

Items from The Economatrix:

US Plans Law to Prevent Banks from Betting Against Clients

SEC Eyes “Circuit Breakers” to Stop Repeat of Dow Plunge

The Big Short: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street

Trade Deficit Increases to $40.4 Billion in March

Was The Euro Saved By a Call From Barack Obama?

 

Odds ‘n Sods:

Several readers mentioned this: 20 Things You Will Need to Survive When the Economy Collapses and the Next Great Depression Begins. The writer is a bit naive, but seems to be well-intentioned.

   o o o

Details emerge about the new Supreme Court nominee: Clinton staff: “We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.” Kagan wrote the Clinton ban on gun imports.

   o o o

Ian sent us a news story link that illustrates how paper currency privacy (and ease of transport) is slipping away: Organised crime fears cause ban on 500 euro note sales. Look for the truth behind the headlines, folks. Think about the face value of what you can fit in a money belt today, and what options will exist in a few years. Here in North America, $500 Canadian dollar notes are now available only on the collector’s market. (But thankfully, they are still legal tender.) And anything larger than a $100 USD bill would not be available without paying a large collector’s premium, and presumably even then wouldn’t be accepted as legal tender in the U.S. or abroad.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.” – Robert Orben

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 28 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com. (A $275 value.), and D.) A 500 round case of Federal 5.56mm XM193 55 Grain FMJ ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo. This is a $199 value, and includes free UPS shipping.

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 28 ends on May 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Some Tips and Tricks on Raising Meat Rabbits, by Christine W.

Food production is the most important skill in survival. Without sufficient food you’re sunk. You won’t have the energy to protect yourself or your supplies, you won’t be able to get firewood to keep warm, or water to stay hydrated. So yes, you can live for weeks without food, but only if other people are there to take care of you and they have enough food! And meat is one of the best energy foods. Unfortunately most meat production is a high feed/time endeavor. It takes a lot of feed and time to get that cow to butcher size. Two years from birth to butcher if you’re looking at optimum growth. Plus a cow standing out in a field is going to draw attention, even if you live in the boonies. That’s why rabbits are such a good survival idea. They are very low profile, quiet, easy to raise, healthy, easy to feed, reproduce quickly, and reach butcher size in 10 to 12 weeks. No other livestock animal has a better feed to weight ratio. Meaning it takes less feed to get your rabbits to butcher size than any other meat animal. There are some great rabbit raising books out there with the standard information, but some info is only learned by experience. These are tricks about rabbit raising that we had to learn the hard way through trial and error, or was passed on to us by other rabbit raisers. So if you are a rabbit raiser or just starting a rabbit journey I hope this helps!

Health
Do not use straw in rabbit cages. If mice have been in the straw their feces and urine can carry infections that will spread to your rabbits. We had this happen! Old newspapers, clean grass hay, or dry wood shavings are the safest.

Wood Shavings as litter: I would only recommend putting litter like wood shavings, clean grass hay, or newspaper in cages for pregnant females for their nesting box. But wood shavings have a drawback. The dust can get in the babies eyes causing eye problems. We had this happen too! Mother rabbits should make their nest out of fur they pull off themselves, more on that later.

Clean litter trays frequently, at least once a week. Rabbit urine is high in ammonia and can cause health problems for your rabbits if left to accumulate. Keep your rabbits in a well-ventilated area. Rabbit droppings make excellent compost!

Give your rabbit a piece of natural wood to chew; they really like apple wood branches. This helps keep their teeth from growing too long.
Always put an untreated piece of board in the cage for your rabbit to sit on. Meat breeds are heavy and the pressure can cause sores called hutch sores to form on the bottoms of the feet.
If hutch sores occur build an outside run for your rabbit. Cover on the top with wire or wood but not the bottom. Let the rabbit run on ground until the sores are healed. Letting the problem go can cause feet problems or even death!

We use wire stackable cages with wire bottoms with trays underneath each rabbit to catch the urine and feces. We use wood shavings in the trays to absorb the urine and keep the smell down. It works much better than newspaper or straw. Stackable cages take up less space, are easy to clean, and make rabbit chores go faster. They are also easier to keep in a secure location like a garage or basement. Worth the price in my opinion.
Empty aluminum soda pop cans are fun and safe toys for rabbits to play with. Rabbits get bored too and can start destructive behavior! But be careful, a few rabbits will actually bite through the metal. If you have one of these then take the can out and try something else.
Always provide a mineral salt lick for rabbit health. Make sure its “mineral” not plain salt. And stock up, they are cheap right now, but may be unavailable later.
Keep rabbit food secure from mice. They carry diseases!
Give pregnant and nursing females oats (about ¼ cup per day), they love it and it helps build up fat stores for good baby production. Also give to babies to fatten them up for dinner!

Kindling/Baby Problems
This is the most problematic aspect of rabbits. You will devote more time to kindling (rabbit birth and newborn babies) than anything else in rabbit care. While rabbits are easier to breed and raise than chickens in my opinion, that is only true with a good experienced doe (female rabbit). If you have good mom, baby care on your part is non-existent. Here are some hard learned tricks to problems.
Do not use wood shavings in kindling (birth) box! Give the doe newspaper or clean grass hay if it seems like she is not pulling fur good enough. Putting grass hay and newspaper in may also stimulate her to start building a nest. Do this about a week before kindling (birth).

First Time Mothers
Almost everyone you talk to and every book you read will say that first time mothers will always loose the first litter of babies. And frankly this is pretty true. But I have noticed that it is usually due to the mother not making a good enough nest and the babies getting chilled as they are born furless. Also the mother almost never gives the first really good feeding that is necessary after birth, causing the kits to be weak. Put those two together and you have dead babies! So here are ways I have solved this problem. Works in other situations too.
Chilled babies: So you go out and find babies chilled and close to death. Or maybe you think they are dead. Hold on! Unless the baby is actually frozen to the wire they may be just barely still alive. Get them inside and if they are hardly moving submerge them up to their neck in warm (not hot!) water. Be careful to not get the head wet. I have had babies that were so still it took this measure to show me they were alive. And like a miracle they came back. Now after they are moving pretty well take them out and gently rub them with a warm dry cloth, being careful of the umbilical cord area. Once dry put them in a box with a heating pad covered with a folded towel or hot water bottles to keep them nice and warm.

Weakness due to lack of milk
If momma didn’t feed them right after birth your going to have weak babies who will be unable to nurse the next time, or if momma rejected them and you need to put them on a surrogate mother (more on surrogates later) the babies will need enough energy to nurse once put back with a mom. Here is what I do and it usually works. Make a warm sugar water solution 2 parts water to 1 part table sugar. Put in an eyedropper and put in warmed babies mouth. Do not give to a chilled baby! Wait until you warm it up. Give only one drop of sugar water at a time; it is horribly easy to drown these babies! After two drops stop. With any more you risk drowning the baby. You should see them swallowing while feeding, don’t force it. You will see these babies start moving around making noises and looking for food as energy increases. Now you know they are ready to be given back to mom or surrogate mom. If you fear it’s too cold outside bring mom to the babies inside to feed them. Mother rabbits only feed babies once a day. Some moms won’t feed under these conditions and then your going to have to try taking babies out to mom twice a day and bringing them inside until they get fur. Or to solve this problem keep your rabbits in a rabbit barn with heat available, or only breed in warm weather.
Insufficient Nest: Mother rabbits should pull out their fur to make a nice warm nest, but first timers almost always do a bad job. If this happens you’ll have to do it for her. After birth (if you do this while mom is still pregnant you can kill the babies inside her due to her struggling) take mom out and gently pull fur from her tummy and sides. It will come out easy due to hormones and reveal her nipples to babies. Shove all this fur into a nice nest shape and make a hollow with your fist. Put babies in and cover with fur. Now put mom in and watch closely. If she tries to reject them you will know because they will start screaming as she hurts them. Get them out! Now you have a problem. Hopefully you can find a surrogate mom.

Surrogate moms: I always breed more than one rabbit at the same time, that way if one mom rejects or has too many babies to support you can give them to another mom. Most rabbits can only support about 8 to ten babies at one time. And if you are breeding meat rabbits your going to have big litters. If different litters are born too far apart it is harder to get the surrogate to accept them. So breed together. Here is how to get a surrogate to accept different babies. In the morning (not night) take the babies and put them in the new nest. Cover well with moms fur so they will smell like the other babies, you can also rub vanilla extract on moms nose to help mask the scent. Now watch mom closely, if she rejects you will know. Check the babies a few times first day, trying not to upset mom. The more you mess with a new mom the more likely she is to kill her babies.

As I have said meat rabbits have big litters so your other moms may not have room to take more babies. What then? Well, you can keep another smaller breed of rabbit just for surrogating. The smaller lops make excellent moms. We always bred our pet Holland at the same time as the meat rabbits. Smaller rabbits generally have smaller litters, but can still support up to eight babies. Our Holland was a rock! She accepted anything and always took great care of her litters. Also bonus, you can tell whose babies are who’s. This is important for future breeding purposes. If all babies look alike then you will not be able to tell which babies came from which moms for future breeding.

Buck Problems
Most bucks (male rabbits) have no problems except one. Due to living in a small cage they have very little staying power when it comes to breeding. So when you are trying to breed a male to a female he gets tired very quickly. The solution is to give your buck an open space or rabbit run to live on. His muscles will be stronger and he will breed better as a result. Just make sure it is secure from dogs and predators!
Predator problems – Animal and Human
Rabbits are a prey animal for pretty much anything bigger than a squirrel. So securing your rabbits is a major concern. The biggest predators Pre-SHTF are neighborhood dogs. They get really excited when they see a rabbit and kill mode kicks in! Even a Yorkie could kill your rabbits simply by jumping at them and barking. Rabbits aren’t the cleverest of creatures and panic easily. When they get really scared they will run circles in their cages and jump up sometimes breaking their own backs! Any rabbit not in a secure cage is a sitting duck for owls, dogs, cats, hawks, raccoons, skunks, badgers, possums, and mean kids! And that is just in town! So my advice is put your rabbits in a rabbit barn. This can be a humble shed, garage, or basement. This will become even more important in a SHTF situation. You will not want people [outside your family] knowing that you have meat available.

Heat – The Silent Rabbit Killer
The most tragic thing to come home to is a barn full of heatstroke-killed rabbits. Rabbits can die of heat stroke in 80 degree Fahrenheit weather. That’s it! They are covered in nice warm fur, which is great in cold weather, but not in the heat. Here are the ways to avoid heat death:
1. Shade! Never, ever, put your rabbit hutch in direct sun in warm weather, or they will die! Put your hutches or cages in the shade of a building or tree.
2. Always provide frozen water bottles for your rabbit to lie on in the heat. I like big 2 liter ones for our meat rabbits because they last most of the day. Keep one in the cage while the other one is in the freezer refreezing.
2. Always provide lots of water in the heat. Use water bottle feeders so the rabbits can’t defecate in them or spill them.
3. In really hot weather 90 or above soak the hutch roof and sides in water from a hose several times a day to cool it down.
4. If you notice your rabbits panting take action immediately, your rabbits are in heat stroke! Mist your rabbits with the hose and put frozen water or pop bottles in the cage with them. Monitor to make sure they are cooling down.
5. If a rabbit is laying still in the cage and won’t wake or is sluggish but still breathing it is now in a coma from heat. Get it out and submerge in a bucket of cold water up to the neck. It should revive if not too far gone.

Conclusion
Rabbits are an easy animal to raise once you get the cages and feeders, and much of that you can make yourself. They are also perfect for kids to care for, as they are small, cute, and generally non-aggressive. The worst you will get from a rabbit is a bad scratch. A cow or a pig however, could easily kill or injure your eight to ten-year-old child.

If you had 5 to 10 does breeding every two months you would have a good meat supply for the year. Another major advantage is that you can butcher for daily needs. If you butcher a hog or cow you have to process, pickle, salt, or freeze hundreds of pounds of meat all at once. It’s a tricky business to do safely. With rabbits you have no possibility of spoilage and a nice pelt of fur to turn into clothing. We have seen interest in our rabbits triple in the past months. So much so that I have run out of breeders to sell. This is something that has never happened to me before! People are waking up and looking for ways to ensure food safety. If you are looking to buy breeding stock then make sure they are young (under a year of age) or proven to be fertile, and buy from a good breeder who knows about proper care and feeding. Good Luck!